Exclam!

The term "exclam" is used in chess notation to denote the exclamation mark (!), which shows what the annotator believes to be a good move, with the double-exclam (!!) showing a brilliant move. (For example, 1. e4 g6! would show that I believed the Modern Defense deserving of praise. Which I do; I play it.) I don't know if all of my comics deserve an exclam, but I hope you'll indulge me by reading through them. Updates Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.

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Exclam! Comic 37: Tech Support

This is based on a true story.  Plugging the address for Yelp's first "computer repair" result for Fort Worth leads behind a strip mall.  I was at least expecting a black market representative, but, alas, no dice.

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Exclam! Comic 36: Indiana Jones and the Chocolate Cake

This strip took a long time to draw and shade, as can be seen by the fact that this is Tuesday's strip coming up on Thursday night.

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Exclam! Comic 35: Tennis

Sorry for this one being late -- I was on a road trip all weekend without access to a scanner.

For those confused, Novak Djokovic is the number-one ranked tennis player in the world

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Exclam! Comic 34: Mad Science Intern Search

To understand a bit more about the premise of this week's strip, it's necessary to understand just how much Emil Fischer did for carbohydrate chemistry.  He derived the structure of all the basic sugars from basic experiments based on how products of reactions extending the very simplest sugar (glyceraldehyde) turned polarized light (which is based partially on the symmetry of the chemical structures).

However, in doing so, he made one assumption: that the "D" form of glyceraldehyde was the dextrorotatory form (in other words, it turned polarized light clockwise); if he had assumed that the "L" form (the other possible form) was dextrorotatory, carbohydrate chemists would have had to flip all the structures Fischer had derived to their mirror images.  It was a lucky guess (confirmed to be so in the 1950s, much to the relief of organic chemists) that must have made explaining Fischer's thought processes a lot easier for orgo textbook writers.

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Exclam! Comic 33: Robespierre Plays Chess

For this strip, Robespierre has claimed Exclam! to be an enemy of the state.

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Exclam! Comic 32: Many Springs Open 56: Miniatures

I went to a chess tournament on Saturday (the 56th Many Springs Open, run by the Tarrant Country Chess Club; Many Springs 55 was the subject of the last set of comics based on a chess tournament) and managed to win the "novice section" (I was in the intermediate section last time; I suppose I was placed in the lowest (of three) sections to even them out).  These "miniatures" (both a misnomer (they're just as big as regular comics) and a chess reference (the term refers to short, flashy games)) are largely autobiographical, which may not be as funny as my regular provided fare (give them an exclam and query (!?) instead of an exclam, perhaps).

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Exclam! Comic 31: Signs Your Party Will Not Survive the First Encounter Part 3

Some alternate ending dialog:

GM: "Why would you need to buy fat, lye, and nitric acid?"

Me: "Uh, to make a cake.  For the Duke we're supposed to be meeting."

GM: "Doesn't your character hate the Duke?"

Me: "I don't think that's relevant right now."

The idea came about from conversations I was having with fellow players in a campaign on possible regicide options.  When the idea of explosives came up and how to create them in a medieval environment, I came up with some ideas drawn from my forays into organic chemistry.  (These conversations may also probably have put me on every national security watch list ever.)  In any case, they led to the strip you see before you.  Also, don't try the nitroglycerin recipe at home.  Please.  

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Exclam! Comic 30: Mad Science II

Goobers.

Ubermensch.

Goober-natorial.

A bonus strip.

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Exclam! Comic 29: The Modern Tantalus

This strip is based on a real-life incident.  This weekend, our hot water decided quite capriciously to stop working, meaning that our showers worked in fits and spurts if we wanted them to be non-cold, in a manner shown above.  (For some reason, doubtless similar caprice, the hot water decided to work again.  We're keeping our fingers crossed.)

