DiegoDiego

The fact you consider them box office really shows how behind the times this country is. (Well, that or your loft is full of Hornby.)

Premiership, surely? The government rightly take a more holistic approach than simply looking at case numbers. The cases/10k isn't anywhere near as important as the new hospital admissions rate.

Aye, I needed the engine to fathom the nuance. I probably wouldn't have found it over the board. They do say though that every move you should look at checks, captures and attacks, in that order. (Although Michal Tal did say that his first thought in every situation was "how do I sacrifice my queen?" but he was on another plane of existence.) If you allow black another move before checking then he can castle and hide his king in the corner from where he can organise some defence. If he's out in the open it's a different story. It's easy to over analyse though. Your move wasn't a bad one, it just wasn't the best one, and I think at the level the majority of us are at that's perfectly okay. I was watching Anna Rudolf the other week and she was saying to her student "I don't care if you miss the mate in three, as long as you get the mate in twenty-three!". These analytical tools are great to tinker around with but they don't encourage beginners by shouting "BLUNDER!" when they make a move that still improves their position.

Okay, so for the blunder (which wasn't a blunder as in a fatal error, but a missed opportunity) I guess firstly it wasn't premature to check with the bishop. You'd have taken away his castling rights, leaving his king stranded in the middle and under a lot of threats. Furthermore, one the king moves to e7 (Kf8 is terrible as you can put him in check with the rook with Bd5 and picking up the knight and attacking the room, Kd7 is mate in three) you can move Qg4, threatening a swift mate after Qe6 Kf4, Bh6. To prevent this black must move to d4, capturing the pawn in the process. However now your queen can capture the knight on e4 allowing the bishop to skewer the queen through the king via g5. That all sounds very complicated, and it is, but hopefully the image will be easier to follow.

No, it was just me listening to the radio and not paying enough attention. Didn't even consider recapturing with the knight. I'm not so great at this daily format. Aye, it would have taken a while to convert, but an honourable man would have thrown in the towel to save you the bother. I was very close to doing that actually, but thought "f**k it, I'll make a move before dinner, and if he hasn't blundered when I get back I'll resign. Instead I returned to see a delightful offer of parity.

I make that 99 senior goals by age 20. Cristiano Ronaldo only had thirty something and Messi around forty at that age.

Division A, DiegoDiegoPB draws with Ziggy_The_Spider. An incredibly generous draw offer from Mr The Spider is the second best 40th birthday present I've received* as he was 6.45 up on me at the time. I made a couple of understandable but punished mistakes early on leaving me two pawns down. I felt by playing solidly Ziggy would easily stay on par and convert the advantage in the endgame. So instead I launched my rook into his troops on a suicide mission which analysis euphemistically identified as "a mistake" but I hoped by sharpening the position I might entice an equalising error. That was not to be. Ziggy's resolve did not falter and we arrived at a knight, rook and seven pawns versus five position when my opponent granted me clemency. Good game sir, until we meet again! (*the best present was covid, as otherwise I'd probably be in Peterhead right now having seen Thistle fall further behind in the seaside leagues)

Does anyone else knowingly make suboptimal moves because they make a pretty (often symmetrical) pattern?

You tune in to get some build up to the afternoon's matches and instead get twenty minutes of chunter on the Sevco game from Thursday.

Why does the BBC have such a hard on for any news coming out of the USA?

Don't forget to self isolate.

"Staycation"

Scottish director, British production company, Silicon Valley funding. What about this is Hollywood? (Not a go at you Mr Cutter, it's all over the article.)

When they recycle an old feature it says "from the archives" on the title card. This is the first season I've been able to watch, so I'm quite happy to see the old ones. Thought the LMW was decent. I'd rather hear a shite original song than a passable cover. I'm not sure if this is intentional or not, but the sound quality is always ropey, especially the drums. Great episode though. "I'm more of a rugby man, myself." had me laughing in an empty room. A fair few other amusing moments, too.

Division A, DiegoDiegoPB defeats madwullie. Thought that was a bit of a premature "French defence" (it's so annoying that name's already taken). I had a decent advantage but I'm more than capable of blundering a game from there. Other than picking up the knight, which was the only material gain in the match, I wasn't really going anywhere with all those checks. It was nice to get the queens off the board early though and have some nice open play for a change. Less pieces means less stress!

Speaking of vaccines, does anyone know if Prescott has had two jags?

That's a belter of a song. Released during the same week as the Dolly Parton track.

That's all fair enough, but if you're not scared of them then I'd be taking the likes of Spurs off your list of clubs to avoid.

I think the reasons are some of the much better sides still in the competition. Antwerp was an incredibly favourable draw and they'll need such luck and some top performances to go deep in the competition. Besting some of the clubs G51 says he wouldn't mind having a go at over two legs, like Ajax, Leverkusen and Villarreal would be a result talked about for decades to come.

Yeah, that was the killer. It's so easy to overlook. Pretty even until then and you could have taken my queen on the penultimate move! See you in the return fixture.

Division A DiegoDiegoPB defeats Strachanovski. Watching the tape back makes for some pretty grim viewing. Despite the victory I've gone right through the lads in the dressing room. Following the great win against AH13STU we've had two poor performances in a row. Can forget about Europe playing like that.

Impressive dedication for someone new to Scottish football a couple of months ago.

Who's showing it over there?

I'm still waiting on Strachanovski to accept my challenge, he's currently duelling RicheyEdwards.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diaspora_football_clubs_in_Sweden There are twelve Mesopotamian derbies a season in Sweden's Division 2 Södra Svealand.