Chess Musical + Pottery + Noah's Ark

[b]It helps if you are carrying a small battered briefcase but it is
not a necessity.

I’m of course talking about scoring free tickets for the Edinburgh Fringe.

You approach the Festival Fringe desk which is usually manned
(or womanned) by some clot with a dopey smile and painted face.

“Tickets for review?” you say and if you are early enough and look
the part then a handful of tickets are slid towards you.

You can sell the tickets for half price in the pub or give them away
to a pretty tourist if you are on the pull.

You don’t actually go and watch any of these shows unless you want
to see a handful public school boys cracking jokes about kebabs or
the tales of them sweating over exam results.
Hoo-Har Henry’s who no doubt will be tomorrow’s stars.

However last time out I was given two tickets for CHESS the musical.



This is a picture of the poster for CHESS stuck onto a bus stop.

Unable to find a pretty tourist I took along the wife and for once
we agreed on something. The show was crap.

Eight grown men dressed as pawns singing about being a pawn,
two pantomime horses singing songs about being Knights.
No Bishops, one sad Rook, an unsexy Queen and a ham King.

No chess players. I thought Anand or Kramnik would have made
an appearance, but no. The whole thing was very disappointing.















Thread 133377 posted by redpen1919 on the 22nd. August.

redpen1919 is going to attempt to make chess sets out of clay.

He will soon have his own BLOG with a feature called: ‘Pot of the Week’

redpen1919 is heavily into making things from clay, he’s potty.
There is nothing he is not willing to turn his craft too.
He wears clay clothes, lives in a clay house and drives a clay car.

So I toddled along to my local Arts & Crafts shop and bought
some ‘Sticky-Mickey’ modeling clay and gave it a bash.

Instructions.
Sculpt figurine of your choice.
Bake for 30 minutes at gas mark 5.
Allow 1 hour to cool.

A cinch.


















30 minutes later….






















The Noah’s Ark Trap.

So named because apparently it’s that old Noah was catching people
with it just after the great flood 5,000 years ago.

Here it is in it’s most common form coming from the Ruy Lopez.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 d6 5.d4 b5 6.Bb3 Nxd4 7.Nxd4 exd4 8.Qxd4 c5.



The Queen moves and c4 sticks the Bishop.

Infact it’s so old it was probably invented before the game of chess.
This drawing was found inside a cave in the Pongyinghew Valley.















And yet players still fall for it.

Now I know what you are thinking….



Here White can play 9. Qd5 hitting the Rook and threatening mate on f7.
And it’s this very attractive move that is the reason why so many players fall for it.
(you just did).

Black can stop both threats and still nick the Bishop.
It looks like White has a perpetual but after the wee dance of death between
the Queen and Bishop Black slips in c4 and the music has stopped.

mazziewag - legoon. RHP 2006



The Ark Trap snagging a hapless Bishop can come from almost any opening.
The Sicilian has it’s own very plausible 5 move variation.

jthemang - Anakngpogi. RHP 2008

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 b5 5.Bb3 c4



And it’s not just Black who can float the Ark.
This is a near mirror of the above game coming from the English.

xylem - marvinni. RHP 2007

1.c4 e6 2.d3 Nf6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Bd2 0–0 5.a3 Ba5 6.b4 Bb6 7.c5 1–0



However beware, Kingside Ark building is very dodgy,

mmmmisha - thomby. RHP 2005

1.d4 f5 2.Bg5 h6 3.Bh4 g5 4.Bg3 f4 5.e3



5….fxg3 6.Qh5 mate

So unless you want to join the 1,000’s of players who been sunk by the Ark
then give those Bishop retreats after a3/a6 & h3/h6 a second glance.

Of course if you are paying a nutcase then you can supply the wood and nails
to help him build the Ark. He will then build his own coffin.

Macroman - ronmeister1966. RHP 2006