"Despite the documented evidence of chess historian H.J.R. Murray, I have always thought that chess was invented by a goddess."
George Koltanowski, from Women in Chess, Players of the Modern Game
As possibly the most ignorant and utterly incompetent chessplayer in the entire world since the beginning of time, I confess - I never heard of the Bongcloud Attack. But it's a real thing. Geez Louise, who knew?
I can't help it, there are sooo many things about...well, I'll just let you see them for yourselves. This is the article from The Week online, beginning with a mistake (? or is it deliberate and nefarious...) of mispelling the word "Chess" in "Today in Ches:"
Today in Ches
Chess Grandmasters Can't Stop Laughing After Opening Tournament Match With the Worst Possible Moves
March 16, 2020
Fans of The Queen's Gambit will get a kick out of Monday's match between Norway's Magnus Carlsen and the United States' Hikaru Nakamura at the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour.
The game between the grandmasters started with Carlsen moving his king's pawn up to e4, a popular first move; Nakamura mirrored it. But it was then that things got silly: Carlsen next moved his king up to where the pawn had been, an opening known as the Bongcloud Attack, and "one of chess' worst possible opening moves," Vice reports.
"Don't do this!" one of the commentators watching the match blurted.
When Nakamura saw his opponent's move, though, he burst into laughter — and mimicked it. Both Carlsen and Nakamura had already qualified for the next stage of the tournament, and their Bongcloud game, which was just for laughs, ended in a draw. You can review the game at Chess24. Jeva Lange
Okay, I can't resist, LOL! I happened to see this while scrolling through older stories at The New York Times online just now. It's an article about a possible "alien scout" taking a close fly-by of Mother Earth in 2017.
Check out the artist's rendition of what the object may look like, based on radiometric (word?) measurements of the object being approximately ten times longer than it is wide. So, a sort of flying cigar, I guess.
An artist’s rendering of Oumuamua. Central to Avi Loeb’s argument is what he calls the “Oumuamua wager,” a takeoff on Pascal’s famous wager, that the upside of believing in God far outweighs the downside. Likewise, believing that Oumuamua could have been an alien spacecraft can only make us more alert and receptive to thinking outside the box.Credit... M. Kornmesser/European Southern Observatory
This reminded me very much of the alien scout object that visited planet Earth in the film "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home," produced in 1986. Excellent romp with Kirk, a revived and still learning how to be Spock again Spock, Dr. McCoy, Uhuru, Chekov, Sulu, and of course, no continuation of the original "Star Trek" television series from the 1960s (got me hooked for life when I was a teenager) would be complete without Scotty the Engineer! The action takes place on 1986 planet Earth after a reverse time travel sling around the Sun in order to save two whales from that time and actually SAVE the future planet from the alien thingy that was getting ready to blow us to smithereens because there were no whales on the actual 23rd (24th?) century Earth - they had gone extinct from over-hunting and global climate change. I know, the time travel schtick is sort of cray cray, but the film was a lot of fun and brought home a very salient point in 1986 that we were already experiencing diminishment and extinctions of irreplaceable species of animals - and such things can always have unanticipated consequences.
Here's the alien scout object from the 1986 Star Trek film:
"Whale probe," from Fiction to Fact online website. In this image the probe is going past a 23rd (24th?) CE Space Ship Docking Station on its way toward Earth.
And now, back to shoveling out of another foot of snow and 2 foot tall drifts. Sigh.
It is mind-boggling that these discoveries keep surfacing even after excavations taking place more than 100 years. I did not include any of the photos contained in the original article.
Article from Yahoo News, originally reported on CBS News
Cairo — Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities has revealed details of the latest landmark discoveries to emerge from the Saqqara necropolis, south of Cairo. The vast burial grounds sit in what was once Memphis, the capital of ancient Egypt. The UNESCO World Heritage Site is home to more than a dozen pyramids, including Egypt's oldest, the Pyramid of Djoser.
The site has yielded thousands of artefacts over decades of excavation, but among the biggest rewards for Egyptologists in this latest round of discoveries was the identity of a queen who died around 4,200 years ago.
"The excavation started in 2010, when we discovered a pyramid of a queen next to the pyramid of King Teti, but we didn't find a name inside the pyramid to tell us who the pyramid belonged to," leading Egyptologist and former minister of antiquities Dr. Zahi Hawass told CBS News.
