Archive for August 1st, 2022

Your game has only just finished. With your opponent you courteously enter the analysis room for a look at the game. You sit down together and it starts normally, then suddenly you have a massive panic attack. Visions of shrines, demons, and the wrong lottery numbers, overpower your mind and run riot within it. Flustered and emotionally charged, you jump up and start shouting in another language. You can’t think straight nor think about your game anymore. Many people are alarmed and stop what they are doing, some children look scared almost. Some minutes pass before emotions are held in check again, then it happens again. The same visions return but this time there are extra visions of being tasered by police too, as well as many bottles of booze. It causes you to have another panic attack rendering analysis impossible. Your walk becomes a limp, your head a mess. Your opponent doesn’t know what’s happening and asks what is wrong. What should you say and do?

Ride out the storm. Yes more panic attacks are coming because the visions reappear but we can ride it out.

Or you could bring the analysis to an early end as it isn’t getting me anywhere.

Or you could decide not to invest time and money in the lottery anymore.

Or you could emigrate to Russia and become an alcoholic.

Could you re-alter your sense of time somehow and perhaps avoid being tasered…oh and don’t smash anything else up.

Maybe go for therapy and go on medication?

Now look at this, I’ve got to finish this post up. I’m getting visions of visions which are warping into my own sense of humour.

Last option: make tea not war!

M.J.McCready 0607 August 2

A dark room in a big city.

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I so nearly forgot that tragedy lurks round every corner and can’t be avoided indefinitely. Regarding the lottery, in the mid 90s there was a very tragic case where a young man killed himself because of the lottery. He spent time wondering whether to spend one pound on a valentine’s card for his girlfriend or putting it on the lottery. He chose not to play the lottery that week but his numbers came in and he would have won. But he spent that money on a card and got so angry with himself, he killed himself. A real tragedy I heard over the radio. Sympathies for his family… .

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You are on an old bus lost somehow somewhere in the countryside. You are not thinking about your destination, more so what you see passing by in the windows. The sky is grey, you feel a little sleepy. Suddenly the bus swerves then brakes hard. You turn around to see what’s happened and catch a glimpse of a shrine that passes by. Your head begins filling with chess moves and chess games from yesteryear. Moves from games gone by repeat over and over. The bus stops to allow a beautiful girl to get on. Religious enlightenment doesn’t occur, just more moves repeat themselves. Do you stay on the bus or jump off it, risking certain death?

You stay on the bus and nothing else happens. The girl got off, you arrived at your destination and your head is no longer full of moves and games from yesteryear. But your trousers have got a hole in them? How did it happen on a bus? They are torn, the sky is still grey.

What happens of that day is not worth writing about. You passed a shrine and nothing much really happened. Alone, you walk on home. No one will talk to me because no one is there. Alone I got ready for bed. Then I sat wondering if I would spend my entire life feeling alone. And then went to bed.

Well done for not doing anything. That means nothing but nothing is good. Nothing got smashed up. Nothing.

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You are playing blitz down your local club but as you play the moves aren’t coming into your head. Instead you get lottery numbers then these urges to go out and place bets come.

Would you resign your game and go home or would you leave the club and get some lottery tickets OR would you quit chess altogether, change your identity, buy a plane ticket and start a new life somewhere else. OR would you get a pint of cider at the bar and forget all about it?

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Let’s say you are playing for the county. It’s a Saturday morning and you are in Newmarket, Turner Hall. You are in the middle game and putting up a good fight on the board. Would you get up from your chair whilst your opponent is thinking, walk out of the hall, to a newsagent and put a lottery ticket on in the middle of the game? How would you chose the numbers or have they been communicated to you already?

Would you do that in a county game? I wouldn’t. I’d lose concentration on my game and get done over. No malarkey for county matches. That’s pure chess. No lottery tickets, just chess and only chess. And anyway that town is famous for horse racing, a lot of those lanes are used as bridle paths and stink the place up with horseshit. I don’t want that on my shoes when I am trying to concentrate over the board and win for my team! Fuck that lottery bollocks, some other day maybe. End up with a horseshit sandwich otherwise…ah fuck that bollocks. No lottery and that’s final.

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If you were playing competitive chess and then in the opening you are contacted by spirits, they tell you about your game and expected moves but everything they say is false and doesn’t happen, would you smash the clock up if it carried on? A professional player would smash that clock up but an amateur might just get up and walk around. If it were me and I was being told of moves that never happen again and again, I’d smash the clock up yes. Yes I would because they might go away then. But I would have to go to the bar first and get lagered up real fast, then you could really smash that clock up.

Tune in again for more professional advice.

MJM 2.47am

August 2nd.

A dark room in the capital

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Shrines in chess

Rightly or wrongly, I will admit I had myself well entertained earlier today. That story about the shrine had me laughing for hours, and laughing and telling people about it and asking them if they would do the same and so on.

You can see the extent of the damage in the video here:

And let’s be honest, we need to chuckle sometimes. I can’t really offer advice on visiting shrines and factoring that into your chess. All I can say is that some spirits are evil and are tricksters too. I wouldn’t bother with them personally. I wonder what the police in the video thought of that bloke? How could they not laugh?

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Hopes dashed

It wasn’t a good day for Laos. They lost 4-0 to Lesotho, the experts at hiding from lions. There are not many countries below Laos in the table but hopefully they will pick up some points somewhere.

England appeared in form today and took down Serbia with ease.

Some of my former playing partners are doing well, there are participants in the Olympiad I have beaten before…but it’s always like that. Not too long ago I beat someone rated 1999 at the time but he’s nearly 2500 now and not appearing in the Olympiad. I could make it into many of the teams playing.

Let’s hope Laos have improved results.

Should you ever make it over there. I most strongly recommend you visit Luang Prabang. Set deep in the mountains it is a world UNESCO Heritage site and you will see why when you get there.

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Well here we have someone who went and won the lottery. He got the right numbers and got rich out of it but then got himself killed after celebrating.

https://www.77kaoded.com/news/boonchoo-poungmala/2306532

I think we should avoid the lottery and stick to chess. You are less likely to get killed in chess or go on the rampage either.

Stick with chess, that’s my advice. Avoid lotteries, they can’t help your chess and could affect your opening repertoire…possibly?

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I feel I should post this even though it’s not quite chess related. We can learn from this and apply it to our chess I think.

So, imagine you are at a shrine, and there spirits from the after world contact you. They give you lottery numbers, and so off you go investing time and money on the lottery. But those spirits went and gave you the wrong numbers and made you lose. What would you do then? Would you just forget about it or would you return to the shrine and smash it up? The spirits there gave you the wrong lottery numbers, and so to get revenge, you should smash their shrine up right? Well one guy did and you can read about it here: https://www.77kaoded.com/news/diawkongsin/2318069

This story is very important for our chess development even though playing the lottery is a lot different to playing chess. If we are playing chess and are contacted by spirits, should we trust them and listen to them? They might stitch us up and get us to play bad moves? Okay, its highly unlikely this has ever happened in chess but that shouldn’t stop us from coming up with a plan. If we blunder during a game, should we go and smash a shrine up then? When should we start or stop smashing things up? I think this guy in the story could have been a Grand Master. His logic and calculation skills are right up there.

And so to end, the moral of the story is, to develop further as a chess player we should develop a sixth sense on when it’s okay, or not okay, to smash up a shrine. This is a very important chess skill.

Mark. J. McCready (thinking he is funny again)

11.38 am on Monday August first,

Laksi, BKK

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