Chess Bits The Journal of the International E-mail Chess Club October 2002 IECC Website http//www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Midfield/1264 In this issue: From the Editor's Desk By Steve Ryan Welcome to New Members David Glew A Chess Bits Interview - with David Glew Some IECC Historical Notes Steve Ryan The Convict Who Would Be King Marc Davis Toward Better Cooperation Among CC Clubs - Steve Ryan Editorial Chess Trivia Steve Ryan The McDonaldization of Chess Olimpiu Urcan Coming of Age (Short Story) Donald P. Reithel Games & Theory Miscellaneous Notes Steve Ryan Rumor & Gossip The Silicon Saboteur Trivia Answers From The Editor's Desk by Steve Ryan Those of you who saw the first installment in the Lord of The Rings Trilogy, "The Fellowship of the Ring" may recall that brief scene, in the dungeons of the Dark Lord, with Gollum undergoing all kinds of unspeakable torture to extract information from him. As it turned out, I didn't have to go nearly so far with IECC CEO David (The Destroyer) Glew as he proved quite willing to reveal the inner workings of the IECC to my clever questioning. Actually, I'd have a much easier time of things in my games if all my opponents proved as cooperative as he did, but they actually insist on not revealing their plans. How can I possibly win all the time under those conditions? Then we have the quote from Victor Korchnoi, "No chess grandmaster is normal; they only differ in the extent of their madness." The bizarre life and chess career of Claude Bloodgood fits right into the category of madness, or at least a severely disturbed individual, all of which did not prevent him from playing some excellent games. The IECC's own Conrad Goodman played him several matches, so check out their respective stories below and watch out for any opponent who wants to give you odds of a screwdriver. For a chess journal you will note that we have a very short "Games & Theory" section. Games & Theory should properly occupy the largest section of any chess journal. As I have mentioned previously, I can simply post games selected at random from the archives, but annotations make them so much better. Since I have a great deal of trouble getting anyone to send in usable annotated games, we have to use other methods. I know of one web site offering free analysis services, with the analysis done by a chess engine (you take what you can get). The trouble here - you have to print out and MANUALLY transcribe the analyzed game since they have no way, at present, of allowing you to save it to disk or download it into a PGN reader. For something along these lines I DO NOT have enough time and need a VOLUNTEER. You do not need a high rating, since you do not analyze the games yourself, but you need to have the ability to copy out an error-free version of the analyzed game. Contact me (ryansc@granite.mb.ca) if interested. Finally, for those who keep track of such things, the "Welcome to New Members" section contains a paltry 90 new members. Chuck Smith, head honcho of the NMP reports a significant drop in new applicants. The reason why remains anyone's guess. In some ways the drop in new members might prove beneficial by giving the TD's and other officials a chance to catch up and ease off the throttle a bit. ****************************** Welcome to New Members by David Glew The IECC welcomes the following 90 new members who have joined over the period 2002 June 16 - October 01 Argentina Jonatan Barnes, Juan Converset, Erico Duarte, Emiliano Mugica Australia Barry Cox, Kym Farnik, Cassandra Harley, Robin Vonk Belgium Dominique Benoit, Eric Brijssinck, Francis Cottegnie Pierre Dehombreux Brazil Jorge da Silva, Luiz da Silva Barbosa, Alvaro Neto Canada William Belanger, Graham Blackshaw, Mark Fitzpatrick, Ralf Schulze Chile Ricardo Navea Columbia Miquel Yepes Croatia Zelgko Ivanovic England Paul Hatton, Allan Roberts, Andrew Sutton Finland Pasi Ringbom Germany Ulrich Drexhage, Daniel Krklec, Wilfried Weingarz Peter Woelfelschneider Greece Sotris Delavekouras Holland Arie van Nierop Ireland Craig Fourie Italy Massimo Nunnari, Cristiano Quaranta, Fabio Ravizzotti, Matteo Spezialetti, Michele Vercesi Japan Tomoaki Andou Mexico Raymundo Curiel Netherlands Jeroen Brandsma, Erik van Dijk Nigeria Kunle Ola Nothern Ireland Steve Rushe Peru Jorge Quinones, Victor Wong Philippines Litos Poblete, Maria Benedicto Poland Wojciech Pietrzak, Portugal Rui Freitas Portugal Tiago Marques Romania Alexandru Buteica Russia Pavel Babkin, Andrey Zhuravlev Scotland Jan. Spiljard Slovenia Gregor Torkar South Africa Mark Wood Sweden Kurt-Verner Johansson Switzerland Thomas Peyer USA Chuck Allen, Zack Allen, William Berne, Brian Bolton, Clay Bradley, Robert Bress Joseph Buck, Mike Burba, Randall Closson, Ross Eldridge Frank Fu, Scott Howland, Carey Kohl, Hardie Logan, Michael Lundin, Carlos Molina, Chris Mortimer, Rick Muller, Peter Mumford, Daniel O Donnell, Wesley Parker, Eddie Patterson, John Price, Donald Reithel, Lenny Shulgin, James Spencer, Michael Stover, Chris Torres, Gabriel Valencia, Harley Winfrey Venezuela Javier Fuentes ******************** A Chess Bits Interview In this series of interviews I intend to ask various IECC officials and other high-profile individuals (not necessarily IECC members) from the world of CC to respond to a series of questions that, I hope, will interest the readers of this publication. I will not always have the questions prepared ahead of time. Some questions will also depend on how the person answered the previous question. I can hardly take credit for inventing this format, as it has appeared in at least one other magazine, but I hope you will enjoy it. The questions posed by Chess Bits will appear as CB and the answers from the individual on the hot seat will appear with his/her initials. S.Ryan, Editor First up - the big boss, the IECC's own DAVID GLEW. Chess Bits (CB) Can you give us a little personal information about yourself, whatever you feel willing to share? David Glew (DG) Just the boring stuff, really - age 62 and living in Nottingham, England. Married, two grown up children. I was going to say many hobbies but really they are interests rather than hobbies and include gardening (a necessity really, since I have a fairly large garden), photography, history, natural history, computers and, of course, chess, amongst many others. I used to do a lot of walking, especially in the mountains, but rigor mortis is rapidly curtailing such strenuous pursuits. o) I was in sales until 1990 when I took early retirement as Sales Director, since when I have had a small job at the local psychiatric hospital (staff, not patient!). I started playing chess at school at about age ten. Business and family commitments meant that I had to give up OTB chess in my mid 30s, at which time I represented my local chess club, and really lost touch with chess apart from the odd friendly game until I discovered IECC a few years ago and have been playing ever since. CB How exactly did you "discover" the IECC and when did you become the CEO? Also, I'm going to sneak in a non-chess question here, Robin Hood and his "Merry Men" galloped around Sherwood Forest and Nottingham if memory serves. Did Robin Hood really exist? How about Sherwood Forest? DG I am sure I discovered IECC by looking through the chess newsgroups and applied to join in the normal way. I first of all became Assistant CEO to Kyle Evans about four years or so ago, I don't remember exactly when, then Joint CEO and then sole CEO when Kyle decided to stand down. I am sure you will now ask how and why I took on these tasks, and if (when) you do I will tell you, but now to Robin Hood and his Merry Men. No one has ever been able identify any specific historical figure as Robin Hood (and I speak as an amateur historian) and in fact the "evidence" that can be gleaned from the legends cover a timescale far longer than anyone could ever live. The general consensus is that the Robin Hood legends grew up over several centuries and are an amalgamation of many anecdotes written about outlaws in general in the mediaeval period. Sherwood Forest certainly existed, of course and was a major hunting area in the country which is why many fine country houses were built in the part of Nottinghamshire now known as the Dukeries for that very reason. Only small pockets are now left as most of it is farmland. CB How and why did you become assistant, joint and finally sole CEO? DG It is a long story, but I will try and keep it as brief as possible. Right from the start I was impressed with IECC, its staff and the way it was run, and in an attempt to give something back in return I joined the KO group as Assistant TD. That was the start! Shortly afterwards, and purely by chance, I had my first game with Tim Nagley and we started chatting while we were playing. In short, I voiced my concerns to Tim that although IECC was a wonderful organisation, whilst it remained a one man show (in other words run by a