Comparing Trump and MacArthur

Trump was unanimously nominated today at the Republican National Convention.  The adulation shown him by the delegates remind me of General Douglas MacArthur's adulation from Congress upon his return to the continental U.S. in 1951 following his ouster from command by President Truman.  The Congress interrupted him fifty times with ovations.

However, MacArthur's star flamed out fast.  He gave campaign speeches leading up to the 1952 Republican Convention, but these got fewer and fewer as people realized he was more interested in pursuing his private squabble with President Truman than in being a constructive force in the civic life of the country.

MacArthur lived out his life in a New York apartment, and died 13 years later.  Trump's fate will surely be the same.

A French Miniature

1 d4 d5 2 e4 e6 3 Nc3 de 4 Nxe4 Bb4+ 5 c3 Ba5 6 Bd3 a6 7 Bf4 Nf6 8 Qe2 Qxd4?! 9 0-0-0 (b4) Qa4 10 Kb1 NxN 11 BxN f5? (0-0) 12 Bg5? (Bxb7!) QxB? (0-0) 13 QxQ fe 14 Rd8+ Kf7 15 RxR Bd7 16 Ne2 Bb6 17 Rd1 Bc6 18 Rdd8 h6 19 Bh4 Ba7 20 Rdf8+ Kg6 21 Nf4#  1-0

Catalan morphs into a Benoni

1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e6 3 g3 c5  3...d5 is most usual, but this scores the best for black.  With this move, black is inviting a switch into the Benoni.  I am content with this, since I often play the king-bishop fianchetto line as white against the Benoni.

4 d5 d6 5 de I figured that if black disdained the normal move of 4...ed, I would initiate the exchange myself.

5...fe 6 Bg2 Be7 7 Nc3 0-0 8 e4 e5 9 Bg5 Nc6 10 Nge2 Be6 11 b3 Nd4 12 0-0 Qa5 13 f4 ef 14 Bxf4 Bg4 15 Rf2 BxN 16 NxB NxN+ 17 QxN Qc3  The engine now gives white a healthy two-point advantage.

18 Rad1 Rad8 19 Rd3 Qa5 20 Qd1 Qb6 21 Rfd2 h5? 22 e5 de 23 Bxe5 RxR 24 RxR Ng4 25 Bd5+ Kh8 26 Bf4 Bf6 27 Rf3? (h3) Bd4+ 28 Kg2 Qh6 29 Qe2 Nf6 30 Bg5? (Be3) Qd6?? (Re8) 31 RxN!!  I made this move instinctively, as time did not allow calculating all the possible continuations.  It wins in all variations.

31...gf 32 Qxh5+  Black resigns  (it is mate next move)  1-0

The Exchange Gruenfeld with Nf3

I am familiar with the exchange Gruenfeld with Ne2, but not so much with Nf3.  Well, today I got a good lesson in why Nf3 is playable.  The game began 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc5 d5 4 cd Nxd5 5 e4 NxN 6 bc Bg7 7 Nf3 0-0 8 Rb1 c5 9 Be2 Nc6 10 d5 Bxc3+  This is not the best move.  It allows white to trade dark-squared bishops, thereby weakening black's king-side defenses.  10...Ne5 is most usual, although 10...Na5 scores the best in practice.

11 Bd2 BxB+ 12 QxB Nb8?  12...Na5 is most usual and scores the best, by far.

13 h4 h5 14 Qh6  I now realized that whit has an overwhelming attack.

14...Qa5+ 15 Kf1 Qc3 16 e5 Bg4  And now white has a force mate.  The game concluded 17 Ng5 BxB+ 18 Kg1 Qxe5 19 Qh7#  1-0

A Classical French

I used to have a lot of trouble against the French, especially the classical French.  Recently I have embraced playing the white side of this opening, instead of shying away from it, and I am doing much better.  Here is a nice win against a higher-rated player.

1 d4 e6 2 e4 d5 3 Nc3 Nf6  Black opts for the classical variation.  The Winawer (3...Bb4) is the main alternative.

4 Bg5 Be7 5 e5 Nfd7 6 BxB QxB 7 f4 a6  The main move, preventing Nb5.  7...0-0 is a close second, while 7...c5, allowing white's knight to jump to d7 via b5, is a distant third and scores poorly.

