november 4 2025
On All Saints' Day, the ranks of the faithful were sparse for the Master's homily.
Let us hope that they will fill up for the next lesson.
In keeping with tradition, the warm-up was devoted to a beautiful endgame that took us a few hours to unpack.
The correction of the rest of the exercises was fairly quick, with some positions worthy of the highest aesthetic interest.
Game of the day, although seemingly rather calm, concealed some treasures, ending with a study position from 1922 where everything is decided by a single move.
A good harvest of fairy compositions to finish, where we lost one of the listeners who was not very familiar with the practice (it will come!), where aesthetics dominated, unlike some competitions in which it is rather the thematic aspect that is highlighted.
Happy reading to all and see you on 6 or 13 December.
Master's word
"But what's with all these repeated somersaults? Can't you use your head sometimes? -- When should I use my head? He spent the night trapping my hair in his fly, playing the bagpipes, performing his opera, and incidentally making love to me... very well, by the way." (Mireille Aigroz, known as Mireille Darc, in "Le Grand Blond avec une chaussure noire", 1972).
You may call my love "Sophia", but I call my love "Philosophy". https://youtu.be/P5vkZPOdKOI
"You can perfectly well be 75 when you are actually 17, in the sense that you are already tired of human foolishness. You can perfectly well be 17 when you are actually 75, because you remain passionate about discovery. As a French philosopher once said, to avoid being gaga, be baba." (advice that your ‘'master’’ gave to his mathematics students).
"We will have a world government, whether we like it or not. The only question is whether it will be created by force or by consent." (P. Warburg, 17-2-1950).
"I always knew and decided that Algeria had to be given its independence. But imagine if, in 1958, when I returned to presidency, I had said at the Algiers forum that the Algerians had to take over their own government. There would have been no more de Gaulle, immediately. !" (de Gaulle to A. Passeron, 6-5-1966).
« At least Hitler never said to the Jews, "I understand you."» (A. de La Tocnaye).
"It is true that the man against whom we have taken action is, at any moment, liable to be brought before the High Court, and that it would only take a minimum of foresight and courage on the part of parliamentarians to bring him there; the record of his misdeeds, crimes and betrayals exists...." (J. Bastien-Thiry).
"The tragedy is not that we are on our knees, but that we have forgotten that we are on our knees." (B. Sansal, 60 years later).
"For you, war is just a smokescreen to hide your scams. You belong in prison! You are responsible for every rape, every assault, every tragedy committed in Europe by migrants." (Ewa Zajączkowska-Hernik talking to "the hyena").
"One must live as one thinks, otherwise, sooner or later, one ends up thinking as one has lived." (P. Bourget).
"The disaster would be to be condemned by people who were not totally despicable. But by such buffoons, what an honour!..." (P.-A. Cousteau).
"Democracy: rats in a sewer" (G. Clémenceau).
"One can be a fool and still use the imperfect subjunctive; it has been seen. But hatred of the imperfect subjunctive can only exist in the heart of a fool." (L. Bloy).
"I'm afraid that many a study exhibiting unartistic main play (i.e. positions with computer-controlled unique main lines without any artistic point) ends up in contemporary awards (even sometimes at top places). What can we do about it? Another practice, often by the same judges, is to award almost every sound study submitted for a tourney" (H. van der Heijden).
"Sometimes, as in basketball, you have to circle around the hoop while waiting for a favourable position to shoot." (R. Fischer).
Let us conclude our four-part series on Rook endgames where one pawn fights against two, isolated but "passed". See https://lecoursdumaitre.e-monsite.com/en/pages/lessons/cat-2024/november-26-2024.html (2 examples) and https://lecoursdumaitre.e-monsite.com/en/pages/lessons/cat-2025/may-6-2025.html
It is taken from Kortchnoi's excellent book (1999). The analysis is brilliant but incomplete without the analysis engines. As you can imagine, we bring in some reciprocal zugzwangs (ZZ). And also a "middle ground” on the 46th, a good-bad on the 47th, a rook in love with a square (d6).
"I remember Kortchnoi in “New in Chess”: the other players talked about how they felt, their impressions after each move, but he gave variations, and more variations" (an unknown "internet user"). Eternal Viktor!
A Czech rescue that reminds us of a great classic: remember a certain exercise 480! Then a symmetry problem by Uncle Adolf's (Kraemer) best friend: even more than the solution, the different refutations of the two tries are noteworthy. Finally, a raging Queen..
Exercises for the next lesson: a pawn endgame by the young Bobby, a checkmate for a near-beginner, a German virtuoso masterpiece and two twins by Guy, where you are asked to find the best move... without giving the result!
The game of the day starts off unremarkably, becoming increasingly interesting, culminating in a difficult endgame with two pawns down, then a century-old ZZ (p.138 of a certain book, but at the time I didn't know the author).
Training: the 2nd, 4th, 6th and last 5 2# may take you a little longer. A few 3# from a South African genius. The 3rd is the toughest, but we'll leave you with the solution to the last one, along with an anecdote. Three helpmates, only the last one of which will make you think: don't hesitate to massacre! Finally, 3 selfmates in 3 of very average difficulty.
Enjoy your meal. Niech Bóg was błogosławi. Dievs jūs svētī! Isten áldjon. Bůh vám žehnej.
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