March 2005

Prophy's Introduction

Hi there!! How was February for you? I hope that it treated you well, and that this month finds you well so far also! You know, doing this newsletter really has me asking the question as to where this year is going! It seems like only yesterday that I was putting the first one together, and now I am just completing number 3, which means we are 1/4 of the way through 2005. Easter is coming up, and before we know it, the shops will have the Christmas things in again....oh, I can hear the moans and groans from here. Maybe I should move on then, huh? hehehe.

The newsletter seems to be going from strength to strength, and I would like to thank you all once again for your enthusiastic comments, and your support. Especially popular last month was the interview I did with Grandmaster Susan Polgar, and I am so glad that it was so enjoyed, as I got great pleasure out of doing it! Unfortunately, there is no Grandmaster interview this month, but stay tuned for some exciting news coming soon...sorry, no messages please, my lips are sealed for now Smiling

As you will notice in Kran's tournament update, there is a special chess tournament underway, sponsored by Paul Truong & the Polgar Chess Foundation. The prize is a signed calendar of the 2004 US Womens Olympiad Dream Team, (Susan Polgar amongst them), and I would urge you to enter. The team made history in last year's Olympiad in Calvia, taking silver medal for their Country. Although the calendar is 2004/2005, this is an excellent prize of chess memorabilia! Should you have missed the deadline for the current tournament, I believe there will be a second one starting soon! Smiling

In this month's newsletter, we have:

  • Site News
  • Monthly Message from Badger
  • St. Patrick's Day Shamrock Hunt
  • Chess Corner -- All about checkmates this month
  • Krans Tournament News
  • Joggle Jungle
  • Testamonial Of The Month
  • Poetry Corner

In addition to all of this, I am sure that you are aware that Saint Patricks Day is coming up in March. To mark the occasion we have a little bit of GoldToken fun for you; namely, the GoldToken St. Patrick's Day Shamrock Hunt! Placed on profiles around the site, are 12 shamrock's. What you have to do is to find them, and having done so, message their locations to Badger. (Only when you have them all please lol). The first person to find them all wins, and will get a special mystery prize!!

This is back by popular demand, after the success of the Valentines Day Heart Hunt last month. This was won by Tessa, who gave the secret to her success as checking out the profiles of the Platinum Members online -- so well done to her! As you will notice, there is no quiz this month -- surprisingly I received no entries for last month's quiz, so there has been an executive decision to replace it with a regular picture hunt of some kind -- I hope that this will prove agreeable to all Smiling


Ok, All that remains for me to do now, is to wish you much pleasure in your reading, and to invite you all to contact me with items to be considered for next month's issue (out April 4th) Smiling read on, and enjoy! prophy tactics prophytactics@goldtoken.com

Site News

-- GoldToken gave out 120 silver memberships in February as Valentines gifts to its most dedicated visitors!

-- Happy belated Birthday goes to our very own DB host MizE for March 2nd!

-- Congratulations go to GoldToken's Kran and her Husband Freight Train who celebrate their 8th Anniversary on March 17th!


any birthdays, anniversaries, etc. coming up for next month, feel free to send me a message and let me know so that we can give them a shout in next month's newsletter! Smiling

Monthly Message from Badger

This last month has been so exciting! We opened Joggle Jungle, our version of Boggle, in the discussion boards (the Grand Opening for all Players is today!!). A special thanks to the crew who run Joggle Jungle for posting the games, figuring out the scores, and adding so much fun there! Let them know how much you enjoy the new game board when you get a chance!

We suffered a time out problem last week and are very grateful to McStack for spending hours upon hours fixing it. He also let me personally test out 5 incrediably fun new game variations that I am just itching to tell someone about but am instead offering a GoldToken Lazor Engraved Carabiner KeyChain Pen to the player who first most closely guesses all five on the General Chat board before they are released. Clue: McStack and JK have spent months perfecting these games for your enjoyment.

