English Chess Forum

It could be one of those unnecessary words that people sometimes include for no particular reason. My pet hate is starting a sentence with "up until . . . " I've never yet met such a sentence where the 'up' can't be omitted without changing the meaning. (I nearly put 'at all' at the end of the last sentence thus including unnecessary words.)

Robert

Someone said he is using it metaphorically. What is he making out of it?

It is the start of a chapter on pawn structure:

Clearly the weakest man on the board. the little pawn may seem unimportant. In reality. though. the pawn is the foundation upon which most chess strategies are built. The great Polish Grandmaster Saviely Tartakower (1887-1956) was not joking when he wrote, "Never lose a pawn and you will never lose a game."

The previous time I was forced to make up a poem........I just need to know the meaning.

My point exactly - take 'little' out of the above quotation and it does not change the meaning. Having said that, the writer might be emphasising the point that a pawn, although the least valuable chess man on the board, is nevertheless not to be lost without consequence - it can hold together the whole position.

Robert

Soheil Hooshdaran .Clearly the weakest man on the board. the little pawn may seem unimportant. (from Play Winning Chess),

There have been responses which are clearly not helpful. Try changing the very old statement to:

Clearly the weakest piece on the board, the pawn may seem unimportant. But, it is a little like bricks in a building. Together the 8 pawns for each player provides the basis of the edifice that they build in each game.

Use of the word 'man' shows that it is an out of date statement. The term 'man' for chess pieces is no longer used.
It is also simplistic. In the endgame two pawns on the sixth rank are usually superior to a rook.

What do you guys do with the 'little'?

Aben Rudy said that the author wanted to be cute and not related to the chess info, and I answered I have to preserve the cuteness because the author wanted the book to be both instructive and fun to read.

Robert Stokes wrote:It could be one of those unnecessary words that people sometimes include for no particular reason. My pet hate is starting a sentence with "up until . . . " I've never yet met such a sentence where the 'up' can't be omitted without changing the meaning. (I nearly put 'at all' at the end of the last sentence thus including unnecessary words.)

Robert

Up until now intensifies the idea of the passing of time over until now. When we overlook the possibility of nuances and subtleties like these, we brutalise our own language.

Hi.
What dies "left to his own devices" mean exactly(I'm looking for the smallest nuances ) in:

I was just 13, and my opponent, also a young boy, was making his moves very quickly. It was obvious that hod memorized this particular opening and was repeating the- moves of some famous Grandmaster. Cautiously. I picked my way through his opening “minefield" and was only slightly behind when the middlegame started. He finally Began to slow down, taking more time to think over his moves. “At least we're out of the book now, and he's on his own,"I thought with a good deal of relief. The battle was joined and I needed to concentrate.

Ten moves later my opponent resigned. It became obvious that he had a good memory but understood little about the principles of chess. Left to his own devices, his game fell apart remarkably quickly.

?Thanks in advance

A mixture of these ideas:

Depend on his own skills
Having to make his own decisions
Not having help from someone else (in this case, his memory of his chess studies).

“Left to his own devices” - something you should not be allowed to do on this forum, or we will get more of these daft threads started

I don't want to labour the point, but I would be interested in an example sentence where you thought that the 'up' at the front made a noticeable difference.

Robert

P.S. Perhaps it's the mathematician in me. The best mathematical statement or proof is the one which gives all of the required information with the minimum of symbols.

"Left to his own devises" meant that he had to start thinking for himself and could no longer rely on a remembered sequence of good moves that someone else had worked out for him.

Robert

If only our top GMs were left to their own devices...

Robert Stokes wrote:I don't want to labour the point, but I would be interested in an example sentence where you thought that the 'up' at the front made a noticeable difference.

Robert

P.S. Perhaps it's the mathematician in me. The best mathematical statement or proof is the one which gives all of the required information with the minimum of symbols.

In every example there will be a difference; but you won't notice it - at least you hadn't up till now.

The up stresses the passage of time. Without the up it's the present that is stressed.

Think of up till now as (in some ways, not all) short for all the way up till now.

You do see that there is a changed emphasis between till now and all the way up till now, don't you?

Some people feel intensification is unnecessary and redundant