single CEO and no one else) it was built on fragile foundations and could fold overnight. One person, and one person only, held the database did all the ratings and made all the decisions and there was no back up! I then wrote to Kyle Evans, the then CEO, and Lisa Powell, our founder, with constructive suggestions as to how I thought the club could be strengthened from an organisational point of view. I had no intention at that stage of doing anything other than voice my concerns and give advice. However, Lisa happened to mention that she thought I should be Asst. CEO, Tim, who was known to Kyle through working in IECC, supported the idea, and Kyle appointed me Asst. CEO. Shortly afterwards he appointed me Joint CEO, and I took over sole control when Kyle stood down a few months later. I was then in a position to bring in the measures I felt were absolutely vital for the success and survival of the club set up a communications network via Egroups, ensure that all the divisions of the club had proper back up facilities, and set up a board of directors. CB How many hours per day do you typically spend on IECC administrative duties? DG If I told you how many hours I spent in the early days when I first took over you wouldn't believe it - certainly more than a full time job!! Now my colleagues on the board do most of the work, I can assure you they work extremely hard, and I just take the glory!! o) CB Speaking of the Board and going back to an earlier comment you made about copying each of your replies to them in case they want to "fire a shot across your bows", I take it that the Board of Directors functions more or less like a democracy, one Director, one vote. Correct? If yes, please explain how the Board goes about reaching a decision on any particular issue. DG The issue is discussed for as long as anyone feels they have anything constructive to add. This often reaches a unanimous decision without any further input. If the issue is complicated and there are opinions for and against, a vote is taken and then the policy of collective responsibility applies and each member of the board is obliged to go along with the majority vote. In theory, the CEO, or in his/her absence the Asst. CEO, has the ability to use a casting vote or to veto any decision he or she thinks is not in the best interests of the club, but in practice this has never happened. CB Besides the Guidelines that all members use does the IECC have any kind of written "Policies & Procedures" manual or a "constitution" to govern the running of the club? If yes, do you consider everything in it "written in stone" or subject to modification as needed? DG Apart from the Guidelines, the directors have their own brief guidelines which determine how the board operates. Other than that it is good will and common sense. It would also be appropriate to mention at this point that we now have a comprehensive Staff Training Program which is run by Terry Dettmann, our Director of Training. All new volunteers for staff positions go through the program which looks in detail at the Guidelines that are applicable to running our events, and gives each new staff member all the basic skills and knowledge to enable them to play a full part from day one in their new role. CB Even though you may not have belonged to the IECC from the very beginning, what can you tell us about the "early years" of the club? DG Very little other than what is available on the web site, and I don't even know how accurate that is. I have always been more interested in looking forward than looking back, at least as far as my job with IECC is concerned. CB Some of our members may not understand the relationship between the Board of Directors and the "Staff" as some of the Directors also seem to do "Staff" jobs. Do we have a certain amount of "crossover" in this area? Can you explain a bit for us? DG The Board of Directors is the policy making body of IECC and the highest authority in the club, with the power to discipline and expel members when necessary, although I am delighted to admit that this happens on extremely rare occasions. It also acts as a sort of ultimate court of appeal if a member feels he or she hasn't received proper treatment by following the normal channels. It also recruits staff volunteers, and arranges for them to undergo the Staff Training Program prior to their introduction to the various departments. In principle members of the board do not get involved in the day to day administration of the various departments, which is left to the department heads, although they cannot see our hardworking staff struggling and will step in and help on a temporary basis if any department is short staffed and needs assistance. CB What do you think sets the IECC apart from the many other cc clubs around or what place does the IECC have among these different clubs? DG My actual experience of other correspondence chess clubs is limited but I do obviously keep my eye on what's happening. We are an email club, which sets us apart from many other web based organisations, and apart from regular email access, no other resources are required - no software, no state of the art high spec. computer, in fact you don't even need your own computer if you have access to a school, university or public set up or a friend's machine! I believe some of our members actually use the email facility of their television sets. I have been a member of one other club in the past and have found IECC on the whole to be more efficient and more accessible and friendly. Having said that, we are not perfect and we do sometimes make mistakes, and therefore some people will take a different view, but we try all the time to improve the high quality service we offer our members - and most important of all it's free. All our hard working staff members give up their spare time to keep the club running and get nothing in return other than the satisfaction of a job well done and the knowledge that they are helping fellow chess players - particularly those who for whatever reason are unable to travel to chess clubs and other events and are restricted to playing at home. CB What kind of IECC matches or games do you like to play in and do you have a favorite opening? DG In the final analysis a game of chess is a game of chess irrespective of which event is being played. I therefore try and spread my applications around, but to be honest, since I got involved in the running of the club I have much less time for chess than I would wish. In addition, my performance has also dropped since I got more involved in administration, (can't remember the last time I did better than a draw - probably because I haven't as much time to devote to each game as I should). As far as openings are concerned, I don't have a favourite since I don't follow opening theory. I tend to play by instinct and try to outwit my opponent, even in the openings, rather than play specific lines. That's probably the main reason why my game reached a plateau and then stopped improving. CB Please gaze into your crystal ball and tell us what you see in the future for the IECC. DG I wondered when you were going to get to the easy questions! If I had a crystal ball, I would be looking at future racing results, football results and the national lottery rather than the future of IECC o) However, I couldn't possibly predict what might happen in the world of email chess that might affect IECC in the medium term, but it probably doesn't take a genius to guess that the club will continue to grow. However, the main factor to affect the future of the club, whatever happens, is our ability to attract staff volunteers of the right calibre in enough quantities. With enough volunteers we could do so much more, but more often than not it is all we can do to stand still as far as offering our members enhanced services is concerned. I have nothing but the greatest admiration for all our hardworking staff who give up their spare time so that our membership can take advantage of the club's facilities. I know a lot of members would like to volunteer, but just don't have the time. But if there are a few out there who do have the time and would like to help out, we would be delighted to hear from them, and, of course, full training would be given. That's the end of the commercial break. CB Can you give us David Glew's "best game" or at least a good one (in PGN naturally)? DG I find this virtually impossible to do for two reasons Firstly, I don't archive my games. I keep them for a short period and play through them a couple of times to see what I can learn and then delete them. They are all available from the IECC archive anyway. Secondly it is a (probably understandable) fact of life that since taking on more responsibility for the running of the club my results have certainly deteriorated - the obvious reason being that I have much less time to devote to analysing my games and finding the best moves. My wins are now very few and far