Fried Liver

What in the world is that? Fried Liver. This is about the strangest name I have come across.

Who would have thought the Two Knights Defense to have such a precarious road leading out from it? The Two Knights Defense is a specific response within the Italian Game, and it is not to be confused with the Four Knights Game.

The Fried Liver attack is a knight sacrifice by white on the f7 square after black plays the Two Knights Defense. This Italian game is not going to be quiet like its famous variants Giuoco Piano and Giuoco Pianissimo.

In retrospect, the Fried Liver attack gets as tense and explosive as the climatic moments in the Prison Break series. This is crazy, because which openings have such quick escalation of tension and strong gravity for the black king to be lured to the centre of the board?

Pardon this less than plain posting, but this is me talking to myself. Like Shawn said, sometimes you must talk to yourself :)

Guadagnini Granted

During breakfast, I read a newspaper article, titled "Tang gets rare violin"

Tang refers to Tang Tee Khoon (董帝均). And she is the new recipient of the rare Guadagnini under the National Art Council's (NAC) instrument loan scheme. On 17 June 2009, she was selected out of five hopefuls for the Guadagnini violin by a panel of nine specialists. The 25 year old Singaporean is the second recipient of the instrument loan, after the US-based Siow Lee Chin received it in 2001 when this landmark loan scheme was launched.

Tang has been playing the violin since she was four and a half years old. In the past 20 years, her passion for the instrument has taken her across the world to places like Switzerland and Japan. And recently, she completed a tour of Indonesia with famous violinist Midori as part of a string quartet, performing to connect children and the communities in Indonesia with classical music.

This Guadagnini was crafted by J.B. Guadagnini in 1750, Milan. "It has big, powerful sounds," Tang praised of her 18th century delight valued at USD430,000. Reportedly, Tang was happy and relieved to get the fine instrument, as she had been playing another borrowed violin that had to be returned - a 1757 Bergonzi from a private instrument collection in the US. Tang will hold on to the Guadagnini for two years and the loan may be extended again then.

Personally, one of the most exciting beacon of the article was the mention of a $1 Million seed fund for the purpose of acquiring new stringed instruments to loan out to promising musicians from the southeast Asian city state. Accordingly, the fund which is known as "the Singapore Musical Instrument Bank" matches dollar for dollar donations made by corporations and individuals. At first I felt ridiculous to read that "Private instrument collectors are invited to donate their instruments to the bank." In any case, I sure look forward to see the first of such a notable act.

For the record, the 25 year old Miss Tang received the Shell-NAC arts scholarship in 2001 to pursue a degree in music at the Cleveland Institute Of Music in the US. A year later, she transferred to New England Conservatory Of Music in Boston. Then she did her post-grad studies at the Guildhall School of Music in London, and is now a fellow there. She had also won the 1st prize of Singapore National Violin Competition three times.

She will perform a recital titled “Portraits” on the 13 August, at the Victoria Concert Hall! It will be her debut solo recital with the Guadagnini.

Kansetsu Waza

Kansetsu Waza refers to the joint techniques in Ju-Jitsu. In the latest game of chess, there is a very strong theme of joint lock, around the bishop at the c6 square. Somewhere in the middle game, I noticed that I could suppress the bishop on that square. That wasn't enough to achieve any advantage of course, but I traded off his very agile knight with an extravagant rook (Yes I did!) to give him a material advantage, and myself a more attacking position. After that his only really active piece was his Queen. Holding his bishop down, and seeking to zoom in on his weakened King-side proved to be a narrow and difficult task. Even though I suppressed him for a good time and had better attacking potential, I was burning out of fuel. Then, his frustration got the better of him and he made a premature attack on me, and it was suicidal; the game was suddenly over.

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I have an imagery: it was like those Kungfu movie where an opponent had been held down, but when he finally had some space, he went for an attack on the protagonist, and the latter returned with a swift fatal single strike in a split second. And 'the bad guy' stood motionless, dead. This game has that element of psychological factor which affected the game play of my worthy chess mate. I just know that he could have force a draw with me by repeating moves 27 and 28... before the sudden death blow brought upon by his over-eager counterattack. I'm guessing he did not want to just draw the game, because in terms of material/numbers, he was winning me.

