Scotch sonata - Piper's dream
by Clay Feet

Forlorn beauty-child
Living in my night
Crying in your dream.
Sounds of sorrow
Linger in the morning mist
Of subdued consciousness.

Troubled water falls
From awakened red eyes
That searched inside loneliness
Only to find more.

Now...

Behind my faceted face
Your countenance lingers...
I glance quickly within,
You disappear!

Your gaze lit my shadowed mind.
Your presence was there waiting
For me…

A Sonata…
A Fantasy
A Major key bright-shining
Singing sunbeams to lift me.

After the music...

Shards of shattered dreams
Scattered like felled icicles
lying in the sun, melting into mulch
They dawned bright green
Pipers on Scottish dew.

The mourning moon is
Catchlight in your eyes
Bright Bird...

Captivating sailors
Reaching down evoking vulnerable
Aspects held so long secret...

"You can only get good at chess if you love the game." ― Bobby Fischer

"When I am in form, my style is a little bit stubborn, almost brutal. Sometimes I feel a great spirit of fight which drives me on." ― Boris Spassky

"After we have paid our dutiful respects to such frigid virtues as calculation, foresight, self-control and the like, we always come back to the thought that speculative attack is the lifeblood of chess." — Fred Reinfeld

"After I won the title, I was confronted with the real world. People do not behave naturally anymore - hypocrisy is everywhere." ― Boris Spassky

"Be active. I do things my way, like skiing when I'm 100. Nobody else does that even if they have energy. And I try to eat pretty correctly and get exercise and fresh air and sunshine." ― Elsa Bailey, first time skier at age 100

"Don't look at the calendar, just keep celebrating every day." ― Ruth Coleman, carpe diem at age 101

Napoleon Gambit
General
Modern 4...Qh4
Meitner
Schmidt
Mieses
Fraser
Classical
Classical Blackburne Attack
Classical, Intermezzo
13.7 Classical, Millennium
Potter

Steinitz 4...Qh4
Horwitz 4...Qh4
Tartakower

Scotch Gambit
Goring Gambit
Scotch Gambit, Advance
Miscellaneous
Four Knights Scotch, Accepted

"Chess is life in miniature. Chess is a struggle, chess battles." — Garry Kasparov

"Sometimes in life, and in chess, you must take one step back to take two steps forward." — IM Levy Rozman, GothamChess

So much, much, much better to be an incurable optimist than deceitful and untrustworthy.

"Don't blow your own trumpet." — Australian Proverb

Old Russian Proverb: "Scythe over a stone." (Нашла коса на камень.) The force came over a stronger force.

"Continuing to play the victim is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Blaming others for your station in life will indeed make you a victim but the perpetrator will be your own self, not life or those around you." — Bobby Darnell

<"Sestrilla, hafelina
Jue amourasestrilla
Awou jue selaviena
En patre jue

Translation:

Beloved one, little cat
I love you for all time
In this time
And all others"
― Christine Feehan>

<chess writer and poet Henry Thomas Bland.

Another example of his way with words is the start of ‘Internal Fires', a poem published on page 57 of the March 1930 American Chess Bulletin:

I used to play chess with the dearest old chap,
Whom naught could upset whatever might hap.
He'd oft lose a game he might well have won
But made no excuse for what he had done.
If a piece he o'erlooked and got it snapped up He took it quite calmly and ne'er ‘cut up rough'.>

"You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore." ― William Faulkner

"Sometimes in life, and in chess, you must take one step back to take two steps forward." — IM Levy Rozman, GothamChess

So much, much, much better to be an incurable optimist than deceitful and untrustworthy.

Old Russian Proverb: "Scythe over a stone." (Нашла коса на камень.) The force came over a stronger force.

"It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things." ― Leonardo da Vinci

<Q: How do poets say hello? A: "Hey, haven't we metaphor?"

Thank you Qindarka!

