hardcore pawnography

before we get to the chess portion of the program….

for those who aren’t watching the tour….cancellara STILL has the yellow! freaking amazing, considering the huge crash yesterday at the end, and him limping in with what looked like a shoulder injury. finish was crazy, boonen couldn’t outride his lead out, and the lead out couldn’t slow down with all the heat on his heels, so the lead out won the stage, and boonen took second.

so, today i played for a few hours online, and proceeded to lose nonstop, like i was getting paid for it. i was at that point to where i was realizing i am just not going to ever get it and i need a new hobby, ready to delete the blog and move on with my crappy ass life, when i somehow managed to win. the win was filled with despair and shall be annotated in the style of h.p. lovecraft….

i am black, you can cut and paste and follow along with the pgn viewer over to the left…
1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. e4 Bc5 4. h3 Nc6 5. Nf3 h6
6. d3 d6 7. Be2 b6 8. O-O Nd4 9. a3 Nxf3+ 10. Bxf3 Nh7
11. Qe2 Ng5 12. Be3 Bxe3 13. Qxe3 Nxh3+ 14. gxh3 Bxh3 15. Bg2 Be6
16. Qg3 g5 17. Bh3 Bxh3 18. Qxh3 Qf6 19. Nd5 Qd8 20. Qf5 c6
21. Nf6+ Kf8 22. Nd7+ Kg7 23. f4 Rg8 24. Kh2 gxf4 25. Rg1+ Kh8
26. Rxg8+ Kxg8 27. Rg1+ Kh8 28. Qxf7 Qh4+ 29. Kg2 Rg8+ 30. Kf1 Qh3+
31. Kf2 Qh2+
0-1

the opening, the english, was an appropos name, as it was dreary, gray and somewhat melancholy like the island that bears it’s name. it reminded me of…but i cannot say, as it will bring back the horrors i endured…

by move 5, although it was an english, it vaguely resembled a 4 knights opening, not that i had much expirience with that one either. on move 8 i move my sad horse to d4, an outpost clearly damned and cursed, although “protected” by a pawn and bishop. for some reason, perhaps in a fit of madness, my opponent chose to simply move a3, which i don’t see a reason for, but madness doesn’t need a reason, does it?

i now have a choice of losing my horse by taking either his cleric, or his steed, and i ponder this for a few pensive moments. i decide, perhaps influenced by some dark hand of the old ones, to take his horse, placing his king in a check as feeble as an old woman on her deathbed. my plan now is to move my horse from f6 to g5, in hopes of…but i can not say, the fear grips me like a cold dead hand… the way was rocky, and made perilous by the threat of the dark bishop, but i was prepared to open the rook’s file if need be.

my horse, arriving at his destination, was not met with force, but indifference, as my opponent moved his dark cleric not to take my horse, but to threaten my own bishop. hope had departed. i send my bishop to his death, and now the dark squares are not just dark, as if filled with some gruesome spectre, but weakened as well, weak like an old woman on her death bed…

another choice, take the light bishop, or the pawn? all reason would say to take the bishop, but, driven by madness and a dark and sinister plan that surely would not work, i took the pawn. for this reason alone it is clear god has turned his back on me, as how could he allow me to make such a foolish decision?

but my plan to move my unholy bishop into the kings territory succeeded. so far. my opponent, enraged with bloodlust, tries to again commit the double cleric murder, but i felt a spectral change in all the air, as if the laws of earth were bowing to greater laws, and retreated my bishop. he moves his queen to threaten my king, i advance a pawn, in hopes of one day opening that file and pinning his mistress with my rook. again, driven by madness, he tries to exchange bishops, and i cannot deny him this time. bishop kills bishop, queen takes revenge and kills bishop, and to this day, if you stand on h3, you can hear dark and loathsome laughing, mixed with such a cry as no man else ever heard, save in the Phlegethon of unrelateable nightmares, as the wind carries the tourtured souls of both clerics who died on that very spot.

as if awakening out of some dark dream, the position bore to my benumbed understanding the unexpected and dreadful knowledge that his horse was able to put me in a series of terrible checks, which i may not have escaped. i move my pawn to c6, but it only enrages the beast, and he repeatedly threatens my sire. he advances his pawn, which gives me a breif moment to trade the places of king and rook, but he moves his king out of the line of fire, over to the h file. i take his pawn on f4, to open the file regardless, he answers with a check and we are both a rook lighter.

my king cowering on h8 as if having looked directly upon the beast itself, his rook brazenly commanding the g file, his bloodthirsty queen taking the pawn and menacing on f7 surely there is no hope.

out of sheer desperation, my queen sallies forth to the h file, putting his king in check, taking some kind of initiative. with nowhere to go, his king blocks his rook, and my rook checks. he declines to take with his queen, and instead moves his king to f1, the move of a soul damned for eternity.

the end is in sight, but i musn’t go on, as the events are too terrible to relive. alas, i must stop now, lest the fear becomes too great and madness takes me whole. i can only say that two moves later, in a fit of utter despair, as one who gazes on the abyss, my opponent resignes his game, and his fate.