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White to move and mate in 2.
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
Priestly chess players, drop me a line. HERE
Remember the “dance of the knights” in Samarkand? Ian Nepomniachtchi was involved with conspirator Danil Dubov. Nepo did not have a good showing there and that perhaps had something to do with their tomfoolery. Ten days ago he made a podcast (his second), now on Youtube, in which he talks about that schtick. BTW… he gives his name as Yan Nepomnyashchy. Dancing knights at 20:10. He’s sorry he did it, saying that it was a form of protest. It’s an aopologetic apology for what he did, if you get me.
The name of Nepo’s podcast is curious: Lachesis without Q. Lachesis is a type of poisonous snake but it also is a reference to the Moirai in ancient Greek mythology. Lachesis is one of the daughters of Night who are called the Fates. She is the one who measures a person’s “thread of life” being spun by her sister Clotho while Atropos of the three cuts the thread for your death.
However, there seems also to be a homeopathic “tincture” Lachesis with a variant Lachesis Q which on one strange site says:
Lachesis patients have frantic loquacity. They talk all the time without any relevance or consistency.
The loquacity of Lachesis is so rapid that if anyone in the room commences to tell something, the patient will take it up and finish the story, although he has never heard anything about it. Loquacity is one of the main guiding and characteristic symptoms of this remedy.
After all that some beer is in order. So order some beer!
UPDATE
I got a note from a reader challenging me on the propriety of a cheese and kimchi omelet of which I wrote the other day. As a matter of fact, Fr. MF also tried it and found it acceptable. Thus challenged, I made another, but this time put the kimchi on as a garnish… rather more than a garnish, in fact. With very strong black coffee in my SPACEHAWKS mug (PRIMIS ET PROMORIS!) this is a great breakfast. Soft and crunchy and savory. Drizzled with really hot chili oil.
Glück ab!
PS: Today is a very lean day for monthly donations. Please give it some consideration.
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1. Nc3+ Kc5
2. Bd6#
Atropos looks like she’s fun at parties.
1. N-c3+ . . K-c5
2. B-d6#
“Lachesis patients have frantic loquacity. They talk all the time without any relevance or consistency.”
The author has forgotten to add:
“They can be found in high concentrations in the Roman Curia, and also among the faculty of many Roman Catholic Seminaries.
Nc3
Kc5
Bd6#
I may not understand the rules of professionalism in chess well enough, but the uproar about the dance of knights seems concerning to me. The profession I work in (actuarial) has a broad “do not bring disrepute to the profession” standard (many professions do; that was invoked in the Nepo-Dubov game) that some have worried could be weaponized against Christian beliefs as the culture further disintegrates/weaponizes progressive ideals. A group I was part of sent a letter to the actuarial professional body saying “can you clarify how you’ll approach these issues” and they said “we’ll do whatever we want, thanks”. Hasn’t been an issue yet, but I work with fellow Christians who aren’t going to lodge a complaint against me.
Nepo and Dubov played a pre-arranged draw, but playing the Berlin or 100 other lines is just as much of a pre-arranged draw – those arrangements have been made through custom instead of by explicit conversation prior to the game, but that distinction seems irrelevant when the practice of “quick draws” is so well-established (obviously pre-arranging a win or loss is entirely different). This is further evidenced by the fact that very quickly the Bong Cloud and this Knight dance became invitations to a draw pre-arranged by custom: Hikaru-Ian did the knight dance in the latest Titled Tuesday, and I’d be surprised if they were texting about it before hand (they didn’t know they’d face each other…).
These antics are good for business – nobody knew Ian had a podcast before this; the Hikaru-Magnus bong cloud game has 5.1M views on YouTube; 10x more people watch Magnus playing drunk than watched his 2013 championship match a decade ago. Maybe we don’t want antics to be part of chess, but then we should have more explicit rules that define the actions that bring “disrepute” to the profession.
Seems to me chess is enjoying the best reputation it has had in all of human history, in no small part due to antics like junk openings, playing drunk, and acting ridiculous on camera. YouTube views are trivial compared to being able to express Christian views in public, but the weaponizing of a catch-all “do not bring disrepute to the profession” clause to uphold an arbitrary ideal held by an elite seems an important point of reflection.
[Thanks. Interesting comments.]
Kimchi acts as a probiotic, so its healthier when used as a garnish. Cooking will destroy some of the probiotics, but its not harmful to humans. Enjoy either way!
I have enjoyed kimchi for years with scrambled eggs, but I simply never thought of adding it, with cheddar, to an omelet(te?). Kimchi — which comes in many varieties, the cabbage is merely the best known — is a wonderful food. I spent a month in Korea as a seminarian, and it appeared at every meal. Koreans keep it on the table the way Americans keep salt and pepper, and for a similar reason. I confess I haven’t been very adventurous in my uses for it, but I think there are vast possibilities.