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Gossage-Vardebedian papers--Chess by Correspondence..
This morning, I re-read this gem from Without Feathers... would be
a good article in conjunction with the second project:
http://maxxwolf.tripod.com/woody.html
The
GossageVardebedian Papers
By Woody
Allen
My Dear
Vardebedian:
I was more than a bit chagrined today, on going through the morning's
mail, to find that my letter of September 16, containing my twenty-second
move (knight to the king's fourth square), was returned unopened due to a
small error in addressingprecisely, the omission of your name and
residence (how Freudian can one get?), coupled with a failure to append
postage. That I have been disconcerted of late due to equivocation in the
stock market is no secret, and though on the above-mentioned September 16
the culmination of a long-standing downward spiral dropped
Amalgamated-Matter off the Big Board once and for all, reducing my broker
suddenly to the legume family, I do not offer this as an excuse for my
negligence and monumental ineptitude. I goofed. Forgive me. That you
failed to notice the missing letter indicated a certain disconcertion on
your part, which I put down to zeal, but heaven knows we all make
mistakes. That's lifeand chess.
Well, then, the error laid bare, simple rectification follows. If you
would be so good as to transfer my knight to your king's fourth square I
think we may proceed with our little game more accurately. The
announcement of checkmate which you made in this morning's mail is, I
fear, in all fairness, a false alarm, and if you will reëxamine the
positions in light of today's discovery, you will find that it is your
king that lies close to mate, exposed and undefended, an immobile
target for my predatory bishops. Ironic, the vicissitudes of miniature
war! Fate, in the guise of the dead-letter office, waxes omnipotent
andvoilà!the worm turns. Once again, I beg you accept sincerest
apologies for the unfortunate carelessness, and I await anxiously your
next move.
Enclosed is my forty-fifth move: My knight captures your queen.
Sincerely,
Gossage
Gossage:
Received the letter this
morning containing your forty-fifth move (your knight captures my
queen?), and also your lengthy explanation regarding the mid-September
ellipsis in our correspondence. Let me see if I understand you correctly.
Your knight, which I removed from the board weeks ago, you now claim
should be resting on the king's fourth square, owing to a letter lost in
the mail twenty-three moves ago. I was not aware that any such mishap had
occurred, and remember distinctly your making a twenty-second move, which
I think was your rook to the queen's sixth square, where it was
subsequently butchered in a gambit of yours that misfired
tragically.
Currently, the king's fourth square is occupied by my rook, and as
you are knightless, the dead-letter office notwithstanding, I cannot
quite understand what piece you are using to capture my queen with. What
I think you mean, as most of your pieces are blockaded, is that you
request your king be moved to my bishop's fourth square (your only
possibility)an adjustment I have taken the liberty of making and then
countering with today's move, my forty-sixth, wherein I capture your
queen and put your king in check. Now your letter becomes
clearer.
I think now the last remaining moves of the game can be played out with
smoothness and alacrity.
Faithfully,
Vardebedian
Vardebedian:
I have just finished perusing
your latest note, the one containing a bizarre forty-sixth move dealing
with the removal of my queen from a square on which it has not rested for
eleven days. Through patient calculation, I think I have hit upon the
cause of your confusion and misunderstanding of the existing facts. That
your rook rests on the king's fourth square is an impossibility
commensurate with two like snowflakes; if you will refer back to the
ninth move of the game, you will see clearly that your rook has long been
captured. Indeed, it was that same daring sacrificial combination that
ripped your center and cost you both your rooks. What are they
doing on the board now?
I offer for your consideration that what happened is as follows: The
intensity of foray and whirlwind exchanges on and about the twenty-second
move left you in a state of slight dissociation, and in your anxiety to
hold your own at that point you failed to notice that my usual letter was
not forthcoming but instead moved your own pieces twice, giving you a
somewhat unfair advantage, wouldn't you say? This is over and done with,
and to retrace our steps tediously would be difficult, if not impossible.
Therefore, I feel the best way to rectify this entire matter is to allow
me the opportunity of two consecutive moves at this time. Fair is
fair.
First, then, I take your bishop with my pawn. Then, as this leaves your
queen unprotected, I capture her also. I think we can now proceed with
the last stages unhampered.
Sincerely,
Gossage
P.S.: I am enclosing a diagram showing exactly how the board now looks,
for your edification in your closing play. As you can see, your king is
trapped, unguarded and alone in the center. Best to you.
G
Gossage:
Received your latest letter
today, and while it was just shy of coherence, I think I can see where
your bewilderment lies. From your enclosed diagram, it has become
apparent to me that for the past six weeks we have been playing two
completely different chess gamesmyself according to our correspondence,
you more in keeping with the world as you would have it, rather than with
any rational system of order. The knight move which allegedly got lost in
the mail would have been impossible on the twenty-second move, as the
piece was then standing on the edge of the last file, and the move you
describe would have brought it to rest on the coffee table, next to the
board.