We had our Grand Opening of the new official GoldToken Players Site on Friday 11 this February. The new URL has changed, so we thought it was a good time to reannounce the site. It is the one and only officiallly sanctioned club for meeting outside of GoldToken. While often duplicated, this is the only place you'll find the same friendly environment that you enjoy at GT, while off the site. It's open to all players, and everyone can post their pictures and use the message boards. Come join us, post your pictures and say hello at http://groups.msn.com/Goldtoken-com/!!! A big thanks goes to firefly for her hard work in the wonderful graphics that welcome all of us there!

Our first GoldToken babyshower is underway. It is for Marko and dolly's daughter, who will be born soon. You can see her first pictures at http://groups.msn.com/Goldtoken-com/. Please snail mail babyshower cards or handwritten notes (no money or presents) to GoldToken at P. O. Box 622 Somerset, CA 95684 USA for them and they will all be forwarded to Marko and dolly. This will be something for them to treasure for years to come!!!! If you know of any other players upcoming events, PM me so we can do the same for them too!!!

Badger

Joggle Jungle

Have you Experienced the Jungle?!?!?

Hello Goldtoken, I weathered thru the Jungle to get to a discussion board near you! It's has been great to see so many faces on the Joggle Jungle board. I am so pleased that you enjoy the game as much as I enjoy making up the boards. Soon you can read just what others think about it. First I want you to know it is a great honor that this game was chosen to be on a discussion board, for something that started off, as a game that was only going to be in a club has grown beyond belief. Here is a little summary of the game: A board is made up of letters that gets scrambled, and Joggled into placed in a 5x5 Frame. From there you form words, make as many as you can! And plurals are accepted. This game is easy to catch on too; however if you have any questions I am willing to help you out on how it works (after a round has been played). There is NO answer key so some scoring is longer than others (as I check to see if the word is on the board, not all of the time but only those that I don't see more than once).

These are the rules for the words:

-- Only one PM from each player (Anymore than one will not be accepted).
-- Words with first letter in Alphabetical Order will get 5 Pts.
-- The letters have to be touching.
-- They can zig-zag but must form a line.
-- If the letters don't touch, the word isn't acceptable.
-- No proper nouns (No words, starting w/capital letters). However.. john ( toilet ), is acceptable, whereas, John, the name is not..
-- No words under 4 letters long.
-- No abbreviations and contractions.
-- When a word is posted by 2 or more players, that word is eliminated.
-- You can not use a square more than once in a word.
-- Words not found in the Webster's Dictionary will not be accepted.
-- Only words in Question will be checked.

Come see what the Buzz is about. Hope to see you there! Come and join in the fun at the Joggle Jungle Board. I will be waiting for you!!

Thanks,
Joggle Jungle

Reviews

Jane Joggle Jungle causes you to really think hard in a fun way. it's a method too of enlarging your vocabulary through fun... i really enjoy the game and wish i had more time to play it because it's so good for one! thanks very much for enlightening me as i had never played Boggle before...i'm so glad you brought it to Goldtoken!

Kid A I would just like to say that I truly enjoy playing the Joggle Jungle board. I really enjoy playing Boggle so having the opportunity to play it on my favorite game site is a treat. I would also like to thank GoldToken for both of their new discussion board games ( Mars vs Venus and Joggle Jungle ). I really like the fact that they are posted a couple of times a day so players like myself have the opportunity of playing when I get home from work and possibly before I go to work. Thank you all again!

superkaempe the gentle giant I love the game and I play it if I am at a computer when a round comes up.

Tournament News by Kran
  • We'd like to take this time to remind you that new tourneys are starting every Monday! We have a tournament for each game type once a month, with a few special tourneys thrown in. For instance, each month we offer a Fast Backgammon, and Fast Nackgammon tournament, with one day timeouts. We also have a Thematic Chess tournament, with a new opening each month. And so the guests can take advantage of the tournaments we also offer one standard (non-variant) game type tournament that is open for guests, with the game type changing from month to month! We also now have a Fast Salvo in every variant (regular, stealth, devious, and decoy). These tournaments, like the Fast Back variants, will have a one day timeout to help out with establishing your tourney rating in the games that take 400 games for a rating. New for March, we are now offering cube tourneys! Check out the signup page for 3,5,7,and 9 pt Backgammon and Nackgammon Tournaments!