between and most of my recent results have been tame draws or ignominious losses, neither of which I would like to inflict on your readership! CB Thank you David, that concludes the interview. *********************** Some IECC Historical Notes By Steve Ryan Even though I am not an amateur historian like our CEO, I still want to preserve what we know about the history of our club (very little as it turns out). I certainly didn't belong from the "very beginning" and have had a lot of trouble finding people who did. Anyone having a membership number starting with a "1" apparently did join in the early years, but not necessarily from the start. We know for sure that the IECC started in 1995-96 under the direction of Lisa Powell from Canada but, unfortunately, Lisa has become incommunicado for various reasons and we can no longer reach her. Kyle Evans, another close associate of Lisa's (and her assistant CEO) has likewise disappeared. I have tried three different e-mail addresses for Kyle; two have bounced back as undeliverable and the third has produced no response. Luckily, I did get some information from fellow editor Mickey Blake, an IECC member (as well as a long-time member of the IECG). Mickey edits the newsletter for the IECG and responded to a post I made on The Correspondence Chess Message Board (www.correspondencechess.com/bbs). Mickey wrote that "IECC was born out of IECG following the collapse around early 1996, Lisa left the IECG and formed the IECC. The IECG collapsed largely due to the sheer numbers of people who wished to join, their systems were unable to cope with demand. This in turn let the ICCF down who had subbed their email events to IECG. Hence there is some justification for ICCF feeling annoyed but in reality, the staff at the time mostly left and the new people tried their best. Eventually IECG regained control of its systems, began to grow and despite the recent TCCMB post, are now the largest organization of email chess players." So there you have it, more detail than, I believe, we had previously. Still, I would like to find out as much as possible and if any long-time members can provide additional information (or know how to contact Kyle Evans) please let me know. *********************** The Convict Who Would Be King By MARC DAVIS, The Virginian-Pilot (c) October 29, 2001 NORFOLK -- Claude Bloodgood would have been infamous anyway. He did kill his own mother. That's rare. It was even rarer in 1969. And it was brutal. Bloodgood surprised his mother on the porch of her one-story home in East Ocean View. He jumped her, beat her head with a screwdriver, strangled her with his hands, then smothered her with a pillow to make sure she was dead. Then he rolled her body inside a porch rug, drove 70 miles to New Kent County and gently laid her corpse along a wooded road near West Point. He thoughtfully placed a pillow under her battered head. That would have been enough. But then Bloodgood escaped from prison. He was a chess champion then, a regular Bobby Fischer of the inmate set. He was a lifer, too, although a Norfolk jury had originally recommended death. He was so good at chess that guards occasionally let him out to organize and play in tournaments. They did that right up to the day in 1974 when Bloodgood overpowered a guard at the guard's home. Bloodgood and another murderer-inmate cuffed the officer to a bed, stole his guns and fled to New York with their girlfriends. There was never a good explanation of why Bloodgood was at the guard's house. The guard said he and Bloodgood were preparing for an upcoming chess tournament. The resulting scandal brought down the state's prison bureaucracy. That attracted some headlines, too. But what made Claude Bloodgood a legend was the day he almost became America's chess champion. It happened in 1996. America's chess world discovered that Bloodgood, a convicted murderer and world-class scam artist, a man who once played 2,000 chess games simultaneously by mail from his prison cell, who claimed to be a former Nazi spy, had suddenly become the No. 2 rated chess player in the entire country. He wasn't really. He was good, but never that good. Chess officials denounced Bloodgood as a fraud. They said he had manipulated the chess rating system from his maximum-security prison cell. The chess establishment couldn't strip Bloodgood of his rating -- he had earned it, albeit dubiously -- so they simply erased his name from the ratings list in 1996. Even now, American chess fans debate just how good old Claude was in his prime. And then Bloodgood died. At Powhatan Correctional Center near Richmond, where the murderer/chess champ passed away on Aug. 4, they still talk about Bloodgood. He left behind boxes of chess records and unpublished books, along with a myth that refuses to vanish. Among Bloodgood's papers was a list of 115 chess games he claimed to have played against celebrities such as Humphrey Bogart, Charlie Chaplain, Jimmy Hoffa and Edward R. Murrow from 1948 to 1965. Bloodgood beat 'em all -- even Albert Einstein at Princeton. So he claimed. How much was true? Nobody really knows. "Whatever secrets he had, he took to the grave," said Don Wedding, an Ohio mathematician and chess fan who befriended Bloodgood in his final years. Today, Wedding spends his nights and weekends sorting Bloodgood's large, messy estate. He is Bloodgood's executor. The collection includes thousands of pages of chess scoresheets, postcards from play-by-mail games, correspondence and other private writings. Most of it will go to the Cleveland Public Library, home of the world's largest chess collection. There, chess scholars will sift through the Bloodgood legend to try and divine the authentic Bloodgood life. It will be like trying to catch a greased 'possum by the tail. "A lot of people are interested in Claude Bloodgood," said Jeff Martin, the library's chess specialist. "For a lot of reasons." On April 13 of this year, a chess fan posted new pictures of Claude Bloodgood on the Internet. The inmate looked old and ill and angry -- bald head, lumps and bumps on a misshapen face, deep, dark eyes staring hard. The reaction was predictable. "Uncle Fester!" one reader wrote. "Sheesh!" wrote another chess fan. "I'm not surprised he got such a big rating. If my opponent looked at me like that, I'd resign and go hide someplace." Bloodgood could be a scary guy. But he was also gentle, even generous to others later in life. Your reaction to Bloodgood depended pretty much on when you knew him. Early Bloodgood was nasty. There was the murder, of course. And there were ugly incidents during his 1970 trial. He spit in his own lawyer's face in jail. He threatened witnesses, lawyers and the judge. So it was no surprise that when Bloodgood escaped in 1974, four years after the murder conviction, police offered round-the- clock protection to everyone he had threatened. Some genuinely feared Bloodgood would return and hurt them. "He was an evil man," recalled Franklin A. Swartz, the former prosecutor who helped put Bloodgood in prison. "He forged his mother and father's checks. He stole. He was brutal to them. He abused them." A year before killing his mother, Bloodgood was accused of writing bad checks on his parents' account. For a time, there was some doubt whether his mother would press charges. She wavered. Then her husband -- Bloodgood's father -- died. She blamed it on her son's abusive behavior. She agreed to prosecute the bad-check charges. "She said, `You know, he shortened my husband's life. Let's do it.' "Swartz recalled. Bloodgood tried desperately to avoid that trial. He threatened his mother with death if she dared testify against him. She did anyway. Bloodgood was tried, convicted and jailed for a year. True to his word, nine days after getting out of jail Bloodgood killed his mother. In the end, Bloodgood's own defense attorney -- Berry D. Willis Jr., now 84 and retired -- grew to hate him. There was the spitting incident. That had never happened to Willis. And there was the escape. Over time, Willis had come to believe his client was guilty of murder. "The evidence was absolutely overwhelming," Willis recalls. So when Bloodgood escaped from prison, Willis became enraged and alarmed -- so angry that he personally sued the state. Willis blasted the prison system's "stupid and asinine policies" for letting a known murderer back into the community to play chess. He accused the governor of coddling criminals. He demanded accountability -- and got it. Before the lawsuit could come to trial, the state prison director resigned. Willis heard of Bloodgood's death three months ago, in a phone call from his daughter, a local prosecutor. He was not disappointed. "That's the only good news I had in the month of August," Willis said. For a time, Claude Bloodgood was as feared and hated as anyone in Norfolk. And yet. . . By 1996, Claude Bloodgood had manipulated the chess rating system to become the second-highest-rated player in the