The Leprechaun Gambit
A few years ago I was working at a festival in an Australian country town. At 9.00 when the doors opened I was talking to my friend Richard, a man with a deep love of philology. Only one person came through the doors, walked around looking at the stalls, and seemed likely to complete the circuit and leave. So I drew her into our conversation.
She was Irish and said that she didn't mind Irish jokes (I would never have told her one) but when her children come home from school and tell her they're stupid because they're Irish, she got upset.
I told her a little about Richard's background—he's a particularly intelligent man—and said, “I'm going to tell you a story and when I get to the end you'll laugh but Richard will look confused. Then you'll explain it to him and he'll laugh—and that'll prove that you're smarter than he is.”
They both looked puzzled and I launched into an account of an interview with an Irish actor I'd seen on the Box. In a commando movie he had to leap from a cliff, Tarzan-style, hanging onto a rope. As he did, he screamed something out. After the scene the director asked what he'd called out and he said, “It's just an old Irish war cry.” So they left it in. When the movie was shown in Dublin it brought the house down because what he had yelled was, “Pogue Mahone!”
On cue the lady laughed and Richard looked puzzled. “Tell him,” I said, and when she did, Richard joined in the laughter. For, politely expressed, pogue mahone is “kiss my butt”.
Which brings me to a game I lost to Pistoleer (may the road rise to meet him, and the wind be always at his back) in April, and to my appalling lack of opening knowledge—I thought we were playing an Italian game and didn't realise Pistoleer was playing the Leprechaun Gambit.
He sacrificed his bishop on move 5 while he was still undeveloped. Ridiculous! It couldn't possibly be effective. I relaxed. . .
The game was embarrassingly short and if Elizabeth Barrett Browning annotated it she would probably have said, “How did you blunder? Let me count the ways...”
You can analyse it if you like but there's no need to do so on my account—I've already noted the mistakes.
I decided to post it because of batgirl's comment
in the “Hugs, pretty girls and smothered mates” post, about playing-at-odds. I think Pistoleer, having thrashed me on a number of occasions, decided to give me a chance by playing a game at Bishop odds.
What do you think?