8 a3?  This is not one of the moves played here.  It is a pointless waste of time, as white need not fear b7-b5-b4, as white can then move the queen's knight effectively to e2.

8...c5 9 Nf3 Nc6 10 g3 0-0 11 Bg2 Rb8 12 0-0 b6 13 Qd2 Bb7 14 Rad1 Rfd8 15 Qd3 d6 16 g4 

The engine dislikes this move, saying the advantage has now switched to black.

Nf8 17 Rde1 cd 18 Nxd4 NxN 19 QxN b5 20 Kh1 Rbc8 21 Qd2 d4 

The engine think this switches the advantage back to white.  However, we are talking about tiny differences; the position is essential equal.

22 Ne4 BxN 23 BxB Qc5 24 Re2 Rc7 25 Bd3 Nd7 26 Rfe1 Nb6 27 f5 ef  

The engine thinks it is now dead equal.  It gives black a half-point advantage after 27...Nc4.

28 gf Nc4 29 Qh6 Qf8 30 Qg5 Nxb2 31 f6 NxB 32 cd Rc3??

Here is where black goes horribly wrong.  He is going pawn-hunting on the queen-side, when he should be playing defense on the king-side!

 33 Rd1 Rxa3 34 Rf2 Rc3 35 e6 fe??

35...h6 defends, though white still has a point advantage.  White now has a forced mate.

 36 f7+ Kh8  37 Qe5+ Qg7 38 f8(Q)+ RxQ 39 RxR#

One of the things I like about this game is that it shows that white can still get a good king-side attack, even after castling king-side, instead of the more normal queen-side castling in this opening.  It also illustrates the benefits of making and executing a plan, even if that plan is not 100% sound.

A Caro-Kann

This game is not particularly special, but it does illustrate some important themes in the Panov-Botvinnik attack in the Caro-Kann.

1 d4 d5 2 e4 c6 3 ed cd 4 c4 Nf6 5 Nc3 e6  This move and 5...Nc6 are both played about 40% of the time.  5...Nc6 leads to a completely different type of game, however.

6 Bf4 Be7 7 Nf3 0-0  This is the usual move here, but black must know what he's doing if he is going to allow white's response of 8 c5.

8 c5 h6?  This move is weak.  Usual is 8...b6, after which the play can get tricky.

9 b4 a6 10 a4 Nh5 11 Be3 Nd7 12 Bd3 Nhf6  One gets the feeling that black is floundering around, while white is making progress in getting his queen-side pawns rolling.

13 0-0 Qc7 14 Re1 b6 15 Qe2 (Qc1) bc 16 bc Bb7 (e5) 17 Reb1 Qc6 18 Rb2 Ne4 19 Rb3 (Qc2) NxN 20 RxN Nf6 21 Rb3  (Better is 21 Ne5, but I am fixated on the idea of getting control of the b-file.

21...Ne4 22 Rab1 Rab8? 23 Qc2 (Qb2) Rfc8 24 Rb6 Qd7 25 Bxa6 (c6) Qc7? (Bxa6) 26 RxB RxR 27 RxR Qd8 28 c6? (missing RxB) Qa5 29 Bd3 Kf8 30 BxN de 31 Qxe4 Qxa4 32 h3 Bd6 33 Ne5 (Bf4) Qd1+ (BxN) 34 Kh2 BxN 35 QxN Qc1??  Black blunders his queen in mutual time trouble, but I had a forced mate anyway.  1-0

The College Foorball Season (or non-season)

Interesting discussion today on ESPN.  Two commentators were asked if they would allow a son of theirs to play football this fall.  One was adamant that he would; his reasoning was that a young man in that age group needs structure, and football gives him that structure--his whole life is centered around it.  Without the structure what would he be doing?  It is a good point, as these kids are surely not going to sit around in their dorm rooms avoiding all personal contact.

The other guy was just as adamant the other way.  He felt that if it wasn't safe for fans to come to the games, it certainly won't be safe for the players.  Hard to argue with that.

The discussion continued on a more cerebral level for quite awhile.  The NCAA came in for much criticism due to its lack of leadership. 

But more than that, the NCAA is vulnerable for continuing to insist on the fiction of the athletes as students, who therefore should not be paid in recognition of the millions of dollars the big schools earn from collegiate athletics.  The students are starting to organize to advocate for safe working conditions, and it seems only a matter of time till the NCAA will be forced to recognize a union and pay the players, a development it has resisted for so long.

