I’m back! I’ve finished writing my book, the last files are going off to the editor tomorrow, and at last I can think about chess and my blog again.
For a long time one of my many passwords (Not for this site, though! Don’t get any ideas!) has been “iamtheboss.” The point is that the letters make a nice triangle when you put them on a grid:
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I |
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A |
M |
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T |
H |
E |
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B |
O |
S |
S |
As a lover of silly word games and long diagonals, I thought this morning, “That’s kind of lame. Only four lines? Surely I can do better than that!”
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I |
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A |
M |
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T |
H |
E |
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B |
E |
S |
T |
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C |
H |
E |
S |
S |
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P |
L |
A |
Y |
E |
R, |
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C |
E |
R |
T |
A |
I |
N |
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P |
A |
T |
H |
E |
T |
I |
C, |
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O |
B |
V |
I |
O |
U |
S |
L |
Y |
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D |
E |
L |
U |
S |
I |
O |
N |
A |
L |
|||||
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C |
O |
M |
P |
E |
T |
I |
T |
O |
R |
S’ |
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P |
R |
E |
P |
O |
S |
T |
E |
R |
O |
U |
S, |
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I |
N |
S |
I |
G |
N |
I |
F |
I |
C |
A |
N |
T |
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P |
R |
E |
V |
A |
R |
I |
C |
A |
T |
I |
O |
N |
S |
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N |
O |
T |
W |
I |
T |
H |
S |
T |
A |
N |
D |
I |
N |
G. |
Now that’s a really long diagonal!
Obviously this is not a quote from anybody, but who would have been the most plausible player to say it? I think that the best candidate, by virtue of his arrogance and occasionally orotund writing style, would be Alexander Alekhine.
I’ll be back in a couple days with something more serious. I don’t know what yet, but we’ll see. Any comments on the theme of word play, Alexander Alekhine, passwords (be careful) or diagonals are more than welcome!
