help bot wrote:

Bot - you are full of hot stuff. Is your 'bot' so hot in Nebraska?..

help bot wrote:
How about a straddle or a strangle? If Sloan wins by a certain
margin or is crushed, I win. If he draws or finishes near-the-money, I
lose?

Aha, help bot might know poker too. The player who follows the big
blind and would normally be under the gun can raise before cards are
dealt. This is called straddle, a blind raise or a bet in the dark that

is twice the big blind.

If Sloan can be in the Grudge Match again, a bet in the dark on him
would probably yield EV+.

help bot wrote:

Or did Wilma mean I should bet money on say, Taylor Kingston or some
other poster to win over Sam Sloan in a second Grudge Match? My
position here is that, apart from Bill Brock (who choked one match
already), I cannot think of a close match for Sloan from the "other
side". We have one master, who Sloan says he can beat despite a
ratings disparity of over 300 points, to which I can only say that he
would undoubtedly desire heavy odds; IMO, heavy odds can muck things up
by shifting the focus to the odds themselves.


Hey! What about me (or is it you)? My rating is within twenty-five
points of Sam's

Dearest Wilma,

I was not aware that Sam Sloan (or anyone else, for that matter)
would even want to play me. You see, it says in the very first post in
this thread that in order to "qualify", there is a requirement that
there be genuine hatred, horrible anger, nasty desires to kill the
opponent left over from prior flame-warring in these newsgroups, and
that seems to disqualify me from playing Sloan. Perhaps you weren't
paying attention.

Also, there is the small matter of odds which I mentioned earlier;
whenever there is a vast disparity in the playing strengths of two
players, those betting on the outcome always demand odds to compensate.
From my perspective, this mucks things up as the focus shifts to the
odds themselves. That is why I suggested Sloan play one of his dreaded
"enemies", or better still, near-IM Innes can play one of his
"enemies", where the winning chances are more evenly balanced than
Sloan vs. a patzer.


-- help bot

Vince Hart wrote:

"Hey! What about me (or is it you)? My rating is within twenty-five
points of Sam's."


Do you truly, deep down, HATE Sam Sloan? Do you despise him, want to
kill him, and then drag his dead body around behind your chariot while
the buzzards pick at it? If not, you don't qualify for the Grudge
Match (see Sloan's earlier post).

-- help bot



"There are no pacts between lions and men." -- Brad "Achilles" Pitt

I regret to inform "Sammy, Jr" that this thread is, or at least was,
not about fund raising for Sam Sloan, Inc.

This thread is about a Grudge Match, where one player represents a
group of posters here, and his opponent represents the braindeaders,
the Evans ratpack. As such the financial problems (or lack thereof) of
one Sam Sloan are not the primary issue. The primary issue is
arranging a chess match; if in the past, that was accomplished by way
of putting up sufficient monies to entice Sam Sloan to travel to
Chicago, bully for him. All the more since he somehow managed to win,
despite his severe openings handicap.

Many observers would maintain that help bot also has serious problems
in the opening, but mine are not deliberate attempts to undermine my
own position via *deliberate* imitation of Mickey Mouse in the first
let us say, dozen moves.


-- help bot

Louis Blair wrote:

[Event "RGCP Grudge Match 2005"]
[Site "Bill Brock's office in Chicago"]
[Date "2005.06.26"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Sam Sloan"]
[Black "Bill Brock"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Opening "Grob: Fritz gambit"]
[ECO "A00"]
[NIC "VO.11"]
[Time "23:39:38"]
[TimeControl "4500+0"]
_
1. g4 d5 2. Bg2 Bxg4 3. c4 c6 4. cxd5 cxd5 5. Qb3 Nf6
6. Nc3 e6 7. Qxb7 Nbd7 8. Nb5 Rc8 9. Nxa7 Rb8

Why not

9.Rc7 Qa6 10.Qa8 ...

winning the knight for just one pawn;
on the top of it the black's position is
superbor rather white is hopeless.

***

Wlod

Wlod wrote:

"Why not

9.Rc7 Qa6 10.Qa8 ...

winning the knight for just one pawn;
on the top of it the black's position is
superbor rather white is hopeless."

--

This is *precisely* the same mistake I made, before realising that
while it *appears* the Knight at a7 is horribly pinned, it is actually
free to hop about at will:

10.Qa8 Nb5

11.Rxc1+ Rxc1

12.Qxa6 Nc7+

13.Kd8 Nxa6

and White wins (connected passed pawns).


Now help bot feels somewhat better. Until now, Fritz bot was saying
only a total patzer like me could make such an "obvious" error. (Now
Fritz bot is shifting ground, saying Sam Sloan is a genius tactician,
like himself and sometimes Tal.)


Still, this is but one position from those games, and my overall
assessment remains that Sloan was "busted" repeatedly, though Brock
missed the crushers.

If anyone is interested, I can post the exact positions where Sloan
was dead meat and made like Harry Houdini, the escape artist. The
winning moves were soooo obvious (just like the above ...Qa8 idea).


-- help bot

help bot wrote:
Wlod wrote:

"Why not

9.Rc7 Qa6 10.Qa8 ...

[...]

while it *appears* the Knight at a7 is horribly pinned, it is actually
free to hop about at will:

10.Qa8 Nb5

Indeed! A tricky opening. (We see that I don't
use any computer program :-)

It was an interesting match.
The openings which are inferior
or not promising on the highest level
can be still very interesting and
also difficult for all the rest of us.

Thank you for showing me my ommision,

Wlod

help bot wrote

..
So, what has all this to do with chess? Simple: without corn to make
corn whiskey, you would have to play chess while drinking beer.

Or wine, red red wine. The hills are black in Dakota - nice plane too..