The title and joke (as if there was one) may need explaining.  Frankenstein, the classic horror novel by Mary Shelley, has the subtitle of The Modern Prometheus, a fitting one since Prometheus in Greek mythology brought fire from the gods to man, while Victor Frankenstein brings similarly forbidden knowledge (of making life) to fruition.  (Prometheus was also punished by being chained to a rock with an eagle eating his liver every day (it regenerated daily as well) but for something like that, see my friend Ultimus's Broke Man Adventures.)

Tantalus, after whom this strip is titled, was a man punished by the gods to stay forever in Hades in a waist-deep stream with succulent fruits dangling from branches above his head; whenever he was thirsty and tried to drink, the stream level would lower; whenever he was hungry and tried to pick the fruit, wind would blow the boughs out of reach.  In a similar way, his travails are represented in my struggle with that most First World problem of dealing with troubles with hot running water.  If I were more literary-minded and less lazy, I might well make that Frankenshower: The Modern Tantalus parody, but given my nature, I'll settle for publishing this cartoon.

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Exclam! Comic 28: Signs Your Party Will Not Survive the First Encounter, Part 1 (possibly)

This strip was conceived and drawn literally at the eleventh hour, so I apologize for the general slovenliness and lack of aesthetic quality and the effects thereof on all readers.  

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Exclam! Comic 27: Inspection Day

A script from a comic I drew long ago, with updated art.

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Exclam! Comic 26: Pawn Structure Chess

Looks like another strip in a row that only my chess-geek reader (hi Brian) will understand (unless any of my compatriots from the College on the Hill happen to be reading as well, in which case I congratulate Hanover, NH for finally getting electricity).  Extricating my tongue, which seemed to have been glued to my cheek, I now explain today's strip so that the laymen will be slightly less confused.

Pawn structure is, surprisingly, the structure of the pawns on the chessboard.  This is rather important when studying openings, as since pawns cannot retreat or move quickly, the pieces will have to play around them, influencing the tactical and strategic ideas for both sides.  Because I had been studying this (and also because of my rampant pareidolia), I saw some of my spares as being similar (I had the Caro-Slav and the Huebner ones tonight).

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Exclam! Comic 25: Openings Hipster

This comic annotation has a lot of material to cover.  Let's start from the top, shall we?

"Kramnik" refers to Vladimir Kramnik, World Champion 2000-2007, one of the greatest players of our time.  I'm also of the opinion that his name sounds sort of like a mild expletive ("Aw, Kramnik!") that I use here.

Moving on, it should be clear to most chess players that our Openings Hipster is trying to play openings out of the mainstream (the merits and disadvantages of that approach in a moment) and has played Bird's Opening (1. f4), a relatively rare opening, and his opponent has played 1...e5, the From Gambit.  With the clues from our hipster's praise on his opening choice ("aggressive kingside expansion," article read in April, as well as the mate on the second move), we can see that he has somehow managed to enter Fool's Mate (though with the pawn on f4 instead of f3).

There seem to be a couple of approaches as to how players choose a repertoire.  Some will go for so-called "main lines," which are the more popular move choices set in opening theory.  Others will choose to study side lines* that aren't encountered so often at high levels, increasing the chances of surprising opponents.  Which approach is better?  One could say that either approach of studying, as long as the end result is a playable middlegame, is fine.  One reason given for favoring side lines over main lines, however, is that there is "less theory to learn," i.e., moves to memorize.  Another reason is the surprise value of such lines, especially if there is cheapo potential -- this rationale doesn't quite work when faced with opponents neither cowed nor overconfident in the face of an unusual opening.

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*There can be several definitions of what one considers a "side line."  These can be entire "main line" openings that aren't ubiquitous on the top level (for instance, after Garry Kasparov took the World Champion crown from Anatoly Karpov, the Queens Indian Defense (one of Karpov's favorite defenses against 1. d4) lost favor to the Kings Indian Defense (Kasparov's preference), though neither of these openings are better or worse than the other), while others are clearly dubious openings that depend on one or two cheap tricks to win.  Most others are somewhere in between -- variations in well-known openings to move to a structure a player knows better.

