march 31 2020

Very large audience for this first course of the containment with 5 listeners which is the maximum allowed by the free version of TeamViewer.

A solution is being studied to accommodate more people with possibly another software.

Our apologies to those who tried in vain to connect.

Some technical problems with the sound of the Master, but a course that was generally audible.

Very nice game of the day with a jungle of variants to clear with a machete.

Next session on April 25th 

Below is the deconfined version of the Master's report 

Master's words

"The world is the way it is -- no sir, it is the way we make it" (St Vincent de Paul's reply).

"On the scale of bullshit, there is nothing above co-owners' meeting" (J.-M. Bigard).

"We can certainly keep [SR] as an ambassador of the poles. On the condition that we freeze her in place" (H. Védrine).

"I don't want to die a stupid man, so I'll continue my rock n' slow" (Dick Rivers).

"If a woman finds her husband in the company of a mistress, she kills her (if she is French), she kills the husband (Italian), she kills them both (Spanish), she commits suicide (German), she inquires about alimony (American). Modern" version: she organises an orgy (all countries)".

"The strange alliance of demo-plutocracies and communism has sometimes been a source of surprise. What could these international forces, destined by the very logic of their principles to destroy each other, possibly have in common? What they had in common was fear. The fear of being jointly destroyed by national revolutions" (J. Ploncard d'Assac).

Everyone admires and adores Alexander Gristchouk because he does not use cotton wool and is indeed, for this reason, one of the few great players worth listening to. But when I try, very modestly, to do the same, I get kicked out of a forum. Is speech freer in Russia than in France, a country renowned (wrongly?) for its freedom of expression?

A few decades ago, a go player told me that it was possible to write a whole book about a single game. This impressed me, because I could hardly conceive it for chess. Now, thanks to our "electronic friend", I could imagine a book containing only three or four games such as Bird-Morphy, Capablanca-Bogolyoubov, Tal-Keller, Shirov-Eingorn and, why not, only one of them. On condition that the analysis is further extended, that a new quantity of the mini-studies that keep appearing is discovered.

Even better, a whole book on the treatment of a single diagram, Crosskill's Rook and Bishop vs. Rook which opens (without explanation) my 1998 edition. I would gladly buy such a book, provided it made this study perfectly clear, and not like those multiple "secrets (sic!) of x endings" scams that just blow smoke and thicken the mystery. Also a clear statement of the win with 2 bishops against knight without pawns. Alas! I am afraid that my only chance to read such a book is... to write it.

For no one is foolish enough for this kind of work. I have read a nice admission from I don't know which author on the endgames: "Without computer analysis, I would never have embarked on such an insane task". If I understand him correctly, I was an insane man in 1980. He thus paid me (unintentionally) one of the highest compliments of my life. No doubt my dementia has not diminished much since then, but... my energy is not what it was 40 years ago! And for the above examples, the computer itself is not enough. For the genesis of the "demented" work, read again http://lecoursdumaitre.e-monsite.com/pages/cours/cat-2017/11-avril-2017.html 

The Morphy-Arnous de Rivière rook endgame is a convincing example of... little we knew... and know about Chess. Only, the final rescue had been brilliantly mastered by Maroczy, but the previous mistakes are not at all where people thought they were...

PM places a magic trick that allows us... a small revision in 2 endgames. Then a missed "problem move" a month ago against our French female champion. Finally another performance with Queen and Bishop against a lone Queen.

Exercises for the next session: Knight and pawn against Bishop; an astonishing ballet of Knights which makes the chessboard vibrate. An "aristocratic" relaxation (without pawns). Two tactical stunts of the hero... or of his opponents whom he inspires!

Our game of the day presents us with a arm-wrestling battle, played almost 40 years ago, between... the two rook-pawns of the king-side! The BenOni ("son of my tears") opening had been presented 4 times in our course, the last one on 20 February 2018. An opening that fascinated me, that I fought with White more than 40 years ago, with mixed success!  Read about it at http://lecoursdumaitre.e-monsite.com/pages/cours/cat-2006/14-novembre-2006.html Do not miss, in the variation of the 31st move, an astonishing promotion to Knight. Nor, in the 37th move, an incredible move of the Black Rook!

Training. The first 2# have a particularity (quite rare in the world of problems) that you will discover quite quickly and that... will help you in solving the 3# & 4#! Of the other 10, the last 2 seem to us to be the easiest. A French masterpiece in 3# which was alluded to in the last lesson (we leave the solution, exceptionally, with orders to hide it!). Then 2 other 3# mats and 3 4# mats with the particularity already mentioned (the Havel had impressed me at the age of 14). The last 4# is a repair for my March 10th mistake.

3 helpmates : the one in 3 is a "cycle", the one in 8 is easier than the author's name suggests. Finally 2 selfmates, including a masterpiece in 5 by a former world champion solver. Here again, out of sheer magnanimity, we omit to delete the solution.

Have a good time. See you at the end of April. Deus vos custodiat.

Master's diagrams