Excelsior

"Excelsior" is one of Sam Loyd's most famous chess problems, originally published in London Era in 1861, named after the poem "Excelsior" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Loyd had a friend who was willing to wager that he could always find the piece which delivered the principal mate of a chess problem. Loyd composed this problem as a joke and bet his friend dinner that he could not pick a piece that didn't give mate in the main line (his friend immediately identified the pawn on b2 as being the least likely to deliver mate), and when the problem was published it was with the stipulation that white mates with "the least likely piece or pawn"

Sam Loyd, London Era, 1861

"White to move in five with the "least likely piece or pawn"

Pensándolo bien

Pensándolo bien

Me dicen que debo hacer ejercicio para adelgazar,

que alrededor de los 50 son muy peligrosos la grasa y el cigarro,

que hay que conservar la figura

y dar la batalla al tiempo, a la vejez.

Expertos bien intencionados y médicos amigos

me recomiendan dietas y sistemas

para prolongar la vida unos años más.

Lo agradezco de todo corazón, pero me río

de tan vanas recetas y tan escaso afán.

(La muerte también ríe de todas esas cosas.)

La única recomendación que considero seriamente

es la de buscar una mujer joven para la cama

porque a estas alturas

la juventud sólo puede llegarnos por contagio.

Consider it well

They say that I have to exercise to lose weight,

that at fifty fat and cigarettes are dangerous,

that one should keep one's figure

and fight the battle of time, of age.

Well-intentioned experts and friendly doctors

recommend diets and programs

to prolong life a few years more.

I'm thankful for the good intention, but I laugh

at how shallow are the prescriptions, how stingy the fervor.

(Death too laughs at these things.)

The only recommendation I'll seriously consider

is to find a young woman for my bed

because at this age

youth is the only thing that comes close to curing this disease.

Jaime Sabines

Arturo Pérez-Reverte

Otros van a la iglesia, y yo voy al ajedrez

http://www.perezreverte.com/articulo/patentes-corso/609/sobre-ninos-vida-y-ajedrez/

Beyond the opening

http://www.mediafire.com/?7izrcx7x211z8