  • We have also have many sponsorship tournaments, with funds donated by many of our generous members. In these tourneys the highest placing guest wins a membership, or other great prize! If you are interested in sponsoring a guest tourney send a message to Kran to work out the details. This month's featured sponsorship tournaments are, Geri39's Guest Salvo, in which the highest placing guest wins a 6 month silver membership, Polgar Chess Foundation Match (as already mentioned above), porkpie1's Go(ldmember) Porku, winner of which receives a platinum membership, and reddragon's Guest Salvo, winner of which will receive a wood membership with a possible upgrade to silver (if you win a final game of salvo vs. reddragon) We also have a series of tournaments sponsored by Pamper Me and toadisgimpy. The highest placing guest in each will receive a 6 month silver membership, and the tourneys are offered in Backgammon, Reversi, and Go-Moku.

  • Goldtoken would also like to take the time to send a big congratulations out to all February Tournament winners!!! If your name is on this list, please contact Badger for your prize! 
                         2nd Mid August Checkers- Robyn Hode
                         2nd Mid August Hotspot 4iar- Punisher Pele
                         4iar Madness ZeroG 4iar- tjancira
                         August Hot Zero 4iar- tjancira
                         December Giveaway Checkers- Rogue Trooper
                         Dinner Date Reversi- Birds of Prey
                         Goldtoken Olympic Checkers- Robyn Hode
                         Goldtoken Olympic SM Reversi- klaashaas
                         Goldtoken Olympic Zero G 4iar- rabbitoid
                         January 8x8 Trax- dgb
                         January Trax (not back)- dgb
                         Late August Zero G 4iar- tjancira
                         Mid August Blackhole Reversi- klaashaas
                         Mid August Checkers- Robyn Hode
                         Mid July Give Away Checkers- dama1
                         November Fast Backgammon- Buz
                         November Fast Nackgammon- DocMartin
                         November Giveaway Checkers- trik
                         October Fast Nackgammon- golfnutrof
                         October Giveaway 4iar- Mike UK
                         October Hotspot 4iar- N_a_z
                         October Small Reversi- sphinx
                         October Zero G 4iar- tjancira
                         Septembers Fat Backgammon- elikat
                         Silver Backgammon- drgnrdr
                         Zero G July 2004- tjancira

Chess Corner by prophy tactics

I have lost count of the many chess congresses and tournaments I have been to, where I have seen a win turned in to a draw (sometimes even a loss!) because of poor endgame technique or pure ignorance on some of the most basic checkmates in chess. One event that has stuck in my memory, was seeing a young boy rattle off move upon move of opening theory, play a sizzling middlegame, to be two pieces up by the time the endgame came. His opponent, (somewhat more advanced in years) exchanged queens to leave the boy still two pieces up (2 bishops) versus his lone king. This was a 25 minute game, and the boy spent much of his remaining time looking and looking for how to checkmate, and tried and tried and tried. The king of his opponent kept escaping, and in the end, the game was drawn.

How do we explain this? Well, let's look at it like a house. You lay the foundations, you build up the bricks, but you decide you wont bother with the roof. Of course, this is silly, a house is not a house without some kind of roof. It is just the same as in chess, though. So many people lay good foundations by learning openings, build up a good strong middlegame and can spot a tactic in a second or two. Then, when the endgame comes, their game just simply has no roof.

It is true to say, that the majority of chess players spend most of their time on openings, and probably the least on the endgame, the middlegame fitting somewhere in-between. These days, it is true that to play chess seriously, you are at a disadvantage if your opening theory is not good, and this is probably the reason that chess players spend most of their money on opening books and databases. But we must ask ourselves one question here: what is the point of playing a flawless opening, strong middlegame, when you have not done the same learning on the endgame?

