Polly recounts titanic struggles against her nemeses, Kong, Jr. and Kong, Sr., two gigantic monkeys on her back. But I’m going to turn around the reference toward the tragic figure in King Kong, the movie. I’ll play King Kong, a strong but dumb animal who doesn’t really stand a chance against the forces of man and woman. The opening is my Scandinavian beauty whose allure is irresistible. My opponent is the ruthlessly efficient air force comprised of Curtis Helldiver biplanes.
Incidentally, the only “King Kong” I’ve seen is the 1976 version starring Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange. I haven’t even seen Peter Jackson’s 2005 effort, although I heard it suffered from having too many T-Rexes. Black and white classics are just not my cup of tea.
Kong falls in love with a Scandinavian beauty he doesn’t understand, but he desires her anyway (move 3). Smitten, he’s easily captured and transported to New York (move 22). He breaks his bonds, grabs his femme fatale, and desperately runs for freedom in a strange land (move 23). 
Kong makes his last stand atop the Empire State Building (move 36). His lady having deserted him and surrounded by biplanes mounted with machine guns, he swats at them as best he can, but they just keep coming (move 41). 
Finally, Kong falls to earth and dies partly from the trauma, but mostly from the broken heart.
Going into the game, my heart and courage weren’t in it. My coach and another chessplaying friend noted my psychological defect. I’m not sure how to break the bad cycle of morale. Perhaps I need to face it head on and play a six-game match against my nemesis, hoping that I’ll catch him in one of the games and rediscover my confidence.
9 comments:
Hi Ernie, I responded to your comments on the previous post of yours. You may want to check it out.
I know how you feel in this post. It happens when you win also. I defeated Simanis for the second time in a row last Thursday.
But my play was nowhere near as powerful as the first time and this latest win over him was extremely "sloppy" chess. I played well late in the game, but in the early opening and middlegame, I wasn't happy with my play at all.
Eric
Awesome post, I don't know how you got the planes and such in the diagram but bravo!
As for the game--he's one of the best players at the club but he has his specific weaknesses. You will get him eventually.
That was a very creative post Ernie! I liked it. Making chess pop-culturish is one of the easiest ways to keep it fun, I think.
Very creative indeed!
Thanks everyone for kind comments. It encourages me to push my creative boundaries.
Nice King Kong tie-in, pretty entertaining :)
This was a good post. A fun read.
It's unfortunate that you overlooked the a7 pawn.
On the note to move 13, 13...a5 is easy to reject, but it must be done. I have found that in positions with symmetrical pawn structure (especially with the central files open) the placement of the pawns is rarely of any importance, the battle is over control of the central files. Also you should be more reluctant to allow a5 which cramps your position severely and forces you to make three more moves before you can develop the light squared bishop.
drunknknite - Thanks for the tip. Not playing open positions has been a detriment to my chess career lo these 17 years. I'm a little confused by your seemingly contradictory statements, but I suspect you mean "Pawn placement among symmetrical pawns matters little as long as you don't allow cramping and tempo-ing moves like a4-a5.". I was unhappy with my knight on b6 (familiar?), so I wanted to reroute to f6 to challenge the eventual Nd5. Nc5 was an interesting diversion. I thought that he would lose time with a4-a5 while I promoted my plan.
Yeah I guess what I said does seem to contradict itself.
You had said that you thought a5-b7-c5 was ugly, which it is. But only if white could make use of it, which is very difficult in a position with symmetrical pawn structure. In a position with open pawn structure development is paramount and pawn moves are usually slow. But in this case he is hindering your development by playing a5 because of your lame light squared bishop.
As far as the knight on b6, I have found that in these lines of the Scandinavian and also in a lot of lines in the Alekhine that the knight gets cycled to b6 and is then just absolutely horrible. My SOP against this knight is to play b3 and c4 and then the knight is completely impotent. If you wanted to get the knight on f6 later in the game perhaps you should just play it back to f6 immediately, or maybe something like Bf5, e6 and Ne7, or even e6 and Ne7. The bishop can find it's way after you get e5 in, or maybe just be developed via d7-c6.
Post a Comment