As for granting you two consecutive moves to make up for one allegedly
lost in the mailsurely you jest, Pops. I will honor your first move (you
take my bishop), but I cannot allow the second, and as it is now my turn,
I retaliate by removing your queen with my rook. The fact that you tell
me I have no rooks means little in actuality, as I need only glance
downward at the board to see them darting about with cunning and vigor.
Finally, that diagram of what you fantasize the board to look like
indicates a freewheeling, Marx Brothers approach to the game, and, while
amusing, this hardly speaks well for your assimilation of Nimzowitsch
on Chess, which you hustled from the library under your alpaca
sweater last winter, because I saw you. I suggest you study the diagram I
enclose and rearrange your board accordingly, that we might finish up
with some degree of precision.
Hopfully,
Vardebedian
Vardebedian,
Not wanting to protract an already disoriented business (I know your
recent illness has left your usually hardy constitution somewhat
fragmented and disorganized, causing a mild breach with the real world as
we know it), I must take this opportunity to undo our sordid tangle of
circumstances before it progresses irrevocably to a Kafkaesque
conclusion.
Had I realized you were not gentleman enough to allow me an equalizing
second move, I would not, on my forty-sixth move, have permitted my pawn
to capture your bishop. According to your own diagram, in fact, these two
pieces were so placed as to render that impossible, bound as we are to
rules established by the World Chess Federation and not the New York
State Boxing Commission. Without doubting that your intent was
constructive in removing my queen, I interject that only disaster can
ensue when you arrogate to yourself this arbitrary power of decision and
begin to play dictator, masking tactical blunders with duplicity and
aggressiona habit you decried in our world leaders several months ago in
your paper on "De Sade and Non-Violence."
Unfortunately, the game having gone on non-stop, I have not been able to
calculate exactly on which square you ought to replace the purloined
knight, and I suggest we leave it to the gods by having me close my eyes
and toss it back on the board, agreeing to accept whatever spot it may
land on. It should add an element of spice to our litter encounter. My
forty-seventh move: My rook captures your knight.
Sincerely,
Gossage
Gossage:
How curious your last letter
was! Well-intentioned, concise, containing all the elements that appear
to make up what passes among certain reference groups as a communicative
effect, yet tinged throughout by what Jean-Paul Sartre is so fond of
referring to as "nothingness." One is immediately struck by a
profound sense of despair, and reminded vividly of the diaries sometimes
left by doomed explorers lost at the Pole, or the letters of German
soldiers at Stalingrad. Fascinating how the senses disintegrate when
faced with an occasional black truth, and scamper amuck, substantiating
mirage and constructing a precarious buffer against the onslaught of all
too terrifying existence!
Be that as it may, my friend, I have just spent the better part of a week
sorting out the miasma of lunatic alibis known as your correspondence in
an effort to adjust matters, that our game may be finished simply once
and for all. Your queen is gone. Kiss it off. So are both your rooks.
Forget about one bishop altogether, because I took it. The other is so
impotently placed away from the main action of the game that don't count
on it or it'll break your heart.
As regards the knight you lost squarely but refuse to give up, I have
replaced it at the only conceivable position it could appear, thus
granting you the most incredible brace of unorthodoxies since the
Persians whipped up this little diversion way back when. It lies at my
bishop's seventh square, and if you can pull your ebbing faculties
together long enough to appraise the board you will notice this same
coveted piece now blocks your king's only means of escape from my
suffocating pincer. How fitting that your greedy plot be turned to my
advantage! The knight, groveling its way back into play, torpedoes your
end game!
My move is queen to knight five, and I predict mate in one
move.
Cordially,
Vardebedian
Vardebedian:
Obviously the constant tension
incurred defending a series of numbingly hopeless chess positions has
rendered the delicate machinery of your psychic apparatus sluggish,
leaving its grasp of external phenomena a jot flimsy. You give me no
alternative but to end the contest swiftly and mercifully, removing the
pressure before it leaves you permanently damaged.
Knightyes, knight!to queen six. Check.
Gossage
Gossage:
Bishop to queen five.
Checkmate.
Sorry the competition proved too much for you, but if it's any
consolation, several local chess masters have, upon observing your
technique, flipped out. Should you want a rematch, I suggest we try
Scrabble, a relatively new interest of mine, and one that I might
conceivably not run away with so easily.
Vardebedian
Vardebedian,
Rook to knight eight. Checkmate.
Rather than torment you with the further details of my mate, as I believe
you are basically a decent man (one day, some form of therapy will bear
me out), I accept your invitation to Scrabble in good spirits. Get out
your set. Since you played white in chess and thereby enjoyed the
advantage of the first move (had I known your limitations, I would have
spotted you more), I shall make the first play. The seven letters I have
just turned up are O, A, E, J, N, R, and Zan unpromising jumble that
should guarantee, even to the most suspicious, the integrity of my draw.
Fortunately, however, an extensive vocabulary coupled with a penchant for
esoterica, has enabled me to bring etymological order out of what, to one
less literate, might seem a mishmash. My first word is
"ZANJERO." Look it up. Now lay it out, horizontally, the E
resting on the center square. Count carefully, not overlooking the double
word score for an opening move and the fifty-point bonus for my use of
all seven letters. The score is now 1160.
Your move.