Rook Is At It Again
Guy Andrew H., of Rook's Rant and better known in these environs by his far less distinguished handle "Rook," is doing it again. As true as ever to his adopted name, once more he is playing a blogger's chess game, and at the moment appearing to be doing only that when not bicycling through the wilds of Minnesota and working 10-hour days.
His undying fidelity to the Grand Old Game as played online is truly amazing and in my book admirable. He may drop it for periods of time, but sooner or later he is back doing something else at the board. One can only wonder where he would be now if he had been a nerdy guy at the age of about 11 and had picked up the game then. But that takes nothing away from the always interesting content of his play now and especially his comments thereof.
For instance, right now in his latest game, which he is playing at an unusually brisk pace (so far!), he happens to have chosen one of my favorite ways of playing the Sicilian Defense, the Nimzovitch Variation, especially against people rated higher than me. The advantage is the extreme rarity of the variation. Consequently no one can be really "booked up" on it, and so it throws players on their own resources as early as the third or fourth moves, and that is shown by the situation that Rook and his opponent have reached as early as the seventh. :)
I guess Guy Andrew has been afflicted by the same urge I've had recently, to draw back some from all the political and other junk raging in the world, and what better way to do that than to retreat, if only for a moment, into the decidedly non-lethal but still highly interesting vicissitudes of chess.
His undying fidelity to the Grand Old Game as played online is truly amazing and in my book admirable. He may drop it for periods of time, but sooner or later he is back doing something else at the board. One can only wonder where he would be now if he had been a nerdy guy at the age of about 11 and had picked up the game then. But that takes nothing away from the always interesting content of his play now and especially his comments thereof.
For instance, right now in his latest game, which he is playing at an unusually brisk pace (so far!), he happens to have chosen one of my favorite ways of playing the Sicilian Defense, the Nimzovitch Variation, especially against people rated higher than me. The advantage is the extreme rarity of the variation. Consequently no one can be really "booked up" on it, and so it throws players on their own resources as early as the third or fourth moves, and that is shown by the situation that Rook and his opponent have reached as early as the seventh. :)
I guess Guy Andrew has been afflicted by the same urge I've had recently, to draw back some from all the political and other junk raging in the world, and what better way to do that than to retreat, if only for a moment, into the decidedly non-lethal but still highly interesting vicissitudes of chess.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 4:17 AM
2 Comments:
Funny that you'd bring it up, but you're right. The Sicilian Defense (I've seen it plenty of times before, but I can never remember what various opening moves are called) did make me think, "Is Rook trying to screw with my head?" I'll be honest, I just plain hate it when my opponents don't move either their King's pawn two spaces forward or put forth a Knight (preferably the King's) on their first move -- it usually means I'll be playing defense early, and damn if that wasn't the case in this match. Not that I consented to accept this. (He pinned my Knight. He pinned my freakin' Knight. This will not stand...) ;-)
I've watched Rook play chess before. He is not to be underestimated. One too many questionable moves on my part, and he'll bury me faster than I can type "Request draw." I can't picture many certain moves down the road the way things stand now -- it's too volatile an arrangement. It's all his fault for choosing the Sicilian defense, I just know it...
Hi, Jim. Welcome to "Rook's Wars." And it's especially interesting and entertaining to see that you come well prepared not only in the chessic sense but also in the verbal. Taking the two together he more or less invented this genre of chess play, you know -- at least to my limited field of observation.
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