# chess game: glee v Edward the Head **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 8, 2005, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990 "2005-02-08T14:03:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2005, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/41 "2005-02-12T09:54:37Z")
> [@treis](#): > > Yes I suppose I personally am a fan of having pawns as close to each other and to the king as possible. b4 is going to be a good outpost for your bishop and if they are ever traded your pawn structure becomes nearly ideal. I probably over-emphasise the importance of pawn structure. In the other hand, a weak pawn lingers on, while a weak piece can usually be relocated. > [@treis](#): > > Blacks in a delicate situation here. His llama on c6 doesn’t have anywhere to go and is not seriously threatening any piece. His white bishop (priest in my case I suppose) is blocked by his own pawn one way and whites bishop the other way out. Perhaps Qd8-b6 would be a good way to hold blacks bishop on the backrow for a bit. It would also threaten d4 but would easily be countered by Bd5-e4 or c4. Qd8-a7 also might be a good move allowing Nc7-b4 although there isn’t enough gain for risking a skewer of the knight by the bishop pinning it there until such time the rook can be moved or defended. The N on c6 is attacking two key pawns in the centre. Good piece. The bishop is indeed a potential liability - from an earlier post by me: “Black may have difficulties developing the bishop on c8, but has a a solid position.” > [@treis](#): > > Eventually black is going to want to trade his d pawn for whites e pawn. It will open up his pieces a bit while isolating a pawn. If white wants to support that pawn with another he will have to bring up his f pawn weaking the protection around his king. The pawn on e5 is **reasonably** easy to defend, while the Black pawn on e6 prevents attacks from e8. > [@treis](#): > > glee how did you end up with two SDMB games going? Did you run your mouth a bit in another thread? 😉 Or are we in the presence of chess greatness? It did indeed start in another thread, but I’m happy to be playing both. WARNING _SMUGNESS ALERT!!_ I teach chess professionally and have an international rating around 2300. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2005, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/42 "2005-02-12T15:31:26Z")
(Rough translation: **glee** could cope with **Ed** , **Mindwanderer** , **Lazlo** and my good self all at once - especially under these conditions… the smug s.o.b. 😃 ) ---
**Author:** ![Dragoness](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c0e974/32.png) [@Dragoness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragoness)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2005, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/43 "2005-02-12T20:18:00Z")
Disclaimer: I have played 7 games of chess in my life. I would like to improve, though. Anyway, last game had to be stopped in the middle, and as we couldn’t leave the board out (crowded apartment, cat, y’know…) we snapped a picture and finished it later. I (white) was in a (for me, anyway) frustrating and annoying position. When the game resumed I couldn’t figure out what to do with it, and eventually lost. Would someone look at the picture and give your thoughts? White’s move. [http://students.washington.edu/~justine/game.jpg](http://students.washington.edu/~justine/game.jpg) warning- big jpg, but okay if your browser scales it. Also, upside-down (black is on the bottom). Is there a standard way of describing a board position like this? Is it just done by giving the record of the moves? I don’t have that, so picture it is. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2005, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/44 "2005-02-12T21:09:32Z")
Yes, there’s **Forsyth Notation**. Looking at the board from White’s point of view, you work left-to-right, top-to-bottom (so Black’s home row – where his pieces start – is described first, then his pawn row, and so on all the way down to White’s home row). Describe each row by giving the initial letters of each piece, white in CAPS and black in lower case, but using “N” for kNight as we are here to distinguish it from King. Empty squares are written as the number of consecutive empty squares. Put a colon at the end of each rank, except that consecutive empty ranks can be written as a single number (16 = two complete empty ranks, and so on). In this notation the initial position on the board would be expressed as: rnbqkbnr:pppppppp:32:PPPPPPPP:RNBQKBNR and the position in your picture as: r1b2k2:ppppq1b1:4p2p:4p2p:3n4:2NQ1N1P:PPP2PP1:2KR1B1R Hope this helps! Thoughts follow… ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2005, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/45 "2005-02-12T21:12:11Z")
Note to self: Disable smilies when using Forsyth notation! Read those 😛 as “: p” :smack: :wally ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2005, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/46 "2005-02-12T23:36:39Z")