United States. He was good, but he was no grandmaster, chess experts say. In the small town of Burntwood, England, there lives a gentle man who loves chess. His name is John Walker -- no relation to the Norfolk spy. He is religious and well known. He preaches at the local Methodist church. He is an elected town councillor, a bachelor who has dedicated his life to charity works. For his community service, Walker holds the prestigious MBE, or Member of the British Empire. And he was Claude Bloodgood's most loyal pen pal and friend. In 1970, John Walker read an ad in a local chess magazine. It was from an American inmate seeking chess partners. The inmate offered to play chess games by mail. Walker accepted. For three decades, the British preacher and the American murderer corresponded. In each letter, they enclosed one chess move and a few pleasantries. The first game took seven years to complete. It ended in a draw. At first, Walker did not know that Bloodgood was under a sentence of death, or that he had killed his mother. Gradually, as the correspondence grew, Walker learned the truth. The subject of Bloodgood's crime seldom arose in normal correspondence. "We write about the weather, world affairs, all sorts of things and he comes across as an intelligent man," Walker told the Daily Telegraph, a London newspaper. "This is a friendship fueled by two people's love of chess," he told The Mirror, another British paper. "It matters not a jot to me that he is in prison for killing his mother." Walker did not know details of Bloodgood's crime and he did not ask. He felt it would be wrong. Finally, after exchanging hundreds of postcards and letters, the Brit decided in 1999 to spend his summer holiday visiting Bloodgood at Powhatan prison. He was curious about what Prisoner No. 99432 was like as a man. And he was curious about one more thing Could he finally beat his old nemesis, face to face? For years, Bloodgood had held the upper hand. Walker had won only one postal match. He had drawn a few, but lost many. "He's a ruthless player and a brilliant one at that," Walker described Bloodgood to the Press Association of Britain. "He's like a dog with a bone and once he's got you, you have had it. Perhaps when I play him, I will be able to psyche him out." Soon, news of Walker's upcoming visit spread. He became a minor sensation in the British press. Readers were fascinated by the gentle preacher and the American killer. Foreign journalists traveled to Powhatan for interviews. No American journalist was even aware of the ruckus. At last, Walker arrived in Virginia to a surprise His chess friend was a frail old man in an orange prison jumpsuit, in a wheelchair, dying of lung cancer. In August, Walker learned his chess partner had died. Walker was crestfallen but relieved. His friend's suffering was over. "I am very sad to hear of Claude's death," Walker told the Birmingham Evening News. "The world of chess is a poorer place today." It is certainly duller. In chess, as in life, Claude Bloodgood liked danger. Bloodgood loved a gambit -- an unorthodox move, usually in the opening, that seems to offer a pawn for free. Lurking in the background is often a trap or a sneaky attack. Gambits were practically all Bloodgood played. He would find the most unlikely opening moves and spring them on unsuspecting foes. Sometimes he just made them up. One particular series of openings he invented and called the Norfolk Gambits. He wrote a book about it, which is still sold today at chess sites. And the gambits worked. Opponents would become so unnerved, they would screw up -- especially in "blitz" games of 10 minutes or less, when there is little time to think. Move, move, move, trap -- BAM! "At speed, all the grandmasters make glaring mistakes," Bloodgood told The Guardian, a British newspaper, in 1999. "I will play five-minute chess against anyone in the world, even today." The gambit fit Bloodgood's personality Live fast, take chances. It also fit Bloodgood's chosen profession as a young man chess hustler. According to one version of the Bloodgood legend, he spent some early years in Hollywood hustling the stars. Some movie idols like Bogart were chess fanatics and Bloodgood would befriend them and play them. At least that's what he claimed. His list of celebrity opponents included such well-known names as Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Clark Gable and John Wayne. Don Wedding, the Ohio mathematician, heard Bloodgood tell stories of his hustling days over and over. How many are true, he can only guess. "Claude made a lot of money as a chess hustler," Wedding said. "He liked quick, sleazy, cheap wins. He had 10 to 15 openings and he became very proficient in those things. "If you look at Claude's whole life, he would always look for the easy way around -- burglary, forgery, con man. I think he liked the thrill of outsmarting people." Which brings us to the ultimate Claude Bloodgood mystery. How old was Claude Bloodgood when he died? How old do you want him to be? The fantasy world of Claude Bloodgood begins and ends with his age. It's this simple If you believe Bloodgood's was 77 when he died, as he vigorously claimed, than it's not impossible that he was a Nazi spy. Or that he married a movie star. Or that he beat Albert Einstein and Edith Piaf and John Dos Passos at chess. But if you disbelieve his age, then Bloodgood's life story might be just a Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Prison records show Bloodgood was 64 when he died. That jibes with news stories from his 1970 murder trial that described him as 32. But in prison, Bloodgood insisted he was much older, that he was born in 1924. That made him 77 at death. The difference is huge. The Bloodgood legend -- the stories he told visitors and repeated in chess books -- hinged on Bloodgood being a young man during World War II. If he wasn't, then the lies fall like an undercooked souffle. The chess world was dubious of anything Bloodgood claimed in life. A columnist for Correspondence Chess News, Neil Brennen, summed it up "Claude Bloodgood remains an enigma that grows with investigation. He was capable of spinning outrageous fictions when it pleased him." For example, Bloodgood claimed he ferried money and secrets between Nazi Germany and Norfolk during World War II. He claimed he came ashore "a couple dozen times" at Willoughby Spit, always in a German U-boat. Bloodgood's friend, Don Wedding, doubts much of what Bloodgood told him over the years, but on this point he is sure Bloodgood really was 77. He believes Bloodgood faked his age to get into the U.S. Marines in the 1950s -- Bloodgood was a guard at the Norfolk Naval Station -- and that's where the prison birthdate comes from. "There's no earthly way he's as old as my mom," Wedding said. "He was a good 10 years older than her." But Julian Borger, the Guardian reporter who interviewed Bloodgood in 1999, is equally convinced that Claude lied. He offers convincing proof Bloodgood's elementary school record from Norfolk. "Bloodgood's story is the tallest tale I've ever heard," Borger said. "But knocking it down was so hard." Stripped of everything else -- the murder, the escape, the spy stories, Humphrey Bogart -- there is one small, hard, inescapable kernel of truth about Claude Bloodgood. He played darn good chess. How good was Claude? No one will ever know for sure. But for one brief, shining moment in the summer of 1996, Powhatan's strangest inmate really was the No. 2 rated chess player in America. It happened one day in August 1996. On that morning, the American chess world was stunned to find that Claude F. Bloodgood had a grandmaster-class rating of 2702 -- second only to Grandmaster Gata Kamsky of New York. The rating, if valid, would have made Bloodgood one of the strongest grandmasters in the world. (The game's all-time great, Garry Kasparov of Russia, is rated 2838.) Trouble is, Bloodgood's rating was a fake. He was good, really good, but never that good. By playing thousands of games against much weaker prison opponents, Bloodgood inflated his chess rating. For six years, from 1993 to 1999, Bloodgood played 3,174 rated chess games - roughly 500 a year -- winning an astounding 91 percent, according to the U.S. Chess Federation. The great Kasparov himself doesn't win that often. To his credit, Bloodgood never pretended he was world-class material. "Bloodgood is quick to tell anyone who asks that he is overrated," he wrote about himself in his book, Nimzovitch Attack The Norfolk Gambits. "His inflated rating is the result of several flaws in the rating formula which only become apparent when a small group plays numerous games in a closed pool." Bloodgood said he never meant to trick the chess world. He said he had urged the chess federation to fix the ratings flaw a year in advance, but no one would listen. Wedding supports that claim. "The one thing Claude was scrupulously honest about was chess," Wedding said. And how good