About a month ago they discovered a funerary temple, and now researchers finally have a name for the ancient female monarch: Queen Neit, the wife of King Teti. Her name was finally found, carved on a wall in the temple and also written on a fallen obelisk in the entrance to her tomb.
"I'd never heard of this queen before. Therefore, we add an important piece to Egyptian history, about this queen," said Hawass, who heads the archaeological mission. He said the recent discoveries would help "rewrite" the history of ancient Egypt.
His team also discovered 52 burial shafts, each around 30 to 40 feet deep, inside of which they found have more than 50 wooden coffins dating back to the New Kingdom, around 3,000 years ago.
"Actually, this morning we found another shaft," Hawass told CBS News on Monday. "Inside the shaft we found a large limestone sarcophagus. This is the first time we've discovered a limestone sarcophagus inside the shafts. We found another one that we're going to open a week from now."
The team also found a papyrus about 13 feet long and three feet wide, on which Chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead is written in hieroglyphics, with the name of its owner recorded on it. The Book of the Dead is an ancient manuscript that explains how to navigate through the afterlife to reach the field of the Aaru — paradise, to ancient Egyptians.
Hawass said it was the first time such a large papyrus had been discovered inside a burial shaft.
Other finds from the site include numerous wooden funerary masks, a shrine dedicated to the god Anubis (Guardian of the Cemetery), statues of Anubis, and games that were buried with the dead, to keep them busy in the afterlife. One of them was a game called "Twenty," found with its owner's name still visibly written on it. [I assume this is a reference to the ancient game evidently imported from ancient Sumer to Egypt and spread across the ancient Middle East known as "Twenty Squares." It was a race game similar to Senet.]
Another game, called "Senet" (cross), was found in the shafts. It's similar to chess, but if the deceased player wins, they go safely into the afterlife. [Note: Senet is not similar to chess, it is classified as a race game, where the game pieces are moved from the starting board on the narrow board (typically of 30 squares, although the oldest stone carved boards recovered from early Old Dynasty tombs have as many as 33 squares) to the end of the board/off the board, based on the throw of dice or dice-predecessors.]
Come on, Moscow Mitch. You used the word "provoked" earlier today in your comments about the soon to be ex-*president of the United States as he slinks his way to a "good bye" celebration at Andrews Air Force Base that nobody who is anybody is going to attend, including his OWN VICE-PRESIDENT! Good riddance, Scum Bag in Chief. Here's some of my puke accumulated over the past four years for you to take with you as a snack on your way to your cesspit at Mar-a-Lago. Will North Palm Beach ever be able to get rid of the stench once they manage to kick you out of their jurisdiction?
Moscow Mitch, you won't be able to slime your own way out of what you said today about Trump "provoking" the Fascists who attacked and desecrated our national Capitol and went looking for Vice-President Pence and Speaker of the House Pelosi to kill them. You may try to argue that "provoke" is NOT THE SAME MEANING AS INCITE, as the Article of Impeachment against Donald J. Trump lists as his ultimate sin against our country, which he has used and abused and attempted to destroy for the past four years. Nope. Maybe you, Moscow Mitch, are now familiar with the word SYNOMYM, tsk tsk. You should be, as you're even older than I am. I realize teachers are no longer allowed to actually educate our students these days, but back when I was in school, in the "good ol' days," they still taught us proper English and what words synonyms, homonyms and antonyms were.
Just to refresh your memory, Moscow Mitch, I bring you fresh from the Oxford Dictionary courtesy of Google:
I had no idea about this legend although I have read about and seen photos of the ravens at the Tower of London. They have always fascinated me. Like the crows who visit me on occasion for peanuts and unshelled almonds, they are very smart. "My" crows will occasionally gift me with a small token - a marble here, a particularly shiny stone there, one time a rather scuffed up single dice, a piece of what appears to be pink quartz shaped rather like a pyramid, and the piece de resistance, a gold-colored bracelet with brown stones set around it (one of the stones is missing and the bracelet is slightly bent). Over 30 years or so, the crows have brought and left me a number of gifts, including a couple of bottle caps from beer bottles, LOL! They always leave their gifts in my old concrete birdbath, because during the summer I will visit it at least once a day to refresh/refill water. It is a very popular bath in the neighborhood and gets a lot of traffic :)
Here is a photo of the Raven Queen Merlina, who has been at the Tower of London since 2007 (14 years) and flew away two weeks ago. She has not returned and is now presumed to have died.