Seems to be a slow day here, **Dragoness** , so here’s my take on it: How it happened you know better than I, but White appears to be a little matter of a Rook for two pawns ahead (Black has eight pawns, the Queen, a Rook, two Bishops and a Knight; White has six pawns, the Queen, two Rooks, a Bishop and two Knights. Bishop and Knight are reasonably equivalent in value). Also, one of Black’s Bishops and one of his Rooks are out of play at the moment. Long term, White must win. By seeking positions in which you force Black to give up piece for piece, eventually you reach a position with King, Rook and pawns against King and slightly more pawns. In a position like that the King and Rook quickly dispose of any left-over pawns and you can queen one of your own. (You don’t need to if you’re familiar with how to mate a defenceless King with King and Rook, but I’m assuming you haven’t learnt the technique in your seven games to date; I certainly didn’t.) Short term, I’d take his Knight with mine, getting rid of one of his few active pieces, and get the rest of my pieces deployed as quickly as possible. The two Black pawns over on the edge of the board, one in front of the other (“doubled pawns”) are weak as they cannot protect each other, and his King is much more exposed than yours. All this should add up to, at least, the opportunity to force the exchanges I’ve been talking about, and a comfortable win for White. Can you remember what actually happened? ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/47 "2005-02-13T01:52:55Z")
> [@glee](#): > > WARNING _SMUGNESS ALERT!!_ > > I teach chess professionally and have an international rating around 2300. _gasp_ Thats a shade shy of being a grandmaster isn’t it? Any chance I could interest you in a ‘live’ game sometime on yahoo chess? ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/48 "2005-02-13T12:56:53Z")
> [@treis](#): > > _gasp_ Thats a shade shy of being a grandmaster isn’t it? > > Any chance I could interest you in a ‘live’ game sometime on yahoo chess? Roughly speaking: 2000 = regional expert 2200 = national strength 2400 = international master 2600 = grandmaster 2800 = Kasparov (!) I’m a FIDE Master (FIDE is the French acronym for World Chess Federation) of regular chess. I’m a Grandmaster of Chess Problem Solving. Tell me about yahoo chess - I have played live games on a couple of servers. ---
**Author:** ![Dragoness](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c0e974/32.png) [@Dragoness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragoness)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/49 "2005-02-13T19:54:12Z")
Wow, **glee** , that’s really very impressive (I’ll bet you get that a lot). This probably sounds like an odd question, but to what do you attribute your success? I mean, is it just (“just.” Hah!) a great deal of practice and study, or do you think you have some kind of natural talent? Brain wired a bit more logically, always had a knack for seeing patterns, or whathaveyou? I ask only because I’ve always been interested in the way people who are very good at various things like math and logic puzzles answer that. Thanks, **Malacandra** , for the info and the analysis. You asked what actually happened, and I pulled out my board to see if I could recreate the game, up to the picture. It was only three days ago, after all! But my memory has just not been trained to work like that. **Glee** keeps absolutely astounding me with his ability to pull out “Well, I saw a game played from this position once that went…” in all three current chess threads. He must keep some kind of database :dubious: . As for after the picture, it was something like: Qb5 Nxb5 (I quite simply did not see this) Nxb5 e5 Nd2 Qb4 Right here c3 or Nc4 all would have prevented it. Instead I moved my bishop- either e2 or c4, and Qb2 was checkmate. In short, er, a learning experience. I was drop dead tired for the second half (I’m just going to keep insisting that, to preserve my dignity). And I want to say that all three active chess threads are great fun to watch. Thanks for playing in public, where we can all be entertained! ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/50 "2005-02-13T21:56:02Z")
Oops. Leaving your Queen _en prise_ (chess term meaning “where it can be taken”) is a good way to lose quickly. The secret of **glee** ’s success is probably, like most things in this life, some natural aptitude backed by a f’ of a lot of hard work. I’ve not the patience for it, despite the liking and aptitude for chess trivia, which is why I am now and forever will remain a mediocre club player. On the other hand, I’m a better singer than most chess players ( **glee** , shut up about Smyslov! 😉 ). Life has its compensations. 🆒 Though if **glee** can play D&D and get paid for it, I hate the s.o.b. even more 😃 ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2005, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/51 "2005-02-13T23:01:24Z")
