Chess – Maverick Philosopher

Benjamin Franklin, “The Morals of Chess”

This article, from Founders Online, should delight the chess aficionado, providing as it does the curious backstory to Franklin's didactic bagatelle. Here is a vignette that smacks of the apocryphal:

Franklin played chess with a single-mindedness that threatened to exclude all else. The story has already been told in these volumes of Mme. Brillon’s being detained in her tub while he, oblivious, played chess in her bathing room well into the night.

What gentleman would keep a lady submerged in 18th century bathwater the whole night through?

In his "Morals of Chess," Franklin informs us of the attributes requisite for good play, among them, foresight, circumspection, caution, and courageous perseverance. These attributes, learned over the 64 squares by Caïssa's docile devotees, are, he thinks, applicable to life in the large, chess being life in the small, or as Franklin phrases it, "a little life," a claim closer to the truth than Bobby Fischer's "Chess is life." Bobby, of course, would have cleaned Ben's clock in every game. But better to be a polymathic founder of a great republic than an anti-semitic Jewish monomaniac.

This patzer, however, must register his skepticism at the supposed transferability of the attributes inculcated by our mistress Caïssa to life in the large. But it's a large topic and other matters press upon me.

Also of interest: Benjamin Franklin: Diplomat, Libertine, Chess Master

The Calvin Blocker Story

My wife and I owned a house in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, on Euclid Heights Boulevard, from 1986-1991. That location put me within walking distance of the old Arabica coffee house on Coventry Road. The Coventry district was quite a Bohemian scene in those days and there I met numerous interesting characters of the sort one expects to find in coffee houses: the flâneur and flâneuse, wannabe poets and novelists, pseudo-intellectual bullshitters of every stripe, and a wide range of chess players from patzers to masters.

It was there that I became acquainted with International Master Calvin Blocker. Observing a game of mine one day, he kibitzed, "You'd be lucky to be mated."

One day he came to my house to give me a lesson. He pulled out a piece of paper and wrote down from memory the famous game in which the great Paul Morphy crushed Count Isouard and the Duke of Braunschweig in 17 moves. "Study this," Calvin said.

Here is his story.

Harvey Pekar talks about Coventry.

For the true chess aficionado, here is 45 minutes of Grandmaster Ben Finegold on Calvin Blocker.

Play the Current Position

In life as in chess. There's no use fretting how you got into it. If not even God can restore a virgin, then surely you cannot undo the mess you are in. You're in it, now play it. Fretting is of use only if it helps you avoid the pickle next time.

And that reminds me of an online chess player's moniker: Next Time. Even better: Weaker than F7.

After a hard day of tournament play the chess player came home to his wife. The love light shone in her eyes. "Not tonight, honey, I'm weaker that F7."

A Gov’t Subsidy for Seniors’ USCF Dues

Ed Yetman reports:

I don’t know if this is a new high or a new low, but it is something I’ve never seen before. Somehow, USCF has managed to find a way to get the U.S. government to pay membership fees for senior members. That’s right, Uncle Sam wants you to play chess so bad, he’s willing to pay for it. Here are the details:

Uncle Sam pays…of course.

Normally, I would applaud USCF finding such a strange niche and using it to promote USCF membership. But I’m having qualms.

My first concern is this: whenever the government subsidizes something, the subsidy distorts the free-market value. The sky-high cost of college tuition is such an example. USCF membership for seniors will go up, and that will lead, inevitably, to corruption. Also, you subsidize something, you get more of it: how many of these new USCF senior members will never play in a tournament? They will have full voting rights; I’m chary about letting people vote for things they have no stake in at all. Do we want USCF elections to be decided by people who could not care less about tournament chess? Oh wait—we already have that problem.

My second concern is the inescapable mission-creep of such things. How long before we have subsidies for other classes of players, like women and children? What then?

The leadership of USCF is already pretty far away from the traditional tournament player. This will only make it worse.

You're spot on, Ed.

A Use for Bullet Chess

Bullet is faster than Blitz. I've been playing over at Lichess: two-minutes with a one second increment, sudden death. I die a lot, but like Phoenix rise from my ashes to play again. The fastest bullet games are one minute per side, no increment.

What's the use of it? I count six uses.

1) It wakes me up. I out-monk the monks when it comes to early arisal from the bed of sloth. This morning I got up at 12:20 AM. (Usually I arise at 1:30) So by 4:30 I needed a second cup of java, but even that didn't turn the trick. So I logged on to Lichess and blasted out two bullet games, winning one, losing the other. And now I'm bangin' on all eight.

2) It gets me over a temporary writing hurdle. I hit a sag. Inspiration fails. How do I push this line of thought further? Stymied, I fire up the chess engine, bang out some games, and Seldom Seen Slim is back in the saddle, inspiration restored. I find my way forward.

3) It is good mental exercise. Exercise yourself every which way every day: mentally, physically, spiritually, morally. Mens sana in corpore sano, et cetera.