Ninety Nine

Just one shy of a hundred moves, this is by far the longest game I had played. My opponent, an American girl, played with a rare fighting spirit. The game started with a very good tempo and you can see some exciting sparring in the middle game. I managed to come out of the middle game with a slight advantage; however, because she was so resilient, I had to focus and play accurately for more than fifty moves to maintain my slight advantage from the middle game til the end game. Interestingly, here is an important lesson on zugzwang, which in German refers to the 'compulsion to move'. In the endgame, because each side MUST make a move at their turn, in some circumstance this can work against the player making the move; in other words, the player compromises his/her game regardless of what moves he/she makes. And that was instrumental to my long and hard march to the light at the end of the tunnel.

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Motor Mishap

Yesterday I witnessed a car accident from the backseat. I was a victim, but I felt more like a witness...

1145hrs. I was stealing a power nap at the backseat of a Toyota Camry. I had been sleepy from waking too early for work. And the sun was glaring from the front; so I was a VIP who sat behind when my colleague HY took the role of my chauffeur. We were traveling along the highway at 100kph.

1155hrs. We have exited the highway and now traveling at 60kpm. I heard a voice, 'Hey... need you to direct me from here onwards...' and I woke instantly from my hibernation, with an accented but still croaked "Ok". Near a round about, we saw a girl wearing super colourful and layered clothing under the bright sun, by the river.

1205hrs. There is a truck to the right of our car. It was a container truck which are twice or thrice as tall as a normal Toyota Camry sedan. And then out of the blue, the super-tall-truck veers towards us, and the whole right windows got filled up with the side of the truck! It was as if the truck was getting magnified thru the right side windows. 'Zoomed in,' if u get the picture.

HY noticed instantly and steered away from the truck, and it seemed like we were about to go onto the roadside pavement when a powerful knock was inflicted upon our car and a loud bang heard! The truck had struck our car at the driver's window, not unlike a moment from a typical hollywood action movie. In an instant, the window glass was smashed into a bright blur, and the huge percussion blew all the smithereens of the glass pieces into the car. Our car was pushed off the road! HY braked the car to a full stop, as did the truck, upon the loud impact. HY had a lot of glass pieces all over him. Everywhere in the front seat, dashboard, footrest, seats, and display consoles were debris of glass fragments of varying sizes.

1210hrs. The truck driver had alighted to check on our safety. He had also apologised to us and explained that he had steered left when he saw that the cars ahead of him braking to a full stop due to some inconsiderate driver's dubious decision to make a turn. And he had turned left without checking left lane clear.

1220hrs. Multiple photo shots of the accident were taken, in the event that a police report may require an indisputable picture of what happened, or who were involved. Then many road witnesses came forward to express concern and even offered to be eye witnesses against the careless driver. Lesson to take home: it is a wise thing to never drive beside or behind a truck... and definitely not between two trucks.

A side-note of serendipity: earlier that day, before the trip I was deciding whether or not I should bring this small pack of handiplast out. I decided perhaps the handiplast may come in handy should I come across a damsel in distress. In the end, it was HY who asked for the handiplast, because he had to brush flakes of glass pieces off his head/hair and had accidentally cut a finger in the process.

Thank God there were no major injuries or lives loss (there was a crowd of perhaps 40-50 people just at the side of the road before the truck started to veer left towards us. And gratefully, we missed them all.). In retrospect, the potential for damage and injury was really great and it could have been headline worthy. Praise the Lord, for His protection is upon us.

Discovered Demolition

A rather slow and positional game with some lessons to remind myself of. Things began to fall apart rapidly after my English opponent allowed me a killer discovered check. It was a mate in two dropped from the sky.

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Expedition Escarpment

A few of us went for a short road trip to the escarpment for some fresh air and shutter clicks. The view from Lesmurdie Road was quite breathtaking. As this is our second shot at the city lights, we were better prepared with our settings as well as our clothings; we wore thicker as the night was very chilly. We achieved a much better yield this time round, and more importantly we had good laughs along the way. Also, Zhaowei widened all our horizons with his Ten-sec Tripod Setup Performance! It was a good expedition and our mission was accomplished in great fellowship.


A majesty wave of clouds over the citylights, by JC.


Blue night sky, just like a painting, by JC.


I saw Canis Major, the greater dog, and tried to catch it.