4.17.2019

Draw


  • I made a critical mistake and lost my Queen early in a Knight fork
  • At this juncture in the game, Black is up by:
    • 1 Pawn (8 to 7)
    • And the Black Queen to my White Knight (6 points)
    • 7 Points total!
    • There's no way White can win
    • But I have a very good defense. Eg 
      • The Black Bishop is locked in
      • All of the White Pawns are on Black spaces (impervious to attack)
      • My White Bishop is really mis-positioned but is protected by my Knight
    • For the last two dozen moves, I have moved my King: G1 to G2 ... G2 to G1
  • It's a draw
  • If I were Black:
    • I would have maneuvered the Black Bishop to a position to attack and exchange with the White Bishop
    • And then tried to open up the H column

4.12.2019

Lost Rook to foolish mistake - come from behind


  • Kathee out grocery shopping - played a nice game of chess
  • As the title indicates, I lost a Rook midway through the game but managed to struggle back
  • At the time I lost the Rook, Black had 2 Rooks, White 1 Rook + 2 Knights. 
  • Two Knights and King played defense while remaining Rook picked away and protected Pawn to Queen advance.
  • I didn't need two Queens to win, but sometimes I'm merciless

4.05.2019

Will never be Won


  • I play about 4-5 games of chess a day. 
  • My win rate is about 20%
  • One has to be completely error free against a computer because a computer will never make a mistake
  • (one of the joys of playing against the average human, it that they will make a mistake and one can "blow it open")
  • The above is an error free game. Tit for Tat
  • If I had a Knight ...
  • Last game of the day!

4.02.2019

On Mutual Fund Expenses


  • One might think that 1.19% is reasonable (and perhaps it is). But consider this ...
  • If one has $ 100,000 invested in this ... it's $ 1,190 every year!
  • GGBZX is a classic "fund of funds"
  • And what are the components of GGBZX?

  • For a true expense ratio of 2.02%
  • Contrast the expenses of SPY
The Oracle of Omaha made a very public bet with Protégé Partners on December 19, 2007, that over the following 10 years, an unmanaged S&P 500 index fund would outperform a collection of five high-profile fund-of-funds. Buffett won the bet... and it wasn’t even close. The S&P 500 returned a cumulative 125.8% (or 8.5% per year). The hedge funds delivered cumulative returns ranging from just 2.8% to 87.7% (0.3% to 6.5% per year). And remember, this time period includes the 2008 meltdown.

4.01.2019

Blitz