Q: What do you call a cow jumping on a trampoline? A: A milkshake.>

The Words Of Socrates

A house was built by Socrates
That failed the public taste to please.
Some blamed the inside; some, the out; and all
Agreed that the apartments were too small.
Such rooms for him, the greatest sage of Greece!

"I ask," said he, "no greater bliss
Than real friends to fill even this."
And reason had good Socrates
To think his house too large for these.
A crowd to be your friends will claim,
Till some unhandsome test you bring.
There's nothing plentier than the name;
There's nothing rarer than the thing.

Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER

<Shakespearean Puns
Perhaps no writer is better known for the use of puns than William Shakespeare. He plays with "tide" and "tied" in Two Gentlemen of Verona:

"Panthino
Away, ass! You'll lose the tide if you tarry any longer.

Launce
It is no matter if the tied were lost; for it is the unkindest tied that ever any man tied.

Panthino
What's the unkindest tide?

Launce
Why, he that's tied here, Crab, my dog."

In the opening of Richard III, the sun refers to the blazing sun on Edward IV's banner and the fact that he is the son of the Duke of York:

"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York."

In this line from Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare plays on the different meanings of heavy (which also means sad) and light:

"Give me a torch: I am not for this ambling; Being but heavy I will bear the light."

Later in Romeo and Juliet, a morbid pun comes from a fatally-stabbed Mercutio, where grave means serious, but also alludes to his imminent death:

"Ask for me tomorrow, you shall find me a grave man."

If you open any Shakesperean play, you're likely to find at least one pun on the page! Keep an eye out for a clever play on words example the next time you read Hamlet or watch As You Like It on the stage.>

Dec-12-16 DrGridlock: Q: When is a pin not a pin? A: When the piece is:
(i) not pinned to the king
and
(ii) in moving the piece threatens either mate or greater material gain than what it was pinned to. (iii) in moving the piece now defends the unit it was pinned to, such as Nf3xd4 and protects the Be2 that was behind the knight.

<The Chess Player
by Howard Altmann

They've left. They've all left.
The pigeon feeders have left.
The old men on the benches have left.
The white-gloved ladies with the Great Danes have left. The lovers who thought about coming have left.
The man in the three-piece suit has left.
The man who was a three-piece band has left.
The man on the milkcrate with the bible has left. Even the birds have left.
Now the trees are thinking about leaving too.
And the grass is trying to turn itself in.
Of course the buses no longer pass.
And the children no longer ask.
The air wants to go and is in discussions.
The clouds are trying to steer clear.
The sky is reaching for its hands.
Even the moon sees what's going on.
But the stars remain in the dark.
As does the chess player.
Who sits with all his pieces
In position.>

Capitonyms are words which change their meaning if the first letter is capitalized. For example: Turkey (the country) and turkey (the bird).

English Bards, And Scotch Reviewers
Lord Byron

Still must I hear?—shall hoarse FITZGERALD bawl His creaking couplets in a tavern hall,
And I not sing, lest, haply, Scotch Reviews
Should dub me scribbler, and denounce my Muse?
Prepare for rhyme—I'll publish, right or wrong: Fools are my theme, let Satire be my song.

Oh! Nature's noblest gift—my grey goose-quill! Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will,
Torn from thy parent bird to form a pen,
That mighty instrument of little men!
The pen! foredoomed to aid the mental throes
Of brains that labour, big with Verse or Prose;
Though Nymphs forsake, and Critics may deride,
The Lover's solace, and the Author's pride.
What Wits! what Poets dost thou daily raise!
How frequent is thy use, how small thy praise!
Condemned at length to be forgotten quite,
With all the pages which 'twas thine to write. But thou, at least, mine own especial pen!
Once laid aside, but now assumed again,
Our task complete, like Hamet's shall be free; Though spurned by others, yet beloved by me:
Then let us soar to-day; no common theme,
No Eastern vision, no distempered dream
Inspires—our path, though full of thorns, is plain; Smooth be the verse, and easy be the strain.

