rdecredico wrote on 09/18/09 at 16:48:40:


This 'having all the fun' crap winds me up too. I always take it to mean: 'may be worth a try in bullet, but don't come crying to me if it doesn't pan out'...gee, thanks. If I wanted to have fun, I'd be playing with my kids, not sitting here playing some marginal rubbish in the hopes of a swindle.

Thank you, Smyslov_Fan, for digging out this thread. As you might have noticed, it has already given me the inspitation for a new signature! 

I was thinking about the phrase (in linguistic terminology, it's of course a 'clause') "putting the question to the bishop". I wonder if there's ever "the question put to the knight / rook / king"? For example, if in an endgame a rook checks the opposing king, it has to decide which side to go, and as long as the rook doesn't move again and the other party has no piece to put between the rook and the king, the king can not easily revise the former decision and change to the other side. In this situation, it would imo make perfect sense to talk about "putting the question to the king".

As this apparently doesn't happen, I wonder if "putting the question to the bishop" has some historical background? In the history of Christianity (and other religions), there were many cases of differing opinions, resulting in separations of groups of believers from the 'main church' and creating their own 'branch'. One can easily imagine a situation where a member of the church like a bishop was facing the question which side to decide for, and that his decision was not easily undone. So maybe here's a reason for that phrase?

Best regards,

Zwischenzugzwang

"black/white has good compensation for the pawn" and they don't explain why or how to continue.

I absolutely hate the casual reference to Fischer whenever an opening is on the board he has played at least once. It almost seems mandatory every English language annotator must mention that "this was one of Fischer's favourite variations", "Fischer played this in (keyword)" or something like that.

The guy stopped contributing relevant stuff 40 years ago. I don't care what he played back then, unless it's mentioned on topic in an opening book or an annotated Fischer game.

TalJechin wrote on 09/19/09 at 15:10:12:


Or they say Black has a "Good French" position. What they are basically saying is that "A Good French is a Caro-Kann". (spread the word!)

I get narked by opening books that advocate playing main-line openings because "they're the main lines for a reason". This seems like a false logic to me. It's the same sort of thinking to say that people should only listen to U2 and Coldplay because they're "big", "popular" bands that "everyone" listens to. People should just play the openings that lead to positions they're comfortable with, whether that means they play the mainline Najdorf or 1...Nc6 against everything.

TN wrote on 09/25/09 at 11:26:15:

It also depends from the context - in this respect it is similar to the use of "unclear". An "unclear" main line is always suspect: isn't the author just lazy? A little more work often shows that one side is actually better, or that it is equal. However, you can't analyse everything, at some point you have to stop. So in sidelines an occasional "unclear" is legitimate. In this case the author has already expressed his preference by choosing another main line.   

Similarly, "with good practical chances for Black" in a sideline can well mean that White is better. In such a context, if the main line ends with a +/- or worse, sidelines often do not more than illustrate that here Black's chances of survival are a little better.

This does not really qualify as a quote or comment, but I find the most useless thing to be the 'database dump', ie several unannotated games clumped together, with either no annotations or a '+=/=+/=' evaluation at the end of each game citation. Such information is absolutely useless for the reader. 

I suppose the comment 'with good practical chances' is common yet very ambiguous. It is not at all useful unless the author explains how and why the variation offers good practical chances, e.g. 'this pawn sacrifice, whilst objectively questionable, provides Black with good practical chances because he is able to regain the initiative and mount an attack on the beleaguered king in white's time pressure.'

I like a lot "with chances to fight for an advantage", meaning, in several English/Reti/Strategic books, "White has nothing in this position".

Also, "...crush your unsuspecting opponents" means that you'll need some cooperation to see your killer variation work or even appear on the board.