Winter Butterfly - 9b 5/3/02

Dear Friends

Just a short issue to let you know I'm still alive.

Many thanks for your comments and advice about the strange email I received. You will excuse me if I don't print them, as I don't want to get sidetracked with that sort of rubbish. There was, however, one piece of advice from Kevin Evans which might be useful to any of you, who like me, are only computer semi-literate. His email is as follows:

Dai,
Sorry to hear about your upset, unfortunately it happens to us all! Best to just delete email from people you don’t know – you never know what you may catch! As a tip, I tend to have two email addresses, one I use for fill-in forms on the web etc (where a lot of spam starts) and another I use for important communication...

Kev

I have also received the following from Peter Carpenter. At the moment, Monmouth has a team rather than a club. Obviously, we will need to do something about this, but all is not lost. Peter runs a group in Caer Llan which meets every Tuesday night. I understand its very friendly and successful and well worth a visit. Friendly games only and all are welcome. So if you're in the area one Tuesday, why not drop in.

Please keep sending the letters. I would prefer a smaller font and no colour because I print these off for my friends who still meet here on a regular basis on a Tuesday evening. In fact our little group has been growing in numbers because the Monmouth Chess Club just does NOT exist any more.

All good wishes and strength to you elbow

Peter

I'll be sending Peter future issues in black and a smaller font, so if anybody else wants to receive them that way, please let me know.

The Bath Bobby Basher and the Caldicot Kid.

One of the delights of chess is the strange situations that arise. If you wanted to watch somebody who had duffed up Bobby Fischer, not once, but twice in tournament games, where would you go?Moscow perhaps, or Riga? Wrong!! Try Caldicot on a wet and windy Winter's night.

Monmouth's team against Caldicot last Wednesday night included the likeable US master, Jim Sherwin (now living in Bath), who has achieved just that feat. But Caldicot too has its heroes, and to face him the Caldicot Kid (Dave Roberts) had come forth from his small-holding. The crowd suspected a mismatch.

The weather could hardly have been more dramatic. The previous 36 hours had seen thunder, lightening and hail. I almost expected to see vultures circling over the school library, waiting to devour whatever Jim left of Dave's body. All this meant nothing to Dave, who simply sat down and played. After all, he did have the advantage of the white pieces.

Slowly but surely his position deteriorated. Eventually Jim was a pawn up with two connected passed pawns. Further resistance seemed futile. Did I see vultures peering through the window? In a nearby room a fat lady could be heard tuning up. Then just when all seemed lost Dave pounced on a small inaccuracy, a temporary rook sacrifice to reach a drawn ending. The silence was broken only be the sound of the fat lady chocking on her scales (and possibly the flapping of wings as disappointed vultures flew away).

Well done Dave!!

Cyril and I left shortly afterwards, attempting to get lost on our way back to the motorway. We failed. At the bus stop we passed the fat lady, who having had her performance cancelled, had been thrown out to catch the bus home. We decided not to give her a lift. We didn't think the car's suspension would take it.

I'm trying to sort out a proper issue at the moment, which I hope to send out Friday.