Hola darlings, and Happy New Year to everyone - in about 6 hours. This year, of course, New Year's Eve will be celebrated differently than normal because of the pandemic, but we can take heart in knowing that although it seems like it will be forever, a year from now things will be getting back to whatever becomes the "new normal" and we will probably once again be gathering together to celebrate in our homes, going out to restaurants for nice dinners, going out to our neighborhood bars to just hang out with our neighbors in our jeans and sweatshirts, going out to the hot spots where young people go, etc. etc.
But tonight, it's celebrating by myself with a fire in the fireplace, extra candles lit, cold pink wine in a crystal glass, semi-sweet (dark) chocolates YUM, and later some fresh popped popcorn - no butter. The Christmas tree is all aglow, the small trees flanking my front door outside are all lit, as is the wreath, and as chaotic and uncertain as the last 12 months have been, I am at peace with the world - well, at least for tonight.
First off, Katherine Neville, author of some of my favorite novels ever (reading The Eight changed my life - literally), published her "Twelve Days of Christmas" Newsletter yesterday. I won't go into details here, this is intended to be a short (for me) post. As always, however, Neville brings her years' worth of research on esoteric and historical subjects and insight to bring us a thought provoking Newsletter.
I couldn't help but remember a particular episode from the original Star Trek series on television back in the 1960s when I was still a teenager. The episode was "Bread and Circuses," shown in 1968. One of the lines that I've remembered but can't quote exactly was, I think, uttered by Lieutenant Uhura, who noted that the new religion that was rapidly spreading across the empire on the planet in question wasn't about the "Birth of the Sun," it was about the "Birth of the Son." Lots of interesting commentary for your reading pleasure on the original episode at:
Not everybody is cut out to be an attorney and counselor at law. The best ones have particular characteristics that are often shared with the best chessplayers in the world, and this is no accident.
You need to have a thirst for learning
You need to have tenacity or, as my mom called it - bullheadedness or stubborness (a trait that runs in my family, sometimes not to our benefit, alas!)
When others shrug and give up, you're just getting started
You need to be willing to study and work hard to learn your craft
You need to be able to handle loss, and handle it with dignity. You may hate it, but you have to be able to handle it and learn from it, analyze it, what went wrong, how did it go wrong, was there something you could have done to avoid the result you didn't want
You need to accept that you will never be finished learning how to be better at your craft, keeping up with developments in your craft, and studying as needed to keep up with never ending new-developments
Ho ho ho, darlings! From me to you - Happy Holidays!
Greetings from my 2020 Christmas tree. And - here's my annual memorial to Mr. Don and me:
Nefertiti pendant (me, ha ha!) and a souvenir from Duart Castle on the Isle of Mull, ancestral home of the McLeans (Mr. Don). On the tree every year since I don't remember when.
Tomorrow night in the states is the Winter Solstice, which is the shortest period of daylight of the year (the daylight gets shorter as you move further north or south from the equator) and was celebrated by the ancient Romans as the Brumalia traditionally on December 25, just after the celebration of the Saturnalia which ran from December 17 through about December 23 in later Roman times.
This year there will be a special show in the evening sky visible and viewable by many of us. There is going to be a "Great Conjunction" of two of the giant gas planets in our solar system, Saturn and Jupiter. You can read more about it in this article from The Washington Post: "Rare double planet conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter to land on on winter solstice."
Do a Google search in which direction and area of the sky to look for the planets to appear to meet and merge in the sky and about what time to see it. Tomorrow will be the peak viewing time, but the planets will appear to be relatively close together and may appear as a large "star," depending on your location, even on Christmas Eve (December 24) and Christmas itself on December 25. We celebrate the birth of the pagan "Sun" god and the birth of the Christian "Son of god" on the same day thanks to an adoption of the ancient celebratory date for the birth of the pagan "Sun" god by the early Christian church in the 4th century CE. Many think that a conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter that occurred around the traditional time it is said Christ was born may have created what is called the "Star of Bethelem" that the traditional tale as told in the Bible says led the "Three Magi" from the East to the Christ child in Bethelem.
Of course the article would tie what's going on right now with a new generation of female players to the smash hit "Queen's Gambit" on Netflix. I confess, I am shocked that so few people knew of this wonderful book and even more shocked that the series became a smash hit. People - READ THE BOOK, it's incredible. I see Amazon has the same edition (from 2003) I have (although I bought mine years ago).
Good Goddess! Everything these days seems to be tied to Walter Tevis's "The Queen's Gambit!" Well, better late than never, although some men have always known (including Kasparov himself, and even Bobby Fischer who used to play against the Polgar sisters in their home in Hungary back in the day) that women can be killer chessplayers as good as any man.
