Chess Online

In the lofty mountains of Idaho there is peace, excepting of course, when the Mountain Men are there.

This team was started by World Traveler and his sons October 2010. I was honored to become co-captain a few years later, and eventually took over as World Traveler had more pressing concerns. The following is taken from a Tarantino flick, “Inglurious Basterds”:

My name is Lt. Pavel Natanovich and I'm putting together a special team, and I need me twenty soldiers. Twenty chess playing soldiers. Now, y'all might've heard rumors about the armada happening soon. Well, we'll be leaving a little earlier. We're gonna be dropped into France, dressed as civilians. And once we're in enemy territory, as a bushwhackin' guerrilla army, we're gonna be doin' one thing and one thing only... Winning chess games. Now, I don't know about y'all, but I sure as hell didn't come down from the g--d--n White Cloud Mountains, cross five thousand miles of water, fight my way through half of Sicily and jump out of a ... air-o-plane to teach the enemy chess. Our opponents ain't got no game. They're the foot soldiers of a... maniac and they need to be dee-stroyed. That's why any and every every SOB we find... they're gonna lose. Now, I'm the direct descendant (on my mother's side) of the mountain man Paul Morphy. That means I got a little chess player in me. And our battle plan will be that of an Alekhine resistance. We will be cruel to the enemy, and through our cruelty they will know who we are. And the enemy won't not be able to help themselves but to imagine the cruelty their brothers endured at our hands, and our pins, and the edge of our forks. And the enemy will be sickened by us, and the enemy will talk about us, and the enemy will fear us. And when the enemy closes their eyes at night and they're tortured by their subconscious for the evil they have done, it will be with thoughts of us they are tortured with. Sound good?

Most teams prefer two player matches so they can scramble up the ladder faster. We prefer big brawls, with as many members involved as possible. There is no strategic value to this--but it helps establish better camaraderie with one's team mates. As a member of the Mountain Men we will do our best to pit you against players of similar rank. You control whether you want 3, 5, or 7 day games, and the number of games you want at any one time. Need a break just set your team games to zero for a month or two. I will try to keep every green (good to go) player occupied with at least two games.

Expect your games to be reviewed and annotated if your rating is more than 100 points below mine (~ 1650). I am happy to suggest tactics and strategies to improve team member play post play--not during a match. More important than winning or drawing is improving--and more important than either is having fun.

Ein schlechter Zug verdirbt vierzig gute. I. A. Horowitz

Pax per latrunculorum! (Peace through Chess!)