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Photo from The Great Roman™.
I don’t think The Enemy likes what they are doing. It took me six attempts to upload this pic, when I usually have no problems. In fact, I know that The Enemy doesn’t like anything about this place. Whenever I am there, all sorts of stuff starts up through the human agents of the demons. I am sure that this March and April will be no different. Hence, I will depend even more on your prayers in that time.
Meanwhile, black to move and mate in four.
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
Interested in learning? Try THIS.
The 8 players Fischer Random 960 invitational – the 2024 Freestyle Chess G.O.A.T. Challenge – is still underway in N. Germany at the spa. Puer beat Magnus yesterday. Poor Ding lost to Nodirbek, the Uzbeki steamroller. Fabi beat Gukesh is a crazy game. Levon and Vincent drew. Action continues today. The big names need wins to stay alive.
At the venue there is a “confessional” into which players can isolate themselves and make comments about their game for transmission to the watching world – but not, of course, to anyone in the venue!
CARUANA,FABIANO (2804) – GUKESH D (2725), FREESTYLE GOAT CHALLENGE KO 2024 WEISSENHAUS 11.02.2024
Only 14 moves.
Meanwhile, I am a great fan of all the “Musketeer” books, ever since I was a kid.
Did you know that the Three Musketeers had not just one sequel – Forty Years After – but several? Yes, indeed.
Did you know that the dastardly enemy of D’Artagnan, Card. Richelieu, was pretty much the opposite of how he is portrayed in the book and, especially, in the movies. (Though I did like Charlton Heston’s – who wouldn’t?)
In fact, I just received a copy of the new book of Card. Richelieu’s – the real one – Treatise On Perfection put out by the great folks at TAN Books. It has a view-cleansing introduction with a more accurate biography of Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke de Richelieu.
A Treatise on Perfection Saintly Counsel on Obtaining Salvation
Also, D’Artagnan, who is based on a real person who lived in the Rue du Bac, has a cameo in Cyrano by Edmund Rostand. An adventure of D’Artagnan and Cyrano together could be fun.
Ceterum censeo Firouzja delendum esse.
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Fascinating Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke de Richelieu news – thank you! “An adventure of D’Artagnan and Cyrano together could be fun.” All going well, the first issue of Incarnation: A Journal of the Moral Imagination will be available very soon: perhaps someone could try submitting such an adventure for the second issue? (I think the ‘martial arts’ aspect of your recent Zorro news may have helped nudge me to watch the ‘ballade’ scene excerpted from the 1950 Cyrano de Bergerac movie again: wow!)
Very impressive (and no doubt hot)! So many candles because of Exposition or is this a reliquary on an important martyr day (the red makes me ask that)?
Never mind! Had I scrolled further into the recent back issues I’d have found my answer.
I’ll have to look at getting A Treatise on Perfection. I just started reading Elliott’s Richelieu and Olivares. I bought that one after interlibrary loan sent me the wrong book: Perkins’s Richelieu and the Growth of French Power. I was going to send the Perkins back, but it looks interesting enough (remarkably lucid prose so far) that I’m going to read that one too.
The José Ferrer Cyrano hews pretty closely to Hooker’s translation of Rostand. I can’t remember whether D’Artagnan made it into the film, but his cameo in the play is enjoyable.
Q to D6
R to C7
R to D8#
My Brother inlaw and I have shared Catholic books and discussions for many years. I remember him telling me about Cardinal Richelieu and how movies gave him a bad rap. I will try this book.
On a funnier note, my brother inlaw is a proud Frenchman. Family did their DNA and found out they are English. …no French blood.
1. . . . . . . . . . . . . R-f2
(threatening Q×f1# & leaving no time for White to delay mate by attacking on row 8)
If
2. h2-h3 or -h4 . Q×f1+
3. K-h2 . . . . . . . . Q×g2#
If
2. R-d1 . . same as above but mate in 4
My “solution” overlooked
2. R(f1)×c1
I rushed in because stdaniel overlooked K-h1 as White’s tesponse to Q-e3+, after which a quick mate seems problematic.