Hola everyone! I meant to post this much earlier, but this time of year finds me very busy. Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year and I go all out decorating my tree, my mantel, and my dining room, shopping for new ornaments (I swear every year I'm not going to do it and every year I do it anyway), etc.
I especially want to share author Katherine Neville's November 30, 2020 Newsletter with you, about "The Queen's Gambit." I can't help but note that Neville was prescient in her September 21, 2020 newsletter about the United States being in a state of "flux" (you can read about it here, as well as my political rant in which I didn't pull my punches against Donald J. Trump and his enablers). Perhaps Netflix's production of "The Queen's Gambit" during this particular time in our history will rejuvenate chess in the United States, particularly when it comes to female players, like Bobby Fischer's success did for chess more than 40 years ago.
Here I am [photo not included from Newsletter], with Chess Grandmaster and World Champion, Susan Polgar, at our book launch party for The Fire (sequel to The Eight) held in Washington DC! Grandmaster Polgar was one of our co-hosts for that event; she also found for us the great Black Queen that appears with us here. And Susan's husband Paul Truong took many of the wonderful photos of that evening, which appear on my web site, in my Author section.
Hundreds of you–my friends and fellow readers, from every age and every walk of life–have been writing to me, asking if I’ve seen the new television miniseries, The Queen’s Gambit, which is based on the novel of the same name by Walter Tevis (author of The Hustler, The Color of Money.) I read the book long ago, as well as every piece of fiction ever written about chess, since I was about to write my book–The Eight–where the entire plot, a swashbuckling adventure story, is based on a major chess game taking place over a period of two hundred years, all around the world.
By contrast, Walter Tevis’ book is the story of a troubled young woman, obsessed with chess, who overcomes all obstacles and goes on to become World Champion. Not only have I watched the series, but seeing it converted to screen was a real inspiration to me. In short, the screenwriters, actors, and director really did a great job, and they have even improved upon Walter Tevis’s original book! The screenplay sparkles with adventure, suspense, and action that’s hard to convey in such a cerebral story.
It is also of genuine interest to me, that not only the original author, Walter Tevis, but nearly all of the film’s developers–producers, director, and screenwriters–are men. This goes to show that really intelligent men can see inside a woman’s mind–at least in fiction!
This story also shows that a strong, intelligent woman can benefit by the gallantry and support of the men around her–even when competing against them! Chess, like the Kama Sutra, originated in India as a cosmic dance. From medieval times–in literature like Roman de La Rose, to Shakespeare’s The Tempest–women played chess with men as a romantic courting ritual.
It’s an Alchemy that we need to bring back, today!
(Go to the link to read the rest of the Newsletter and see the photographs included in the article).
I am inclined not to agree with Ms. Neville's statement that chess originated in India. This is, in my opinion, a myth that has been accepted by chess historians as truth rather than the unproven supposition it is, based on no actual physical (archaeological) evidence of which I am aware directly linking an ancient form of chess to India, and even more questionable reasoning and rationalizing by H.J.R. Murray, author of the famous (infamous) "History of Chess" written at the end of the 19th century. There is more physical evidence for chess or a forerunner of the game actually being played in ancient Persia (today's Iran) or at the very least, along the ancient trade route from China to the Middle East and beyond (the Silk Road) in the form of actually excavated identifiable chess pieces from Afrasiyab, a ruined city said to have been founded by one of Persia's ancient kings in then Persian territory (northeast Persia). The ruins, surrounded in part by the modern city of Samarkand (Samarqand), are in the country now called Uzbekistan along the now long gone ancient Silk Road route.
But I agree with Neville that the true beauty of chess is to be found in the dance of the pieces on the board, and the intellectual and emotional acrobatics and interaction that takes place when two players sit across from each other to match wits, skill, and spirit. The dance can become particularly interesting when it is a female and male sitting across the board from each other, for many different reasons.
The ancient Egyptians called their gaming pieces jbAw, pronounced something like ebau (abau) or ebou(abou) - "dancer." The ancient Egyptians, who loved their word play, carved their oldest gaming pieces out of elephant ivory (bw), pronounced something like ab "elephant," and abu, "elephant's tooth." Our English word "ivory" comes from the Latin ebor or ebur, which came directly from the Egyptian word(s) for "elephant."