When Vice triumphant holds her sov'reign sway, Obey'd by all who nought beside obey;
When Folly, frequent harbinger of crime,
Bedecks her cap with bells of every Clime;
When knaves and fools combined o'er all prevail, And weigh their Justice in a Golden Scale;
E'en then the boldest start from public sneers, Afraid of Shame, unknown to other fears,
More darkly sin, by Satire kept in awe,
And shrink from Ridicule, though not from Law.

Such is the force of Wit! I but not belong
To me the arrows of satiric song;
The royal vices of our age demand
A keener weapon, and a mightier hand.
Still there are follies, e'en for me to chase, And yield at least amusement in the race:
Laugh when I laugh, I seek no other fame,
The cry is up, and scribblers are my game:
Speed, Pegasus!—ye strains of great and small, Ode! Epic! Elegy!—have at you all!
I, too, can scrawl, and once upon a time
I poured along the town a flood of rhyme,
A schoolboy freak, unworthy praise or blame;
I printed—older children do the same.
'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print; A Book's a Book, altho' there's nothing in't. Not that a Title's sounding charm can save
Or scrawl or scribbler from an equal grave:
This LAMB must own, since his patrician name
Failed to preserve the spurious Farce from shame. No matter, GEORGE continues still to write,
Tho' now the name is veiled from public sight. Moved by the great example, I pursue
The self-same road, but make my own review:
Not seek great JEFFREY'S, yet like him will be Self-constituted Judge of Poesy.

A man must serve his time to every trade
Save Censure—Critics all are ready made.
Take hackneyed jokes from MILLER, got by rote,
With just enough of learning to misquote;
A man well skilled to find, or forge a fault;
A turn for punning—call it Attic salt;
To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet,
His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet:
Fear not to lie,'twill seem a sharper hit;
Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for wit; Care not for feeling—pass your proper jest,
And stand a Critic, hated yet caress'd.

And shall we own such judgment? no—as soon
Seek roses in December—ice in June;
Hope constancy in wind, or corn in chaff,
Believe a woman or an epitaph,
Or any other thing that's false, before
You trust in Critics, who themselves are sore;
Or yield one single thought to be misled
By Jeffrey's heart, or LAMB'S Boeotian head.
To these young tyrants, by themselves misplaced, Combined usurpers on the Throne of Taste;
To these, when Authors bend in humble awe,
And hail their voice as Truth, their word as Law; While these are Censors, 'twould be sin to spare; While such are Critics, why should I forbear?
But yet, so near all modern worthies run,
'Tis doubtful whom to seek, or whom to shun;
Nor know we when to spare, or where to strike,
Our Bards and Censors are so much alike.
Then should you ask me, why I venture o'er
The path which POPE and GIFFORD trod before;
If not yet sickened, you can still proceed;
Go on; my rhyme will tell you as you read.
"But hold!" exclaims a friend,—"here's some neglect: This—that—and t'other line seem incorrect." What then? the self-same blunder Pope has got,
And careless Dryden—"Aye, but Pye has not:"— Indeed!—'tis granted, faith!—but what care I? Better to err with POPE, than shine with PYE.