was Claude Bloodgood? One hint came in 1996, when 10 inmates challenged 10 players from Richmond's Huguenot Chess Knights Club. On paper, the inmates should have been invincible. Their average rating was 2234. The Richmonders average rating was 1644. The crooks got whooped, 11 1/2 -to-8 1/2 . Bloodgood lost one game and drew one against a much lower-rated opponent. "I remember that both games were slugfests," recalls club director Walter Chester. "Claude struck me as fairly quiet and polite. He didn't seem like a take-charge kind of fellow. I remember the controversy of his murder as a youth. I had expected a bolder personality." In Don Wedding's basement in Cleveland, there are 10 large boxes of Claude Bloodgood's papers. So far, Wedding has found no smoking gun -- no diary, no final words. In the end, the papers will neither acquit Bloodgood nor hang him. Wedding thinks that Bloodgood was not entirely truthful, but Bloodgood came to believe his life story was true, all of it, fact and fiction smooshed together. "Claude never lied to me," Wedding said. "You look in his eyes and you could tell he believed it." In an open letter to chess fans in 1999, Bloodgood said people could accept as much of his life story as they pleased. Maybe he was a grandmaster, maybe not, he wrote. Maybe he was born in 1937, maybe in 1924. "As for the other points," Bloodgood concluded, "readers can draw their own conclusions, each believing or not believing any or all of what they read." Claude Bloodgood claimed he played more than 100 chess games between 1948 and 1965 with celebrities such as Humphrey Bogart, Charlie Chaplain, Albert Einstein and Jimmy Hoffa. Here is a game he said he recorded against Bogart in 1955 in Van Nuys, Calif. Bogart played an unusual opening called the Poisoned Spike Gambit, but Bloodgood won. Bogart (White) Bloodgood (Black) 1.d4 Nf6 2.g4 Nxg4 3.f3 Nf6 4.e4 d6 5.Be3 c6 6. Bc4 Qa5+ 7. Nc3 b5 8. e5 dxe5 9. dxe5 bxc4 10. exf6 exf6 11. Ne2 Bb4 12. Qd4 Be6 13. h4 0-0 14. 0-0-0 c5 15. Qe4 Ne6 16.Kb1 Bxc3 17. Nxc3 Rab8 18. h5 Rxb2+ 19. Kxb2 Rb8+ 20. Kc1 Qxc3 21. h6 Nb4 White resigns. News researcher Diana Diehl contributed to this report. Reach Marc Davis at 446-2303 or mdavis@pilotonline.com. Copyright (c) 2001, The Virginian-Pilot. Reprinted with permission. Thank you to George Angus for sending me this story! ************* Editorial - Toward Greater Cooperation Among CC Clubs No one cc organization can offer "all things to all people". Nevertheless, we can come as close as humanly possible by a greater degree of cooperation among the wide assortment of cc organizations that currently exist. We should encourage the participation of all types of players from the seriously competitive to the casual. Different cc organizations have different strengths and weaknesses but refusal to acknowledge this fact serves no useful purpose. Rather than lose a potential cc player to the game entirely by infighting and rivalry, we must make known to him/her the choices he/she has in selecting an organization. Players may, of course, choose membership in more than one organization, a practice we should encourage. Doing so will allow a deeper exploration of what each organization has to offer and, consequently, permit each player to select the organization that suits him/her best. In such a manner we hope that correspondence chess will receive an enhanced degree of participation and public support. As an IMMEDIATE PRACTICAL STEP TO BEGIN THIS INITIATIVE I suggest that all clubs at least consider adding links on their web pages to other cc clubs so new players will have the greatest range of choice at the start of their cc careers. S.Ryan **************** Chess Trivia by Steve Ryan Select the correct response from the possibilities given and obtain your "rating" from the scale below. See the answers at the end of this issue. 0-1 Correct = Patzer 2-3 Correct = Not too bad 4-5 Correct = Good 1. Name the US Master who, after publication of his book "White to Play and Win" entered a tournament in Dallas where he lost all his games as White and won all his games as Black. A. Robert J. Fischer B. Donald Byrne C. Weaver Adams D. J.R. Capablanca E. Duncan Suttles 2. Russian Grandmaster Lev Alburt has a doctorate in what area of study? A. Chemistry B. Philosophy C. Economics D. History E. Physics 3. What year did "Chess Life" introduce algebraic notation? A. 1969 B. 1970 C. 1960 D. 1971 E. 1979 4. What German code did a group of chess masters help to break during World War 2? A. Oddessa B. Binary C. Precession D. Enigma E. Oslot 5. The first use of algebraic notation occurs in a French manuscript from what year? A. 1500 B. 1601 C. 1753 D. 1173 E. 1066 ***************** The McDonaldization of Chess by Olimpiu Urcan Recently, I rediscovered an old picture from my childhood in some kindergarten from Communist Romania. It shows myself holding a MacDonald puppet in my arms and, fact that makes me smile now, I remember quite well that from the very moment I found that unusual puppet among the other regular toys, I had never let it go until I quit that kindergarten. Had my pictures taken with it, had lunch with it, played soccer with it and so on... Somehow I knew it was special for me in some way. Don't presume you could have found an American toy in a Communist country so easy... These days I was watching Discovery Channel with a documentary about the Cold War's psychological fears and saw touching images of some kindergarten kids having their play interrupted by alarm training exercises in the extreme event of a nuclear attack. They were all running for cover, dropping their Mickey Mouse toys on the floor. When they used to train us for fire-crisis situations, I never forgot to save my McDonald friend too... For chess lovers today a computer with a great database substitutes my McDonald toy. I believe that new things attract us so much that we are dependent of the idea of new in everything we perform. We are looking for the newest mobile service, for the newest fashion idea coming from Italy, for the ultimate news about clones, for the latest computers and, to use only a last example from many others, for chess innovations. We are burned by the desire to see what is new in some very popular lines and we are reading magazines from Canada to Indonesia looking out for innovations, new ideas and new top players. Our informational society prescribes us recipes for progressing quickly, forcing us to take a trip into the future while putting our past behind us for good. It eliminates the need for a rear-view mirror. We need not look back during this kind of trip. On the basis of a sociological research and my experience as a historian, the following thesis will be set forth and pleaded - that our Worldwide chess society is living the danger of locking up the contemporary chess in some Weberian inspired "iron cage" that threatens our whole society. In developing my line of argumentation I will use the sociologic theoretical scheme developed by George Ritzer back at the beginning of the 90s. He developed the concept of the "McDonaldization of the society" claiming that we are witnessing a new rationalized model reincarnated in the fast food society. It can become a system to control us using efficiency, calculability, predictability, and substitution of non-Human for Human technology, trapping us down into a cold cage that spreads its model Worldwide. Paraphrasing Ritzer who rhetorically asked where is the good old fashion in cooking into an era dominated by Big Mac, in a similar manner, I must ask where is the good old chess into an era where everybody has a laptop for playing chess at high level? I claim that taking our trip into the future without repairing our broken rear-view mirror spells disaster. It represents our past, our identity and the classical formula "Gens Una Sumus" has no meaning otherwise. Why you might ask? Because this motto does not imply just a horizontal fraternity of chess loving people from all over the World, but also a vertical (and temporal) solidarity in the sense of a fraternization with the chess historical legacy and with a chess assumed mission. Taking a look at the present chess society I would love to see a wonderful World, as Louis Armstrong wanted it to be. Still I cannot watch with a happy heart kids growing in the front of the computer screens no matter how "deep" they are. Anand said it right! "If you are not a grandmaster at 14 you can forget about it!". However I think that more important before becoming a grandmaster is to understand what a grandmaster used to represent in an age when human skills were at work and not some very sophisticated machine that makes the rational process instead of us. The return to the classics must be imperative news today, but not only by collecting their games in our databases. We have to rediscover their stories and historical context in such a manner to have them serve as models for our chess loving pupils. Well, you