Festive fun.
3 Christmas puzzles (not too hard - one is for film buffs.)
After the puzzle an RHP game (or two) linked to the puzzle.
Then a very unique wrap up from Richius - andruike RHP 2014
We close the last bloggy thing of the year with one my
.....er......brilliancies which finished just a few days ago.
Blog 4
(forgot to add to that bit on the last post.)
Looking for inspiration for the Christmas Quiz I found myself flicking through
CHESS magazine Christmas 1970 and came across Levy's article on the
Palma de Mallorca tournament.
The event Fischer won by 3½ pts. to qualify for the World Championship Candidates.
Levy delves into the money Benko was paid to drop out to allow Fischer
to play and the money Fischer was paid to appear.
The appearance fee was 'reputedly' $15,000. The first prize in the
tournamnet was just under $1,500.
You would have thought with much more than first place prize money in
his back pocket he would have eased up towards the end.
Another item of Fischer interest was a letter by Bob Wade saying he asked
Fischer in 1959 what kind of book would benenfit the English chess players the most.
Fischer replied saying one that does not talk down to the reader and the
reader must understand that he must be prepared to work on the material presented.
AH...now I get it. It's not enough to buy the book. You have to read and
study it. That is where I've been wrong. Damn! I've got nearly 50 years of
reading to catch up on.
(...and I bet everyone reading this has unread chess books dotted about their house.)
So did I get any Christmas inspiration from the magazine?
No, instead I found myself playing over a handful of games from the Palma
de Mallorca and storing ideas for future blogs.