Time was, ere yet in these degenerate days
Ignoble themes obtained mistaken praise,
When Sense and Wit with Poesy allied,
No fabled Graces, flourished side by side,
From the same fount their inspiration drew,
And, reared by Taste, bloomed fairer as they grew. Then, in this happy Isle, a POPE'S pure strain Sought the rapt soul to charm, nor sought in vain; A polished nation's praise aspired to claim,
And raised the people's, as the poet's fame. Like him great DRYDEN poured the tide of song,
In stream less smooth, indeed, yet doubly strong. Then CONGREVE'S scenes could cheer, or OTWAY'S melt; For Nature then an English audience felt—
But why these names, or greater still, retrace,
When all to feebler Bards resign their place?
Yet to such times our lingering looks are cast,
When taste and reason with those times are past. Now look around, and turn each trifling page,
Survey the precious works that please the age;
This truth at least let Satire's self allow,
No dearth of Bards can be complained of now.
The loaded Press beneath her labour groans,
And Printers' devils shake their weary bones;
While SOUTHEY'S Epics cram the creaking shelves, And LITTLE'S Lyrics shine in hot-pressed twelves. Thus saith the Preacher: "Nought beneath the sun Is new," yet still from change to change we run. What varied wonders tempt us as they pass!
The Cow-pox, Tractors, Galvanism, and Gas,
In turns appear, to make the ****** stare,
Till the swoln bubble bursts—and all is air!
Nor less new schools of Poetry arise,
Where dull pretenders grapple for the prize:
O'er Taste awhile these Pseudo-bards prevail;
Each country Book-club bows the knee to Baal,
And, hurling lawful Genius from the throne,
Erects a shrine and idol of its own;
Some leaden calf—but whom it matters not,
From soaring SOUTHEY, down to groveling STOTT.

Behold! in various throngs the scribbling crew, For notice eager, pass in long review:
Each spurs his jaded Pegasus apace,
And Rhyme and Blank maintain an equal race;
Sonnets on sonnets crowd, and ode on ode;
And Tales of Terror jostle on the road;
Immeasurable measures move along;
For simpering Folly loves a varied song,
To strange, mysterious Dulness still the friend, Admires the strain she cannot comprehend.
Thus Lays of Minstrels—may they be the last!— On half-strung harps whine mournful to the blast. While mountain spirits prate to river sprites,
That dames may listen to the sound at nights;
And goblin brats, of Gilpin Horner's brood
Decoy young Border-nobles through the wood,
And skip at every step, Lord knows how high,
And frighten foolish babes, the Lord knows why;
While high-born ladies in their magic cell,
Forbidding Knights to read who cannot spell,
Despatch a courier to a wizard's grave,
And fight with honest men to shield a knave.

Next view in state, proud prancing on his roan, The golden-crested haughty Marmion,
Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight,
Not quite a Felon, yet but half a Knight.
The gibbet or the field prepared to grace;
A mighty mixture of the great and base.
And think'st thou, SCOTT! by vain conceit perchance, On public taste to foist thy stale romance,
Though MURRAY with his MILLER may combine
To yield thy muse just half-a-crown per line?
No! when the sons of song descend to trade,
Their bays are sear, their former laurels fade,
Let such forego the poet's sacred name,
Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame:
Still for stern Mammon may they toil in vain!
And sadly gaze on Gold they cannot gain!
Such be their meed, such still the just reward
Of prostituted Muse and hireling bard!
For this we spurn Apollo's venal son,
And bid a long "good night to Marmion."

These are the themes that claim our plaudits now; These are the Bards to whom the Muse must bow;
While MILTON, DRYDEN, POPE, alike forgot,
Resign their hallowed Bays to WALTER SCOTT.