Chess is full of combinations, it is made up of a combination of opening, middlegame, endgame -- and each of these is made up of a combination of principles, themes, tactics, and strategies. At first, this can seem pretty over-whelming, but the important thing to realise here, is that many of them (if practiced enough) become pretty much automatic, once you learn the themes and principles.

The young boy I refer to above, will have gone away from that chess game, and discovered that actually to checkmate with 2 bishops and king against lone king, does not take very long at all, but that will only have made failing to win hit even harder. He will probably have learned it none-the-less, though, and possibly even king, knight, Bishop v king....just incase.

Obviously, I can't go in to great depth on the endgame here, but hopefully for those who have neglected this part in their chess, I can prompt you in to making a start to put that right. To do this, I am going to show you how to checkmate (v lone king) with: king & Queen, King & rook, King and 2 bishops, and even King bishop & Knight.

It can not be stated firmly enough, how much you can benefit from learning these checkmates. Firstly, it will give you an enlightened knowledge of the pieces and how they work together. Also, it can be enormous fun to practice them regularly, either alone or with a friend or against a chess engine. Once you have learned the principles, you can put the pieces in different starting positions to increase the challenge. Of course, you may already know some or all of these aspects, and in that case I congratulate you and hope that next month's chess corner will contain something of more use Smiling On that matter, if you have a chess topic or question that you would like covered in Chess Corner, then please message me with it, and I will do my best Smiling

Ok, so on with the checkmates then. Obviously there are many possible moves and variations, and to try and cover them all would make it very confusing for the reader, so I have only used variations (shown in /[ ]/) sparingly. The most important thing here, is to show you the idea and principles you need. My advice would be to play through the main lines (shown in bold) first, then go through the variations later on.


King & Queen v King:
Starting position White: king on e1, queen on d1
starting position Black: King on e5

Probably the easiest of checkmates, and where all you have to do is drive the opponents king to the edge or corner of the board and use your king to support the queen in delivering checkmate. Be careful here though, it is incredibly easy to hastily stalemate your opponent, which is incredibly annoying.

So, from the starting position, we have: 1.Qd3 Kf4 2.Qd4+ Kf5 so, the king starts to move backwards, time for the white king to take some ground 3.Ke2 Ke6 4.Ke3 Kf5 5.Qe4+ Kf6 6.Qd5 the white queen takes the rank (or file as the case may be) that the black king just gave up. This ensures that the black king is always moving towards the edge of the board. 6...Ke7 so, what move now? you got it 7.Qc6 Kf7 8.Ke4 time once again to bring the king up, his support is needed now 8...Ke7 9.Ke5 Kf7 10.Qf6+ and here, it's mate in 3 10...Ke8 careful now, a rash Ke6 would stalemate. So.... /[10...Kg8 11.Qe7 Kh8 12.Kf6 Kg8 13.Qg7#]/ 11.Qg7 Kd8 12.Kd6 Ke8 13.Qe7#


King & Rook v King:
Starting Position White: King e1, Rook h1
Starting Position Black: King e5

This is obviously a little more tricky than mating with the queen, because the rook, obviously, is not as powerful a piece. This is still a very simple checkmate, and works much on the same principle as mating with the queen, but the attacking king needs to play more of a role.

