Grimbald

Who or what is a Grimbald I hear you ask. Well for me it begins with a joke on my University radio about prizes being dished out for those who could create the longest most excruciating Grimmmbaaalld pronunciation. A cheap laugh. I had no idea there was a chess connection until quite recently. Chess doesn't have a patron saint. It does have a muse (Caissa by name). However, for the English Grimbald /Grunwald is the nearest thing to a patron saint of chess. He was a Benedictine monk and Frankish KNIGHT. He so impressed KING Alfred the Great, whilst the KING was on pilgrimage, that KING Alfred asked the ArchBISHOP of Rheims to release him. The ArchBISHOP was reluctant to lose him but thought that Grimbald would be promoted to a BISHOP in Wessex (the Saxon rump state of what has become England). Grimbald mostly served as a great scholar in Westminster. He never did become a BISHOP. However, he became a legendary figure who is supposed to have laid the foundation stone for Oxford University and introduced chess to Wessex. When he died, even his living opponents started to think of him as a saint. Incidentally, Grimbald/Grunwald does not mean what it sounds like in English. It means the complete opposite. It means green forest. Probably the English name equivalent is Greenwood. There was a battle of Grunwald where the Polish/Lithuanian alliance defeated the Teutonic Knights on 15/07/1410.
I am an experienced OTB player. Presently, about 1950 ELO. One of the nice things about this medium of play is that it allows me to get my openings in. Across the board, I am the world's greatest expert at forgetting openings. I prefer to remind people before I take skulls but sometimes land up taking them anyway. My preferred time limit is 3 days with 7 days timebank. In practice, I most often move several times a day. I am presently retired.