The time has been, when yet the Muse was young, When HOMER swept the lyre, and MARO sung,
An Epic scarce ten centuries could claim,
While awe-struck nations hailed the magic name:
The work of each immortal Bard appears
The single wonder of a thousand years.
Empires have mouldered from the face of earth,
Tongues have expired with those who gave them birth, Without the glory such a strain can give,
As even in ruin bids the language live.
Not so with us, though minor Bards, content,
On one great work a life of labour spent:
With eagle pinion soaring to the skies,
Behold the Ballad-monger SOUTHEY rise!
To him let CAMOËNS, MILTON, TASSO yield,
Whose annual strains, like armies, take the field. First in the ranks see Joan of Arc advance,
The scourge of England and the boast of France!
Though burnt by wicked BEDFORD for a witch,
Behold her statue placed in Glory's niche;
Her fetters burst, and just released from prison, A ****** Phoenix from her ashes risen.
Next see tremendous Thalaba come on,
Arabia's monstrous, wild, and wond'rous son; Domdaniel's dread destroyer, who o'erthrew
More mad magicians than the world e'er knew.
Immortal Hero! all thy foes o'ercome,
For ever reign—the rival of Tom Thumb!
Since startled Metre fled before thy face,
Well wert thou doomed the last of all thy race!
Well might triumphant Genii bear thee hence,
Illustrious conqueror of common sense!
Now, last and greatest, Madoc spreads his sails, Cacique in Mexico, and Prince in Wales;
Tells us strange tales, as other travellers do,
More old than Mandeville's, and not so true.
Oh, SOUTHEY! SOUTHEY! cease thy varied song!
A bard may chaunt too often and too long:
As thou art strong in verse, in mercy, spare!
A fourth, alas! were more than we could bear.
But if, in spite of all the world can say,
Thou still wilt verseward plod thy weary way;
If still in Berkeley-Ballads most uncivil,
Thou wilt devote old women to the devil,
The babe unborn thy dread intent may rue:
"God help thee," SOUTHEY, and thy readers too.

Next comes the dull disciple of thy school,
That mild apostate from poetic rule,
The simple WORDSWORTH, framer of a lay
As soft as evening in his favourite May,
Who warns his friend "to shake off toil and trouble, And quit his books, for fear of growing double;" Who, both by precept and example, shows
That prose is verse, and verse is merely prose;
Convincing all, by demonstration plain,
Poetic souls delight in prose insane;
And Christmas stories tortured into rhyme
Contain the essence of the true sublime.
Thus, when he tells the tale of Betty Foy,
The idiot mother of "an idiot Boy;"
A moon-struck, silly lad, who lost his way,
And, like his bard, confounded night with day
So close on each pathetic part he dwells,
And each adventure so sublimely tells,
That all who view the "idiot in his glory"
Conceive the Bard the hero of the story.

Shall gentle COLERIDGE pass unnoticed here,
To turgid ode and tumid stanza dear?
Though themes of innocence amuse him best,
Yet still Obscurity's a welcome guest.
If Inspiration should her aid refuse
To him who takes a Pixy for a muse,
Yet none in lofty numbers can surpass
The bard who soars to elegize an ***:
So well the subject suits his noble mind,
He brays, the Laureate of the long-eared kind.

Oh! wonder-working LEWIS! Monk, or Bard,
Who fain would make Parnassus a church-yard!
Lo! wreaths of yew, not laurel, bind thy brow,
Thy Muse a Sprite, Apollo's sexton thou!
Whether on ancient tombs thou tak'st thy stand, By gibb'ring spectres hailed, thy kindred band; Or tracest chaste descriptions on thy page,
To please the females of our modest age;
All hail, M.P.! from whose infernal brain
Thin-sheeted phantoms glide, a grisly train;
At whose command "grim women" throng in crowds, And kings of fire, of water, and of clouds,
With "small grey men,"—"wild yagers," and what not, To crown with honour thee and WALTER SCOTT:
Again, all hail! if tales like thine may please, St. Luke alone can vanquish the disease:
Even Satan's self with thee might dread to dwell, And in thy skull discern a deeper Hell.

Who in soft guise, surrounded by a choir
Of virgins melting, not to Vesta's fire,
With sparkling eyes, and cheek by passion flushed Strikes his wild lyre, whilst listening dames are hushed? 'Tis LITTLE! young Catullus of his day,
As sweet, but as immoral, in his Lay!
Grieved to condemn, the Muse must still be just, Nor spare melodious advocates of lust.
Pure is the flame which o'er her altar burns;
From grosser incense with disgust she turns
Yet kind to youth, this expiation o'er,
She bids thee "mend thy line, and sin no more."