must excuse me if I see in a 13 years old that can play as good as Kasparov only by using a chess electronic device rather a non-human type than the human spirit at its heights. The chess computer has become a popular tool as ATMs, credit cards, mobile devices and other electronic popular gadgets. Automatic cash machines, supermarket scanners and new automated airplanes do the job previously preformed by a human. Indeed, bureaucracy is no longer the model for rationalization studied by Weber and others. The big or small screens do everything instead of us, or they guide us with some military type formulas such as "Insert now" "Type that" "Check again" and so on. If back in the 19th or 20th century we could see some very fine gentlemen playing a chess game while the spectators were witnessing their game firsthand, trying to understand their subtle maneuvers while drinking a fine glass of whisky, today we can see a high level tournament with big electronic tables narrating the hidden story of the game for us while we are serving popcorns like at the theatre. We are watching a predictable movie by participating to a big chess tournament. No mystery around this game any more... Using such machines in making our job easier it is affecting our creativity. Today, more than ever, you can hear grandmasters saying with sadness in their voice "Well, my recollection of the variation proved to be insufficient..." concluding a defeat. We all love the show, tasting every second of it when Deep Thought obliged Kasparov to resign. We cannot stop from using our computers to analyze where we went wrong in our games, forgetting about old magazines, old chess players and old chess battles, in short about the lessons of old chess. Telemarketing, voice mails, zip codes, screen everywhere, high- speed chess computers... Well, it sounds like Orwell`s 1984 to me! Electronic chess devices are recommended for their speed in calculation, for their efficiency and for making us believe in an accurate opinion about what can happen on the board. Like a fast food electronic preparation system, they could tell us what a good job they can do in just 30 seconds! Why do we need that? Well, because in a rational society people want to know what to expect under any conditions and at all times. They want the sandwich they just ordered to be exactly like the one from yesterday and if they won with a King's Indian line last round, they intend to use it again due to their belief that things cannot be much different if previously proven efficient... The routine use of sequels is present all over, from Hollywood to World chess title matches. From the studios or organizing institutions point of view the same characters, actors (remember Karpov-Kasparov matches?) and basic plots lines can be used all over again. Profit levels are more predictable this way. People do not go camping for the sake of the nature any more. They want all the unpredictability to be taken out. "We've got everything right here... It does not matter how hard it rains or how hard the wind blows" would say a camper relaxing in his air-conditioned thirty-foot trailer. In the same manner in which a kid confessed he likes to be in the mall all the time because no matter what weather is outside, it is always the same in here. Similarly, using a chess computer to make our chess agenda. We do it because we want to eliminate any undesired events that could obliterate our objective. We become shaky when we are not using it, wishing its permanent position as companion in our thinking process. I humbly ask the reader not to consider this essay a piece of anti-progress propaganda. This is far from being my intention. Great gains have resulted following technological innovations. There is a danger in rationalization nevertheless. There is the irrationality of the rationality, no doubt about it. The rational systems inevitably spawn a series of irrationalities that limit and defeat their rationality. We have long lines in McDonald's restaurants, ATMs as tools of the rational society utilizing us as unpaid workers and they still give us hard times every now and then! How many chess grandmasters lost some of their games by blindly following their chess program's recommendations? Pushing a button, the kitchen may end up as a sort of filling station. Family members will pull in, push a few buttons, fill up and leave. To clean up, all we need is to throw away plastic plates. Is this a normal family dinner nowadays? But of course! I am only 25 years old, but I love the old fashion way. I am not very much impressed with a long and very beautiful chess game played by e-mail by two engineers using extensively their computers from work! I would rather prefer an old game, where subtle moves are mixed with weak manoeuvres, played in some European chess saloon from the beginning of the 20th century, as well as I love to prepare a special dinner for my fiance and not order pizza-delivery, or a microwave dish! And I would rather prefer Havana's hot temperature if this means I can avoid an opponent that refuses to create and replies to my moves with his chess engine loaded on a laptop... We are living the danger of creating the chess bureaucrat by neglecting the human side of the chess phenomenon and by putting our historical legacy behind us. TV commercials for chess electronic sets and worldwide chains of chess shops are the signs of a new chess industry seeking great profit. However as any other industry it has a worker inside of it, a chess worker. What about a chess revolution by returning to our legacy that, first of all, is human? I am no man of action believe me. I call the plumber when my sink doesn't work. So, I call the chess historians to repair the rear-view mirror I mentioned above. Because it is the only mirror worth keeping as chess lovers! ** "I dedicate this writing to my sweet Juli Angsani who's inspiring presence deserves all my gratitude! Let`s never stop praying!" Copyright ( October 2002 by Olimpiu Urcan, All Rights Reserved This article originally appeared in Correspondence Chess News Issue 75 08 September 2002. Reprinted with permission. *********************** COMING OF AGE By Donald P. Reithel She was used to getting her own way. We had given her a music education piano, flute and violin-all of which she, our daughter Lydia, excelled. Her teacher, Paul Parker, was an excellent musician but an even better teacher. One of his talents he failed to mention however-that being an accomplished chess player, rather well known in chess circles I was later to learn. Enough said. Lydia sat opposite at the breakfast table, unusually radiant if that was possible. Mother (my wife Rose) noted this as did I which prompted us to mention it. She was dressed in her Sunday best as we were going to the park. She looked forward to playing croquette with her girlfriends and Rose had prepared a picnic lunch including a baked apple pie. As we were finishing up our breakfast of toast and tea, Lydia spoke up that Mr. Parker was coming by. Just after ten o'clock the doorbell rang and it was Paul Parker. We made our usual small talk. "I have wonderful news, Lydia. The annual festival is holding a chess tournament and the Black Knights Club has agreed to provide the quarters for the matches." Lydia just beamed "Do you think I can play?" Mr. Parker replied that the club was restricted to men only. This made Lydia burst into tears and literally screamed that it was unfair. Why, I asked had this silly board game created such a fuss? "You have been teaching Lydia to play chess? God forbid. What nonsense. I pay you to teach Lydia piano, the flute and violin, Mr. Parker, not to play chess!" "Lydia is very talented, sir, and I must with all due respect say that chess is more than just a silly board game. There are many who play chess and from all walks of life-poor, rich, lords and kings; and yes, I may add, a number of gifted musicians." Rose put her hand on my arm and said she did know that our daughter was learning to play chess. "Mr. Parker had encouraged it as a growing experience that would broaden Lydia's mental astuteness and creative juices. I did not want to bring it up because I knew you would disapprove. But if you are angry with anyone, it is I, not Lydia or Mr. Parker whom you should chastise." In her usual manner, Rose looked up into my face and my heart melted. She had a way about her that gave me great peace and calm. "What is this club you speak of, Parker? I have never heard of it," said I. After a lengthy description detailing the stag club policy of "men only" Mr. Parker explained that there were sixteen members who were avid and very strong chess players and that in honor of the festival, the club had agreed that a chess competition should be held during the week long gala event. The schedule was for two groups of players to play one game each day and the winners from each group would contest a match game to determine the overall winner. The prize