4) It is a challenge. The strenuous life is best by test.

5) It's fun. A little fun never hurt anybody.

6) It distracts me from what the filthy Dems and their media enablers are doing to the country. Chess is an oasis of sanity in an insane world. To swap out the metaphor, chess is the perfect drug, especially when enhanced by consumption of those less-than-perfect drugs, caffeine and nicotine.

The Dark Heart of Modern Chess

Hyperventilatory. Consume cum grano salis.

Here is much better writing about chess by Grandmaster Raymond Keene.

Why Do Men Dominate in Chess?

Here at Quillette.

Another Useful Idiot Crosses My Path

I'm the chess guy hereabouts. A year and a half ago I got a call from an 86-year-old retired chemist with an interest in the game. A meeting was arranged, a game was played, and then the talk turned to politics. The old man told us that he had voted for Biden out of revulsion at Trump. He said he had been a Republican all his life but lately became a Democrat. Brian and I were gentle with him, drawing him out to see how deep he'd dig his hole. It was deep enough for us to write him off as an utterly clueless old man living in the past.

Part of the problem with such people is that they live by a code of civility that will get you killed in the present-day political world should you dare to enter it. They don't understand that the Left is at war with us, and leftists no longer hide the fact. Their stealth ideologues of, say, 10-15 years ago are now out in the open and brazen in their plans and proclamations. Leftists see politics as war, and if we don't, we lose. Clueless oldsters such as the retired chemist are also, most of them, unaware that the Democrat Party is now a hard-Left, successor-commie, outfit that is trying to achieve under the sign of the Jackass what the CPUSA failed to achieve under the hammer and sickle.

Brian and I are a couple of patzers which is not to say that we won't clean your clock at the local coffee house. We are 'B' players (1600-1800) in the USCF hierarchy. The game with the old man turned into a training session. He acquitted himself so poorly that we never heard from him again despite our welcoming manner.

That is another fault of old men. Their outsized egos make them impermeable to instruction. They cannot stand to lose. But life is hierarchical and you will lose again and again and again. Wokesters with their promotion of 'equity' (equality of outcome) and their assault on merit rail against life's natural hierarchy, but to no ultimate avail. In the end, reality wins.

With apologies to Ron DeSantis, reality is where 'woke' goes to die.

My Angelic Wife

One indicator of her angelicity is her support of my chess activities — in stark contrast to the wives of two acquaintances both of whose 'better' halves destroyed their chess libraries in fits of rage at their time spent sporting with Caissa.

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," wrote old Will.

I'm no bard, but here's my ditty in remembrance of my two long lost Ohio chess friends:

   Forget that bitch
Dally with me.
   Else I'll destroy
   Your library.

Chess is Racist!

Proved beyond a shadow of a doubt over at Substack.

LiChess: A Free Chess Site to Rival the ICC

Chess is a beautiful thing, a gift of the gods, an oasis of sanity in an insane world. Thanks to Traitor Joe and the chucklephuckery of his supporters, we are teetering on the brink of WW3. It is an exciting time to be alive in part because it may prove to be an exiting time. If you need a break from the madness, Caissa's arms beckon.

I've been patzin' around at LiChess the last few days under the handle, SeldomSeenSlim. My preferred time control is three-minute blitz with a two-second increment. That way, I do not take too much time from my other, my main mistress, fair Philosophia.

In Life as in Chess

Die Fehler sind alle schon da, sie warten nur darauf, gemacht zu werden. (Savielly Tartakower)

The mistakes are already all out there just waiting to be made. (tr. BV)

Another Useful Idiot Crosses My Path

I'm the chess guy hereabouts. A year ago I got a call from an 86-year-old retired chemist with an interest in the game. A meeting was arranged, a game was played, and then the talk turned to politics. The old man told us that he had voted for Biden out of revulsion at Trump. He said he had been a Republican all his life but lately became a Democrat. Brian and I were gentle with him, drawing him out to see how deep he'd dig his hole. It was deep enough for us to write him off as an utterly clueless old man living in the past.

Brian and I are a couple of patzers, which is not to say that we won't clean your clock at the local coffee house. We are 'B' players (1600-1800) in the USCF hierarchy. The game with the old man turned into a training session. He acquitted himself so poorly we never heard from him again despite our welcoming manner.

Newsflash!

I just beat a 1221 player in a 3-minute Internet Chess Club game. His handle: cosmiccondomrum. Cute, eh? My current 3-min rating is 1028. Of course, that is nothing to crow about.

With Detachment from the Outcome

There are games and there is life, and life is not a game. But life is like a game, and sufficiently so to warrant application of the same principle: play hard, but with detachment from the outcome.

In chess, and not just in chess, it is 'unsporting' not to try to defeat the opponent by all legal means. It shows a lack of respect for the opponent and for the game to not do one's best.

In life as in chess, play hard, but with detachment from the outcome.

If the above reminds you of the Bhagavad Gita, that's a feather in your cap.

Related: Coitus Reservatus and Beyond