This may be another example of a positive result of the virus; the college players may finally get the rights they deserve to make money from their efforts.

An Odd French Game

This is an oddball French game, but for some reason I feel compelled to annotate it, so here goes.  1 d4 e6 2 e4 d5 3 Nc3 Bb4 4 Nge2 a6?  Normal is de, Nc6,or Nf6.  Black's move is weak.

5 a3 Ba5 6 b4 Bb6 7 e5  The engine doesn't like this move, preferring 7 g3.  My thought was that 7 e5 limits the scope of both of his bishops.

7...h6 8 Ng3 Ne7 9 Nce3  The engine prefers 9 Qg4.  It says the position is now equal.

9...Nbc6 10 f4 Ng6 11 c3 f6 12 Nh5 fe 13 fe Qh5+ 14 Neg3 0-0 15 Bd3 Nf4??  The engine gives black a full point advantage after 15...Ngxe5, but that's a tough move to find in a blitz game.  Black's move loses the exchange.

16 BxN RxB 17 NxR QxN 18 Qf3 Qg5 19 Rf1 Qe7 20 0-0-0? (missing 20 Qh5, winning) Bd7 (finally developing his QB) 21 Qh5 Be8 22 Qg4 Nd8 23 Rf2 Nf7 24 Rdf1 c6 25 h4 a5 26 Nh5 Nxe5?  And now white has a forced mate, but black was lost anyway.

The game ended with 27 Rf8+ QxR 28 RxQ+ KxR 29 Qxg7#.

What To Make of Barr's Testimony

Attorney General William Barr testified Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee, the first such testimony in his year and a half in the AG job.  The day before his opening statement had leaked out, and the buzz in the media was how combative and confrontational it was.

When I heard his opening statement, I didn't hear anything combative in it.  It turns out he had toned it down greatly overnight, in response to the negative feedback he'd gotten.  His testimony itself was also predominately low-key.

Since it was so low-key, we must examine it more closely in order to understand it.  When it is so analyzed, we see that Barr is 100% on board with the Trump campaign strategy.  Here are some examples of this.

When asked about his intervention in the cases of Trump cronies Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, Barr said that  "The president's friends don't deserve special breaks, but they also don't deserve to be treated more harshly than other people."  He made a convincing case that the initial DOJ sentencing recommendation in the Stone case, while within the standard federal sentencing guidelines, was outside of normal DOJ guidelines.  He stressed that a 67-year-old first-offender who committed a white-collar crime would never get a sentence as long as what was originally recommended.

Barr repeated Trump's latest talking point that voting by mail is susceptible to large-scale fraud.  He offered no evidence to back this up, and, in fact, there is no evidence that there is any large-scale fraud associated with voting by mail.  Five states have exclusively mail-in voting, with no problems, and this year there will certainly be many more states transitioning to mail-in voting

This attack on voting by mail i part of an ongoing Republican effort to restrict access to the ballot box.  There are many examples of such GOP efforts--closing polling places, ID laws, rejecting ballots based on technicalities, and, in the latest and most outrageous example, sending out fake voting instructions to confuse people.

Barr strongly supported sending federal officers to Portland and other cities, claiming that "violent rioters and anarchists" are conducting "an assault on the government of the United States."  This supports the Trump campaign talking point that "You will not be safe in Joe Biden's America".  Trump has been running ads using this catch phrase for months now.  Trump seeks to portray Portland and other cities as under siege, so as to scare people away from voting for Biden.  He always stresses that these cities are being run by "liberal Democrats".

Although outside of his area of expertise, Barr was asked about the virus testing problem, and he claimed that "the problem of the testing system was a function of President Obama's mishandling of the CDC."  This is blatant (and false) partisan advocacy, which traditionally AG's have avoided.

When asked "Is it ever appropriate, sir, for the president to solicit or accept foreign assistance in an election?", Barr initially said that "It depends what kind of assistance", and then later acknowledged that it is never appropriate.  This kind of hedging is ludicrous, given that there is a federal law specifically prohibiting such assistance!

He insisted that there is no systemic racism problem in US police departments, asserting, without citing any evidence, that "police are less likely to shoot at a black suspect".

All in all, this analysis shows that Barr is nothing more than a political hack, doing everything he can to help re-elect the worst president in US history.