> [@glee](#): > > Roughly speaking: > > 2000 = regional expert > 2200 = national strength > 2400 = international master > 2600 = grandmaster > 2800 = Kasparov (!) > > I’m a FIDE Master (FIDE is the French acronym for World Chess Federation) of regular chess. > I’m a Grandmaster of Chess Problem Solving. > > Tell me about yahoo chess - I have played live games on a couple of servers. Yahoo chess is just a basic java online chess game. I really like it becuase after the game there is a little slider that you can click back to any point in the game. You also can have it e-mail you the game in e2-e4 type notation. Its at [www.games.yahoo.com/ch](http://www.games.yahoo.com/ch) . Its a good aplet with timers if you play that way and its pretty easy to get a game going. The only problem is that rumor has it once you get up in the rankings a lot of the people are using a cpu chess game as a kind of cheat. You will need to sign up and make an ID if you don’t already have one. Your id is also an e-mail address for "[id"@yahoo.com](mailto:id%22@yahoo.com) and I think you get some web space. If you already have a yahoo mail account you should be able to just log in using that. I will probably be on for at least the next 6-7 hours (damn homework!) so if you want to pick a room we can meet up in there. ---
**Author:** ![Tabby\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Tabby\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabby_Cat)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2005, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/52 "2005-02-14T00:18:02Z")
Makes me wanna try to set up some kind of Go game on the boards. Don’t think the mods would take kindly to a 300 odd long post thread, though. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2005, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/53 "2005-02-14T14:27:49Z")
glee Edward 1. e2-e4 c7-c5 2. c2-c3 Ng8-f6 3. e4-e5 Nf6-d5 4. d2-d4 c5xd4 5. Ng1-f3 e7-e6 6. c3xd4 d7-d6 7. a2-a3 Nb8-c6 8. Bf1-d3 Bf8-e7 9. OO Qd7-c7 I’m glad I’ve gotten more cheering, now lets just hope it confuses glee. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2005, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/54 "2005-02-14T14:40:14Z")
> [@Edward The Head](#): > > glee Edward > > 1. e2-e4 c7-c5 > 2. c2-c3 Ng8-f6 > 3. e4-e5 Nf6-d5 > 4. d2-d4 c5xd4 > 5. Ng1-f3 e7-e6 > 6. c3xd4 d7-d6 > 7. a2-a3 Nb8-c6 > 8. Bf1-d3 Bf8-e7 > 9. OO Qd7-c7 > > I’m glad I’ve gotten more cheering, now lets just hope it confuses glee. QD7-C7??? What did you just do? I thought your Queen was on D8? ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2005, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/55 "2005-02-14T15:50:19Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > QD7-C7??? > What did you just do? > I thought your Queen was on D8? I told you confusion. But you weren’t supposed to be the one to see it. Now I have to redo it all! glee Edward 1. e2-e4 c7-c5 2. c2-c3 Ng8-f6 3. e4-e5 Nf6-d5 4. d2-d4 c5xd4 5. Ng1-f3 e7-e6 6. c3xd4 d7-d6 7. a2-a3 Nb8-c6 8. Bf1-d3 Bf8-e7 9. OO Qd8-c7 ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2005, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/56 "2005-02-15T00:24:31Z")
glee Edward 1. e2-e4 c7-c5 2. c2-c3 Ng8-f6 3. e4-e5 Nf6-d5 4. d2-d4 c5xd4 5. Ng1-f3 e7-e6 6. c3xd4 d7-d6 7. a2-a3 Nb8-c6 8. Bf1-d3 Bf8-e7 9. OO Qd8-c7 10. Qd1-e2 ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2005, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/57 "2005-02-15T18:01:59Z")
glee Edward 1. e2-e4 c7-c5 2. c2-c3 Ng8-f6 3. e4-e5 Nf6-d5 4. d2-d4 c5xd4 5. Ng1-f3 e7-e6 6. c3xd4 d7-d6 7. a2-a3 Nb8-c6 8. Bf1-d3 Bf8-e7 9. OO Qd8-c7 10. Qd1-e2 O-O ---
**Author:** ![Amazon\_Floozy\_Goddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/779978/32.png) [@Amazon\_Floozy\_Goddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amazon_Floozy_Goddess)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2005, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/58 "2005-02-15T18:23:22Z")
Tip of the day: Don’t ever have lunch with Bobby Fisher if there’s a check tablecloth. It takes him about 2 hours to pass the salt. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2005, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/59 "2005-02-15T23:00:33Z")
glee Edward 1. e2-e4 c7-c5 2. c2-c3 Ng8-f6 3. e4-e5 Nf6-d5 4. d2-d4 c5xd4 5. Ng1-f3 e7-e6 6. c3xd4 d7-d6 7. a2-a3 Nb8-c6 8. Bf1-d3 Bf8-e7 9. OO Qd8-c7 10. Qd1-e2 O-O 11. Qe2-e4 ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2005, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990/60 "2005-02-16T11:46:26Z")
> [@Amazon Floozy Goddess](#): > > Tip of the day: Don’t ever have lunch with Bobby Fisher if there’s a check tablecloth. It takes him about 2 hours to pass the salt. 😃 Yes, but you’ll be _amazed_ at how strong the salt is after he’s moved it… and how quickly and irresistibly the pepper, mustard and vinegar fall into line. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chess-game-glee-v-edward-the-head/288990.md?page=4)