Odds and Ends

     Starting last Thursday we had about three days of incessant rain with many places flooding. On Friday night when I went down to check the sump pumps I found our two 3,600 gallon per hour pumps weren’t keeping up and there was a couple inches of water in the garage.
     I set up an additional floor pump, but the water level kept creeping up! It peaked out at 6 inches...at 5.5 inches it overflows the step up into the house.
     Fortunately, the rain let up enough that by midnight the water had been pumped out and the pumps could keep up. 
     Half inch of water in the laundry room, family room and our home offices isn’t catastrophic, but it created a mess that we finally got completely cleaned up Tuesday.
     Yesterday the front yard was dry enough to cut, but the back is still pretty soggy. Even so, today I was prepared to spend the day cutting grass in the back yard, planting flowers and getting the car washed. It won’t happen because it’s dripping rain again today! 
     In the meantime, I have been monkeying around with a really nice game viewer from Chessbase. It shows up perfectly on my book review page, but for reasons I don’t understand, on this page only the PGN shows up. 
     In order to play through the game in the viewer you have to click on the post title (in this case “Odds and Ends”). In order to use this viewer I would have to place instructions on each post advising readers to do that and I am not really sure that is something I want to do.

[Event "Golden Knights Postal Tmt"] [Site "CORRESPONDENCE"] [Date "1968.??.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Tartajubow"] [Black "OJM"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B63"] [Annotator "Fritz 6 (10s)"] [PlyCount "51"] [EventDate "1968.??.??"] {Sicilian: Richter-Rauzer} 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. Bg5 {This was one of my favorite way of meeting the Sicilian. White threatens to double black's Ps. After 6...e6 Rauzer introduced the plan of Qd2 and 0-0-0 in the 1930s. White's pressure on the d6-Pawn often compels black to respond to Bxf6 with ...gxf6, rather than recapturing with the Q because it has to defend the d-Pawn. This weakens black's K-side P-structure. In return black gets the two Bs and a P-majority in the center.} e6 7. Qd2 Be7 8. Nb3 O-O 9. Be2 a6 10. a4 Ne5 (10... Qc7 11. O-O b6 12. Be3 Ne5 {Chekhover, V-Boleslavsky,I/Moscow Champ 1945 is equal.}) 11. Bxf6 Bxf6 12. f4 Nc6 { Putting pressure on the d-Pawn was more accurate.} 13. O-O (13. O-O-O Be7 {and white is ready to launch a K-side attack.}) 13... Qb6+ 14. Kh1 Ne7 {Better was 14...Rd8} 15. Rf3 {I was quite proud of this. The R might be able to slide along the rank to a more useful square.} Bxc3 {This unprovoked exchange gives white the advantage.} (15... Qc7 16. Rd3 Ng6 (16... Rd8 17. e5 {wins}) 17. Bf3 Rd8 18. Rd1 Be7 {is equal.}) 16. Rxc3 d5 {Apparently this is the point of 14... Ne7} 17. a5 Qd8 18. exd5 (18. Rd3 {was better.} Bd7 19. exd5 exd5 20. Bf3 Bb5 21. Re3 {with the better game.}) 18... Nxd5 19. Rd3 {Threatening c4} b5 { Sinply moving the Q to c7 was sufficient to keep things even. After this move white has the upper hand.} 20. axb6 Qxb6 21. Rd4 Bb7 22. Bf3 Rfd8 23. Qa5 Rd6 { A tactical blunder. 23...Qb5 was best.} 24. Qxb6 Rxb6 25. Nc5 {This was the wrong way to attack the B.} (25. Na5 {wins easily.} Rb8 26. Nxb7 R6xb7 27. c4) 25... Rxb2 {Another tactical oversight.} (25... Rc8 {is the best option Black has} 26. Nxb7 Rxb7 27. c4 Rb4 {saves the N and white's advantage is minimal.}) 26. c4 {Winning a piece. Black resigned.} 1-0