History bit: The Mitre, the headdress worn by Bishops in the Catholic Church, is an ancient symbol of power and authority which was adopted from the even older use of a horn or horns in a headdress that was worn only by those who held great positions of power, such as Kings and their closest advisors. Interestingly, ancient depictions of shamans and what some archaeologists have suggested may be "gods" depicted in ancient cave art and on ancient rock carvings appear to be wearing horns, so the link between "power" and the horn or horns from a mighty animal is extremely ancient, pre-dating writing by thousands of years. The Egyptian word "Pharaoh" which is generally translated as "great house" began life as some form of tent/hut which was ornamented above the door with a set of elephant tusks or bovine horns. I assume that as the climate along the Nile changed over the millennia and elephants moved further south in Africa, bovine horns (Hathor, anyone?) replaced the elephant tusks.
Of course, chess pieces dance! Even I, not even a competent enough player to call myself a patzer, know that. Here's an interesting article from 2018 from the Southwest Journal (a Minneapolis, Minnesota based publication) entitled "A Dance of Chess Pieces." Fantastic article by Nate Gotlieb.
And I always go back to one of my favorite videos from the 1980s musical "Chess," One Night in Bangkok sung by Murray Head.
Watch what you say, or they'll be calling you a radical, a liberal, an intellectual, a criminal... The Logical Song (paraphrased), Supertramp, 1979
"We are what we defend, what we stand up for." Da Vinci Code, as spoken by the character Sophie Saunier in the movie version to character Professor Robert Langdon.
2012 Goddesschess Canadian Women's Closed Chess Championship
2014 SPONSORSHIPS
Hales Corners Chess Challenge XIX April 12, 2014 Milwaukee, WI Prizes for female players in Open and Reserve sections and paid entry to next HCCC for top female finisher in each section. This is Goddesschess' 12th HCCC!
2014 Grand Pacific Open Easter Weekend, 2014 Victoria, BC Prizes and sponsorship for chess femmes
Goddesschess Fighting Spirit Award
2013 U.S. Women's Chess Championship
2013 SPONSORSHIPS
Hales Corners Chess Challenge XVIII October 12, 2013 Milwaukee, WI Record prize money awarded to chess femmes - $800! In honor of National Chess Day and the one year anniversary of the passing of our webmaster, researcher and writer, Don McLean, additional prizes of $150 were awarded to the top two male finishers in each Section. Milwaukee Summer Challenge II June 15 - 16, 2013 Milwaukee, WI Prizes for the chess femmes and funding a best game prize
2013 U.S. Women's Chess Championship May, 2013 St. Louis, MO Goddesschess Fighting Spirit Award awarded to Anna Zatonskih Hales Corners Chess Challenge XVII April 13, 2013 Milwaukee, WI Goddesschess prizes totaled $540: $180 paid to female players in the Open $290 paid to female players in the Reserve $70 paid for the top female players' entry to Challenge XVIII in October, 2013
2013 Grand Pacific Open Easter Weekend March 29 - April 1, 2013 Victoria, BC Prizes for female players and additional sponsorship to support appearance of a WGM
Hales Corners Challenge XVI
Prizes for Chess Femmes
2012 Milwaukee Summer Challenge July 14-15, 2012
Prizes for Chess Femmes
Hales Corners Challenge XV
Prizes for the Chess Femmes
2012 Grand Pacific Open
Open Prizes for Top 5 Women
2012 SPONSORSHIPS
Hales Corners Challenge XVI October 20, 2012
2012 Goddesschess Canadian Women's Chess Championship (Zonal) August 4 - 11, 2012
Milwaukee Summer Challenge by Southwest Chess Club July, 2012
91st Montreal Open Chess Championship September 9 - 11, 2011 Montreal, Quebec, Canada 2011 U.S. Women's Chess Championship April 15 - 28, 2011 St. Louis, Missouri, USA
5th Annual Grand Pacific Open April 22 -25, 2011 British Columbia, Canada
Hales Corners Challenge XIII April 16, 2011 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA
I'm one of the founders of Goddesschess, which went online May 6, 1999. I earned an under-graduate degree in history and economics going to college part-time nights, weekends and summer school while working full-time, and went on to earn a post-graduate degree (J.D.) I love the challenge of research, and spend my spare time reading and writing about my favorite subjects, travelling and working in my gardens. My family and my friends are most important in my life. For the second half of my life, I'm focusing on "doable" things to help local chess initiatives, starting in my own home town. And I'm experiencing a sort of personal "Renaissance" that is leaving me rather breathless...
