Some commonly unconsidered strategies and moves in chess.

(1) Begin with the leftmost pawn and move only that piece until it "dies" and then change to the next-left-most pawn and repeat. Keep doing this piece-by-piece until you get to the rightmost rook. (Don't ask questions about the king now.)
(2) When you advance your pawn to the other dude's side, change it to a piece of the other dude's color. DOUBLE AGENT. Don't tell the other dude that the piece that looks like his is really yours. Sneak up on the king in the bathroom.
(3) "explain" the "way the pieces move" to your "unsuspecting opponent" in a way that "makes him lose for sure".
(4) Make outrageous bets with your opponent about whether certain pieces of his will survive the game. Lay enough various desirable conditions on your opponent so that in pursuing them she loses the game. Then pay her, like, dollars and stuff, because you lost all your bets.
(5) Mimic your opponent's moves. Keep the arrangement of pieces on the board as symmetrical as possible. Do it in a graceful way that makes your opponent want not to take any pieces in such a way that it will disrupt the symmetry. The opponent will not want to checkmate you, because then the symmetry would be left forever unaccomplished, because you won't be able to checkmate your opponent back.
(6) Man, fuck chess.
(7) Dance moves. Dance strategies.
(8) Play Max Clark and then play somebody else who is not Max Clark. Play one color against Max and the other color against Not-Max. Copy their moves in such a way that they are in effect playing against each other. When Max complains to you that you are just doing something he thought up in high school, go to the other guy and complain against him that he just doing something you thought of in high school. Whatever he replies with use as a reply to Max. Continue in this way until your identity is obliterated. I haven't worked out how this strategy plays out if you are playing Max in both games. I also haven't worked out how this strategy plays out if the Not-Max opponent is a girl Max would really like to kiss, etc.
(9) Announce your moves in the following way: "Now I am going to move [name of piece] over thisaway" or "Now I am going to move [name of piece] and take [name of taken piece]". The trick is though, you name each piece something other than the piece's name. So, if you take a rook with your bishop you say, "I'm going to move this knight and take your knight" or "Now I'm taking your queen with my king" etc. It will confuse the other person. Trust me. Then. Here's another twist. Once they have internalized your trick, so that they trust whatever you say to be stupidly false, start reporting accurately all your moves. Move quickly. Very quickly. They will be confused more.
(10) Get the transcript from a master chess player doing one of those "I will play 20 players at the same time" show cases. But here's the trick. Take the first move the master makes in his first game as your first move in this. Take the master's second move from the second game as your second move. Etc. Whenever this procedure yields an impossible move on your part, take charge.

Irene

As I sit here, lying down, in bed, in doors, eating a peanut butter and peanut butter sandwich, I think to myself "didn't some one promise a hurricane?" Well, hurricane I have got, if by hurricane, we mean "hurricane" which is just an eight-letter word (I have here set a trap for you!) which the OED tells me comes to us from a word having to do with hair. Twisty hair that masses up more and more hair in the Caribbean until it barrels into trees and swallows up the shingles from roofs. No, but seriously, I don't read the oed and have no idea. No, but seriously, this hurricane is not a hurricane, it is a tropical storm. And this tropical storm is not a tropical storm, but more like a just-slighlty blustery noise one might hear from an audiobook reading of 'winnie the pooh', indicating to one that one ought to turn the page now. I am not complaining. I wanted the hurricane not only to suck, but to suck and change directions for somewhere not me. I'm just glad my political/religious connections (re: Poseidon) have not gone to waste. I am fine for meteorological flavor from time to time, but am decidedly against soggy drama in the atmosphere.
I am currently focused on not focusing on my work. You might think it dangerous to mention as much, for doesn't mentioning my work risk turning my focus to my work, and maybe even threaten my getting some work done? For a lesser man perhaps. Or even a greater. But when one considers the exact degree of greatness I possess, one realizes that I am best at leaving work out of focus when mentioning just as much as I have. Mentioning it nonstop or all the time would be just to focus on it, and hence bad. Not mentioning it at all however... Nevermind. Mentioning my mentioning and/or not mentioning it as much as I just have risks risking the risk that I was just in the middle of explaining away as something not, for me, risky. So, I am going to stop. I know my limits.