For thee, translator of the tinsel song,
To whom such glittering ornaments belong,
Hibernian STRANGFORD! with thine eyes of blue,
And boasted locks of red or auburn hue,
Whose plaintive strain each love-sick Miss admires, And o'er harmonious fustian half expires,
Learn, if thou canst, to yield thine author's sense, Nor vend thy sonnets on a false pretence.
Think'st thou to gain thy verse a higher place, By dressing Camoëns in a suit of lace?
Mend, STRANGFORD! mend thy morals and thy taste; Be warm, but pure; be amorous, but be chaste:
Cease to deceive; thy pilfered harp restore,
Nor teach the Lusian Bard to copy MOORE.

Behold—Ye Tarts!—one moment spare the text!— HAYLEY'S last work, and worst—until his next; Whether he spin poor couplets into plays,
Or **** the dead with purgatorial praise,
His style in youth or age is still the same,
For ever feeble and for ever tame.
Triumphant first see "Temper's Triumphs" shine! At least I'm sure they triumphed over mine.
Of "Music's Triumphs," all who read may swear That luckless Music never triumph'd there.

Moravians, rise! bestow some meet reward
On dull devotion—Lo! the Sabbath Bard,
Sepulchral GRAHAME, pours his notes sublime
In mangled prose, nor e'en aspires to rhyme;
Breaks into blank the Gospel of St. Luke,
And boldly pilfers from the Pentateuch;
And, undisturbed by conscientious qualms,
Perverts the Prophets, and purloins the Psalms.

Hail, Sympathy! thy soft idea brings"
A thousand visions of a thousand things,
And shows, still whimpering thro' threescore of years, The maudlin prince of mournful sonneteers.
And art thou not their prince, harmonious Bowles! Thou first, great oracle of tender souls?
Whether them sing'st with equal ease, and grief, The fall of empires, or a yellow leaf;
Whether thy muse most lamentably tells
What merry sounds proceed from Oxford bells,
Or, still in bells delighting, finds a friend
In every chime that jingled from Ostend;
Ah! how much juster were thy Muse's hap,
If to thy bells thou would'st but add a cap!
Delightful BOWLES! still blessing and still blest, All love thy strain, but children like it best.
'Tis thine, with gentle LITTLE'S moral song, To soothe the mania of the amorous throng!
With thee our nursery damsels shed their tears,
Ere Miss as yet completes her infant years:
But in her teens thy whining powers are vain;
She quits poor BOWLES for LITTLE'S purer strain. Now to soft themes thou scornest to confine
The lofty numbers of a harp like thine;
"Awake a louder and a loftier strain,"
Such as none heard before, or will again!
Where all discoveries jumbled from the flood,
Since first the leaky ark reposed in mud,
By more or less, are sung in every book,
From Captain Noah down to Captain Cook.
Nor this alone—but, pausing on the road,
The Bard sighs forth a gentle episode,
And gravely tells—attend, each beauteous Miss!— When first Madeira trembled to a kiss.
Bowles! in thy memory let this precept dwell,
Stick to thy Sonnets, Man!—at least they sell. But if some new-born whim, or larger bribe,
Prompt thy crude brain, and claim thee for a scribe: If ‘chance some bard, though once by dunces feared, Now, prone in dust, can only be revered;
If Pope, whose fame and genius, from the first,
Have foiled the best of critics, needs the worst, Do thou essay: each fault, each failing scan;
The first of poets

* C45s: https://www.chessgames.com/perl/che...

* YS Tactics: Game Collection: Yasser Seirawan's Winning Chess Tactics

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. Luke 2:9, 10.

"You can only get good at chess if you love the game." ― Bobby Fischer

"Be active. I do things my way, like skiing when I'm 100. Nobody else does that even if they have energy. And I try to eat pretty correctly and get exercise and fresh air and sunshine." ― Elsa Bailey, first time skier at age 100

"Don't look at the calendar, just keep celebrating every day." ― Ruth Coleman, carpe diem at age 101

508 zoom: move 29. zooter Frit xp drip drip drip Kh2? trolly pikcled hiz puter Mozetic set buttr peace did knot stixs man stones.