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Exclam! Comic 24: Postmortem

Analyzing one's own games (particularly one's losses) is important in the path to becoming a better chess player.  In the game on which this comic was based (pretty accurately), my positional play whipsawed back and forth between the ideas mentioned in the strip.  (Of course, this merely could cast doubts on whether or not my positional play is any good, but the text description is accurate, at least in those sort of situations.  In an interesting note, I once called myself a positional player, but that was merely because I was bad at tactics.  After improving my tactics and analyzing my play, I found that my positional skills were never actually that good.)

I experimented a bit with doing some crosshatching and spot blacks here, with some clearly mixed results.  Also, if it's unclear, I am psychoanalyzing myself through my imagination.  I was going to add in a line about "You should know; you're a figment of my imagination," but decided what was in the strip was far more succinct, short, and in fact, to the point.

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Exclam! Comic 23: Two Signs in One!

Originally, the title would involve a trigonometry pun (i.e. something to do with co-sines), but I later felt it would be an irrelevant tangent.

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Exclam! Comic 22: Many Springs Open Part 3: Aftermath

Concluding my series on playing in the Many Springs Open 55 tournament, this strip sums up the experience (along with sort of a callback to strip #8, "The Cycle of Booking up"): pleasure at holding a 2.0 result with +1=2-0 (that's one win, two draws, and no losses) and thereby tying for second, and a wry prick of humor at not quite recouping my $20 entry fee (the original prize payment schedule was $45 to the winner, $25 to the runner-up, and $20 to the third-place finisher, the latter two of which ending up being combined and split among the three runners-up).

I suppose I have some random thoughts to put in this annotation:

I prepared the Fort Knox variation of the French as something of a drawing weapon.  It turned out not to be necessary.

I ended up fulfilling what the strong masters want to do in their tournaments: win with White, draw with Black.

Strangely enough, Modern Chess Openings 15 doesn't cover the London System.  I doubt the editors did this for the reason they don't cover 1 h4 or 1...h5 (they said that these were simply too bad to analyze), as the London System is playable, if a bit unambitious for White.

Even more strangely, they covered the Reversed London System as an option against the English Opening.  

That's all, folks.  Regular strips (as opposed to these more autobiographical ones) will resume on Sunday.

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Exclam! Comic 21: Many Springs Open Part 2: Pun Storm

As I write this annotation, I'm not completely satisfied with the direction I took this comic.  I can take solace in the fact that even though non-chess-players will not understand the last joke, it is still a pun; I cherish those plays-on-words, so I can retain at least a bit of pleasure from writing this.  I also get to write a bit of a longer annotation explaining things.

My friend Brian and I were paired together in the first round.  I played the Modern Defense (also known as the "Robatsch Defense" or simply as "the Rat"), to which Brian had no good opening lines.  After pushing his center (d- and e-) pawns, he advanced his knights to what are usually their best squares, c3 and f3, which is a rather modest way of meeting the Modern.  The game ended in a draw after all the pieces were exchanged, leaving a board full of pawns that became a wall impenetrable to either of our kings.  After the game, I discussed some more ambitious systems of meeting the Modern, including the Austrian Attack. 

This brings me to his next game.  He had White against a player who, coincidentally, played the Pirc Defense (pronounced "peert," not "perk", also the basis of the pun ("friend without peer", "friend without Pirc"), which is rather similar to the Modern, except for the presence of an early knight move to f6, which the Pirc has and the Modern does not.  After establishing the d4-e4-f4 pawn center, Brian actually left a pawn hanging, but after his opponent made a "fingerfehler" (a German term meaning that you touched the wrong piece), he went on with a winning attack.

The title of this comic refers to a "pawn storm," in which the attacker sends pawns flying up the board towards his opponent's king.  This is a rather aggressive kind of attack and is often quite decisive one way or another.