So, from the starting position, we have: 1.Kd2 Ke4 2.Rh4+ Ke5 3.Kd3 Kf5 4.Re4 and now the Black King is already confined to a small section of the board 4...Kg5 5.Re5+ Kf6 /[5...Kf4 6.Ra5 a waiting move which makes Black move more in to the net. 6...Kf3 7.Rf5+ Kg4 8.Ke4 Kg3 9.Rf4 Kg2 as the king goes more towards the edge, his options decrease -- also though, white must be more careful as one wrong move can result in his escape 10.Rf3 Kh2 11.Kf4 Kg2 12.Kg4 Kh2 13.Rf2+ Kh1 14.Kf3 (or 14.Kg3 Kg1 15.Rf3 the waiting move 15...Kh1 16.Rf1#) 14...Kg1 15.Kg3 Kh1 16.Rf1#]/ 6.Ke4 Kg6 7.Kf4 Kf6 8.Re2 here, the White King has the opposition to the Black King, so white withdraws his rook, making the enemy move backwards. 8...Kg6 /[8...Kf7 9.Kg5 Kg7 10.Rf2 Kh7 11.Rf7+ Kh8 12.Kf6 Kg8 13.Kg6 Kh8 14.Rf8#]/ 9.Re6+ Kg7 10.Kg5 Kf7 11.Re3 once again, to make the Black King give ground, the White rook withdraws 11...Kg7 /[11...Kf8 12.Kg6 Kg8 13.Re8#]/ 12.Re7+ Kf8 13.Kf6 Kg8 14.Rd7 another waiting move /[obviously 14.Kg6 is just met by 14...Kf8 However, this is perfectly fine. Just apply the principles, and withdraw the rook, for mate next move 15.Re2 Kg8 16.Re8#]/ 14...Kh8 15.Kg6 Kg8 16.Rd8#


King & 2 Bishops v King:
Starting Position White: King on e1, Bishop on f1 & c1
Starting Position Black: King on e8

This checkmate is a challenge, it is far from easy, and I have spent many an hour battling with it personally, and teaching it to others. Once again though, the term 'easy when you know how' applies, and as with all of these checkmates, it is just a case of familiarising yourself with the principles. With this mate, you must drive the enemy king to a corner, not merely to any edge as with the previous two examples. This in itself ups the difficulty.

It is a fact that this mate does not come up very often, (I myself have never done it in an actual game), but then I advise you to remember the young boy I referred to at the beginning of this article. You just never know.

So, from the starting position: 1.Bf4 Kd7 2.Bg2 and now the king is very quickly confined to one little triangle of the board 2...Ke7 3.Be4 this is how we want our bishops, as side by side one can not be attacked by the enemy king should he manage to advance 3...Kf6 4.Ke2 time to bring our own king into the action 4...Ke7 5.Kf3 Kf6 6.Kg4 Ke6 if it was white's move here, apply the principles of the opposition and make the Black King give ground by a simple waiting move of Bg3. 7.Kg5 Kf7 8.Bf5 further confining the King 8...Ke7 9.Kg6 and now our King is in place 9...Ke8 10.Bg5 making the king go towards the corner 10...Kf8 11.Bd7 and keeping him going towards the corner 11...Kg8 12.Be7 and this is what we are aiming for -- from here he is mated in 3 12...Kh8 carefully does it here, do not be hasty 13.Bd6 the waiting move, so that we check him in to the corner, and not out of it Smiling 13...Kg8 14.Be6+ Kh8 15.Be5#


King, Bishop & knight v King:
Starting Position White: King on e1, Bishop on c1, knight on g8
Starting Position Black: King on e8

Oh boy will you have fun with this one, lol. This is the most difficult of checkmates imaginable, and extremely rare. Not only do you have to drive the enemy King to a corner (once again an edge will not suffice) but it also has to be the corner covered by your bishop, as that is the piece which will deliver mate. You may never have the satisfaction of doing this in a game, but hopefully the satisfaction of knowing that you could if the need arises, will make up for it!