was to be a hearty meal for the winner and family at the hotel where the club had it's rooms and a drawing depicting the competition by one of their members who was a well-established artist. Lydia's sobbing was over. She wiped her eyes. And with that determined will and strong character that made me proud of her, she simply looked around at each of us and beamed "I, Lydia Peters, am going to play in that tournament!" There was no way she could play according to the rules of the club. But she said that she was going to play and that was all there was to it. Guess that is how I got into the fray. While Lydia played that afternoon with her friends playing games, Mr. Parker led me across the grassy knoll to where some members of this Black Knights Club, my wife's bridge club members and other ladies were in the process of organizing things for the start of festivities a week away. Mr. Parker introduced me to the president and other club members. I asked him to sit with me for a cool drink. After small talk, I got down to the point. "Look," said I, "My daughter Lydia is interested in playing in this chess competition your club I understand is arranging. I have been assured that she is a very capable player. I am told that your club is for men only." The president, Sir Henry Dinkie, removed his hat and said that the club was exclusively for men. Therefore, my daughter was not eligible to play since all games were to be played in their clubrooms. I asked if some allowance could be made. Then, a thought occurred to me. Supposing the games my daughter played could be held outside in the park. Would it not attract folks to watch? Discussing this with Sir Henry saw a slow but growing sparkle in his eye. Perhaps I had hit upon something! "Our club, just between you and me of course, has been rather stagnant of late for new ideas," he lamented. He stood up, shook hands, and said he would see what could be done along those lines. Within an hour, he came dashing across the grassy plot that separated us and announced nearly out of breath that his committee agreed since Mr. Parker had assured him that Lydia was indeed worthy of being included in the competition. In fact, the committee had concluded that it was a splendid idea to play in the park and decided that all the games would be played in the park pavilion. During the week everyone in the town was busy preparing for the festival the following week. It was a gala event our town put on annually. Rose headed the food service area and was a favorite in the pie and cake contest. Her apple pie was always chosen among the best by the judges. Lydia and her friends were busy helping with odd jobs around the park. I helped set up some of the booths. As the festival approached which started on Saturday at noon, Lydia and Rose were busily preparing-Lydia studying the latest material acquired from her teacher and Rose getting her kitchen sparkling clean and rooms vacuumed. It was always to be understood that the ladies could not see the house in anything but top shape. After all, Mrs. Pendergast was seen wiping her fingers along the edge of the door overhead. "And you know why, darling? What would the judges think? It could cost me dearly." At last the festival was underway. Everyone in the town had come for the opening ceremonies. The Black Knights Club president, Henry Dinkie, chaired the committee and gave a brief talk about the festival and some highlights of the past. He then went on to tell the crowd that this year the Black Knights Club was holding a chess tournament in the park pavilion from 130pm to 600pm daily starting on Monday and running through Saturday. At such time, the two leading players would play a chess match and he hoped all in the township would turn out to watch. Lydia sat at the board with her favorite stuffed giraffe on her lap. She moved quickly and won the first game. She then disappeared into the crowd, joining her friends for cotton candy and giggly girls' talk. Again, the Tuesday game went quickly but Lydia made a mistake and she lost. That night at home I consoled her and said she would do better the next day. She went on to win a close endgame that Mr. Parker said she played expertly. On Thursday, Rose won 2nd place in the pie contest losing out thankfully to someone other than Mrs. Pendergast who finished 4th. The winner, Winnie Conkle, was a grandmother and avid baker, often selling her varied desserts to the grocery stores. Rose pined and I consoled her. "It isn't that I mind losing the blue ribbon, I did win the red ribbon but I really put a lot of work into selecting the apples and ingredients." I reminded her that more than one of the judges thought her pie was the best. Lydia poured on the attack against her opponent's King Knight opening and so stood 3-1. On Friday she won when her opponent fainted in the heat and resigned due to not feeling well. Saturday games started at 1000am and she fell into a cramped position and should have lost. I was disappointed and had been called away to help with transporting a fresh beer keg to the site. When I returned to the game, I was surprised to see Lydia deep in thought in a very complex position. Of course I knew little about chess but this is what Mr. Parker kept me apprised of. Then, setting her giraffe aside she reached out and moved a Queen near the enemy King and announced check. After a brief examination of the position, her opponent reached his hand out and knocked over his king designating surrender. After shaking hands, they quickly reset up the pieces and began as Mr. Parker called it-a postmortem look at the game play. So, Lydia, who may not have been allowed to play in the tournament, was victorious with 5-1 and entitled to compete later that afternoon for top honors. Her opponent for the final game was Hubert Horacio Flagstaff. He was an elderly gentleman who Mr. Parker said was one of the best in the club and who had in fact played in the London Championship as well as in tournaments while serving in India where he won several minor regional tournaments. I said, "This seems to put Lydia a bit out of her class, Paul. I do not like the idea as I have noticed how exhausted she appears at night." It is the climax of great game play he told me and felt she would be okay and had plenty of time to rest up after the tournament concluded. Because a high wind fell across the region, the championship match was moved to the hotel lobby where a table and chairs, set and clock awaited the contestants. Lydia seated herself at the black pieces as she had chosen the fist of the club president having the black pawn. The president reset the white and black pawn he held on their respective squares and said "Let the game begin". A large crowd had gathered to watch the battle, both from interest as well as getting out of the weather. Mr. Flagstaff opened with 1e2-e4, Paul mentioning to me that he loved to play the King's Gambit, a very imposing game featuring strong attacking positions. Lydia recorded the move. She sat looking at Mr. Flagstaff for several seconds. Lydia picked up her c- pawn and advanced it one square, c7-c6, to which 2.d2-d4 was played immediately in response. Lydia set her giraffe aside and played 2...d7-d5. The crowd grew tense; Lydia had chosen to play The Caro-Kann Defense! To this, Paul smiled approvingly. Play continued 3.exd5 cxd5 4.c4 Nc6. Paul looked at me and said "She has been working on this idea that was introduced by our fellow countryman Bernhard. It is almost unknown in theory." Mr. Flagstaff spent over two minutes before moving out with 5.Nc3 and pushed his clock. Lydia shot out without hesitation 5...e5 causing the crowd to stir with coughs. The next several moves were played with due deliberation and each had used about 15 minutes on their clock for the sequence. 6.dxe5 d4 7.Nd5 Be6 8.Qb3 Nge7 9.Nxe7 Bxe7 10.Nf3. Paul had filled me in on chess play and I queried why white did not take the b-pawn with his Queen. Paul explained that white needed to develop his pieces and taking the pawn would be risky. 10...Nxe5 11.Nxe5 Qa5+ Lydia's eyes sparkled. Paul whispered, "Lydia likes to get her Queen out into the melee as soon as possible. Note that this is like a bank shot in billiards. She will grab the Knight off this rim shot double attack." 12.Kd1 Qxe5 13.Qxb7 I began to feel nervous but Lydia squirmed on her seat and drew her giraffe close to her. She looked at Paul and me. Then, she looked straight into the face of Mr. Flagstaff, then back to the board. She set her toy aside, and leaned over the board with head in hands in deep concentration. It seemed an eternity but was only minutes. Finally, Lydia wrote down her move and after several seconds castled on the king-side--O-O 14.Bd3 Qc5 15.Qe4 g6, stopping the mate threat. With this, she excused herself and went to the ladies room. Shortly she returned to the table and waited for the reply from her opponent who had been in deep thought during her absence. 