So, from the starting position: 1.Bf4 there is nothing immediate to do here, one has to patiently prepare and bring our peices in to the action. Just bear in mind, that we have a dark squared bishop, so the king must be driven towards either a1 or h8 in order to be mated. 1...Kd7 2.Nf3 Kc6 3.Ke2 up comes the king, ready to face-off with his enemy, when he will then call upon his forces 3...Kb7 4.Kd3 Kb6 5.Kc4 Kb7 6.Ne5 this will decide which corner the king will be mated on, a1 or h8 6...Ka7 for the convenience of this exercise, it is a1 Smiling 7.Kb5 Kb7 8.Nc4 Ka7 (if ...Kc8, then Kc6 and the Black king is already being driven towards h8) 9.Kc6 ok, take a good look at this situation, this is very important and the first thing that we are aiming for. Here, all three pieces begin to work in absolute harmony in order to begin to drive the Black King to a1. 9...Ka8 the most stubborn move, so /[9...Ka6 10.Be5 Ka7 11.Bd4+ Ka8 12.Nb6+ Kb8 13.Be5+ Ka7 14.Bf4 Ka6 15.Bb8 Ka5 16.Nd5 Ka4 17.Kc5 Kb3 18.Nb4 Kc3 19.Bf4 Kb3 20.Be5 Ka4 21.Kc4 Ka5 22.Bc7+ Ka4 23.Nd3 Ka3 24.Bd6+ Ka4 25.Nc5+ Ka3 26.Kc3 Ka2 27.Nd3 Kb1 28.Kb3 Ka1 29.Bf4 Kb1 30.Nb4 Ka1 31.Nc2+ Kb1 32.Na3+ Ka1 33.Be5#]/ 10.Nb6+ Ka7 then......remember what you have learned in the previous examples. We have the opposition, so, make the king give ground 11.Be5 the waiting move 11...Ka6 is absolutely forced 12.Bb8 now we make sure the king keeps giving ground 12...Ka5 13.Nd5 Ka4 /[so what if 13...Ka6 you got it, we play 14.Nb4+ Ka5 15.Kc5]/ 14.Kc5 Kb3 /[do not worry if Black seems to be being awkward with 14...Ka5 he can not prevent the outcome of this, and the important fact is that our own king is gaining ground all the time -- so... 15.Nb4 Ka4 16.Kc4 Ka5 17.Bc7+ etc.]/ 15.Nb4 here too, take a good look at the situation. Black can not escape the net, for the knight controls c3 and e3 15...Kc3 16.Bf4 and the bishop and king control the others 16...Kb3 17.Be5 in with the principle, the king gives ground, so we keep him confined 17...Ka3 18.Kb5 Kb3 19.Bd4 the waiting move 19...Ka3 20.Kc4 Ka4 21.Bb6 Ka3 22.Nd3 and here we have that important position again ...... so, if you followed my advice and took a good look at it, you should know it quite well now 22...Ka4 /[22...Ka2 23.Bc5 Ka1 24.Kb3 Kb1 25.Bd6 Ka1 26.Kc2 Ka2 27.Nc1+ Ka1 28.Be5#]/ 23.Nc5+ Ka3 24.Kc3 Ka2 25.Kc2 the king is in place 25...Ka3 26.Ba5 now we close the net 26...Ka2 27.Bb4 Ka1 28.Nb3+ Ka2 29.Nc1+ Ka1 30.Bc3#

I hope you enjoyed that, and found it worthwhile -- see you next month! Smiling

Poetry Corner

Gt is like home to me,
It's where I spend my time,
My laundry baskets filling up
and the bathtubs filled with grime

Dinner is always late,
I have no time to clean
But one thing that is always shinny
Is my pc screen!!!!

by Tessa

Testamonial Of The Month

I just wanted to say Thank You (and Kran) for all your hard work and dedication to this site. i enjoy this site so much, and play regularly. This is by far the best chess gaming site i've ever seen (i only play chess, so far), and i don't mind telling all my friends and family the same. Thanks again, to everyone who makes this site what it is. Your work does not go unnoticed! Jazzman

Would you like to make your affection for GoldToken known? Please send your testamonials (or any other material submissions) to me, prophy tactics or email them to prophytactics@goldtoken.com for possible inclusion in future editions -- thank you!
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This page was last edited by GoldToken Support at 10:35AM on 1 February 2010

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