16.b3 a5 17.Kc2 Bf6 18.Bb2 Again Paul whispered, "Not good. He should have played to d2, keeping the Bishop on the diagonal and also covering b4." With her reply, Paul said, "She spotted the flaw. Good girl!" 18.. a4 19.Rhb1 Rad8 20.Bc1 Rfe8 "I taught her that Rooks belong on open and half open files. White's pieces are cramped and she is gaining space," said Paul. 21.Qf4 Bf5 22.Qf3 Bxd3+ 23.Qxd3 Re2+ 24.Bd2 Bg5 25.Rd1 Rxf2 26.h4 Rxd2+ 27.Rxd2 Bxd2 28.Kxd2 Re8 29.Kd1 Re3 30.Qf1 Qb4 31.Rc1 axb3 32.axb3 Qxb3+ 33.Kd2 Qb4+ 34.Kd1 d3 Mr. Flagstaff smiled and shook his head looking out at space where his club members gathered and then to Lydia. "I guess you have me young lady. I applaud your expertise. The end is at hand so I will resign. Congratulations. Receiving the certificate for dinner and the charcoal drawing donated by the Black Knights Club, Lydia excused herself and shortly returned holding her flute. "I would like to entertain you all with a piece I have been practicing. Paul, would you do me the honor of accompanying me on piano?" Thus ended the festival and a standing ovation for the brilliance of youthful talent. Papa and Momma were on the sidelines, holding hands, and enjoying the blessing of parenthood and pride in the moment. Lydia thought, I hope someday that I will be so lucky momma to have a guy like papa.. *********************** Games & Theory Editor's Note In the following game between Chris Hinton and Trevor Brown both graduated nearly together from the New Member Program (with the same Guide - myself), had ratings within 100 points of each other and selected a 1-game match as their first event. To my knowledge, such a series of coincidences had not occurred before in the IECC. I asked the kind people in the 1-game match department to pair the two of them together, if possible, and then invited both players to submit their game for publication in the journal. It came out this way [Event "O-1150"] [Site "IECC"] [Date "2002.02.21"] [White "Hinton, Christopher"] [Black "Brown, Trevor"] [Result "1-0"] 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 Nf6 4.d5 Nd4 5.Nxe5 Qe7 6.Qxd4 c5 7.Qe3 Qxe5 8.Nc3 d6 9.f4 Qd4 10.e5 Ng4 11.Qxd4 cxd4 12.Ne4 dxe5 13.fxe5 Nxe5 14.Bf4 Nd7 15.O-O-O Be7 16.Nd6+ 1-0 ********* As mentioned in From the Editor's Desk the IECC's own Conrad Goodman played some games with the infamous Claude Bloodgood. Conrad has provided 4 game scores from his postal encounters with Bloodgood from 1971-74 along with a first hand description of his experiences. Conrad writes "I played a lot of correspondence chess in USCCF from 1965 to 1970. Knowing many players by mail, local clubs and from Central Park in NYC, I decided to create a FREE club in 1970 and called it 'PCSI' which stood for Postal Chess Sports International. Membership reached 200 within a year and I named several Directors to coordinate pairings in Canada, South America plus Europe. John T. Walker directed PCSI / UK membership. Since Marianne and I travel to Belgium each year, John asked us to make a side trip in 1971 to meet him in London, which we did. During lunch, John said he was corresponding with Claude Bloodgood on death row in VA State Prison. John was researching prison systems. Since I was a very well known USA correspondence chess player, he asked me to play two games with Claude. Marianne was against the idea, but I honored John's request because Claude was such a powerful player. We played these four games in a period of 3 years" [Event "Private Match"] [White "Goodman, Conrad"] [Black "Bloodgood, Claude'] [Result "1-0"] 1.f3 f5 2.e4 fxe4 3.Nc3 e5 4.fxe4 Nf6 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.d4 exd4 7.Nxd4 Bc5 8.Be3 Nxd4 9.Bxd4 Bxd4 10.Qxd4 d6 11.Bc4 Bg4 12.O-O Qd7 13.Rxf6 gxf6 14.Nd5 c5 15.Nxf6+ Ke7 16.Nd5+ Kf7 17.Rf1+ 1-0 [Event "Private Match"] [White "Goodman, Conrad"] [Black "Bloodgood, Claude"] [Result "1-0"] 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.Bc4 b5 4.Bb3 fxe4 5.Nxe5 Qg5 6.d4 Qxg2 7.Qh5+ g6 8.Bf7+ Kd8 9.Bxg6 Qxh1+ 10.Ke2 Ba6 11.Bg5+ Kc8 12.Bf5 b4+ 13.Kd2 Nf6 14.Bxf6 e3+ 15.Kxe3 Qe1+ 16.Kf4 Bh6+ 17.Bg5 Qc1+ 18.Kg4 Be2+ 19.f3 Qg1+ 20.Kf4 Qxd4+ 21.Be4 Bxg5+ 22.Qxg5 Rf8+ 23.Kg3 Qg1+ 0-1 [Event "Private Match"] [White "Goodman, Conrad"] [Black "Bloodgood, Claude"] [Result "1-0"] 1.d4 d5 2.f3 e6 3.Bf4 Nc6 4.e4 dxe4 5.Bb5 Bd7 6.Nc3 exf3 7.Nxf3 a6 8.Be2 Bb4 9.O-O h6 10.Ne4 Nce7 11.c3 Ba5 12.Ne5 Bc8 13.Qa4+ c6 14.Nxf7 Qd5 15.Ned6+ 1-0 [Event "Private Match"] [White "Bloodgood, Claude"] [Black "Goodman, Conrad"] [Result "1/2 - 1/2"] 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.f4 Bg7 5.Nf3 c5 6.e5 Nfd7 7.e6 fxe6 8.Ng5 Nf6 9.Bb5+ Nc6 10.dxc5 d5 11.Be3 O-O 12.Bxc6 bxc6 13.O-O e5 14.fxe5 Ng4 15.Rxf8+ Qxf8 16.Nxd5 Nxe3 17.Nxe3 Qf4 18.Qd8+ Bf8 19.Rf1 Qxe3+ 20.Kh1 Bf5 21.Qxa8 Qxg5 22.Qxc6 Qe3 23.Qf3 Qxe5 24.b4 h5 25.c4 Kh7 26.c6 Bg7 27.a4 Bg4 28.Qf4 Qe2 29.h3 Bf5 30.c5 e5 31.Rf2 Qd1+ 32.Rf1 Qxa4 33.Qc4 e4 34.g4 Qa3 35.Kg2 h4 36.gxf5 Qg3+ 1/2-1/2 As a postscript Conrad adds the following "I am not sure which game we were playing, but was very surprised when an FBI agent came to our NYC apartment, to tell us Claude plus several inmates attended a chess tournament and managed to escape. The FBI was contacting everyone that knew Claude ( including strangers like me that were playing him chess by mail ). Two days later, the FBI called to say Claude plus the other inmates were captured a few blocks away from the prison in a failed hold up. Claude resumed mail games and he sent me several of his books plus handwritten analysis which I gradually gave away to chess friends. PCSI remained active until 1995. Then most of us went email, and I learned about IECC. ( Thank you Lisa ). ************ Miscellaneous Notes By Steve Ryan 1. Earlier this year IECC Assistant CEO Tim Nagley achieved three significant milestones in the IECC; his 300th win, his 600th game and attainment of a master rating. His 300th win occurred in a Thematic against Sab Bilsel. Tim have Sab have "promised" to provide an annotated game score for publication in the January 2003 issue of this journal. 2. According to "The Scotsman" of October 01 2002 yet another chess variant has emerged. Called "New Chess" this variant has 91 squares, 6 knights, 20 pawns, a 6-cornerd board, 3 different colors for the squares and 3 new pieces called "spies" which can move in 12 different directions. The name "spies" doesn't really fit in with the medieval theme of chess in your editor's humble opinion and I suggest "Esquires" or "Pages" would work better. ************* Rumor & Gossip by The Silicon Saboteur "Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please." Mark Twain 1899 1. STANTON plays POLGAR for LADIES championship! 2. "CHESSTEROID" approaching EARTH - collision IMMINENT! 3. MORAL victories TO earn RATING points ! 1. The IECC's own TINA (The Terror) STANTON has reportedly signed a mulit-millon dollar deal to play JUDIT POLGAR a 12-game match for the ladies world championship. Since this publication has previously reported that Tina actually IS Judit Polgar (Issue 7, May 2000) we will watch with great interest as Judina runs from one side of the board to the other furiously trying to checkmate herself. Watch out for a whole bunch of "grandmaster draws" so she can get to the bank quicker to deposit her "winnings". 2. Astronomers at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Victoria, B.C. Canada have reported the sighting of a "massive" asteroid approaching earth. Telescopic and radar imaging have revealed its shape closely resembles a pawn and have therefore given it the ID Number "Chessteriod ECO A00". Trajectory calculations show that it will hit the Swiss Alps exactly where the International Federation for Correspondence Chess has its "secret mountain fortress". The IFFCC's Exalted Grand Poobah and TD, Pedro Borwell-Rawlings, has reportedly said that he "will not permit this event to happen." According to Pedro "the laws of chess don't allow pawns to move that far and I will annul any game in which it happens." Personally speaking, I'm betting on the pawn. 3. The newly formed World Association of Correspondence Chess Organizations (WACCO - pronounced "whacko") has concluded its 10th yearly symposium by adopting a resolution that, henceforth, "moral victories will count in all chess games and will earn rating points as well, I mean why shouldn't they?". According to WACCO, you deserve to earn something after your patzer of an opponent failed to fall for your clever trap and/or sent ambiguous moves needing clarification and/or played exactly to the time limit plus taking vacation as well and/or a hundred other infractions but still managed to win. "Losing traumatizes people" according to WACCO. "Players who lose chess games resume their careers in terrorism. We want to stop that." As usual, watch this space for further developments. *********** Trivia Answers 1. Weaver Adams 2. Physics 3. 1969 4. Enigma 5. 1173 Next edition of Chess Bits on or about 2003 Jan. 15