Benko Gambit

The Benko Gambit (or Volga Gambit) is a chess opening characterised by the move 3...b5 in the Benoni Defence arising after:
The "Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings" has three codes for the Benko Gambit:
Origin and predecessors.
The idea of sacrificing a pawn with ...b5 and ...a6 is quite old. Karel Opočenský applied the idea against, among others, Gideon Ståhlberg at Poděbrady 1936, Paul Keres at Pärnu 1937, Erich Eliskases at Prague 1937, and Theo van Scheltinga at the Buenos Aires Chess Olympiad 1939. Later, the game Mark Taimanov–David Bronstein at the Candidates Tournament, Zürich 1953, drew attention. Most of these games began as a King's Indian, with Black only later playing ...c5 and ...b5. Possibly the first game using the now-standard 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 c5 3.d5 b5 was Thorvaldsson–Vaitonis, Munich Olympiad 1936.
In many countries, particularly in the Eastern Bloc, the opening is known as the Volga Gambit (). This name is derived from the Volga River after an article about 3...b5 by B. Argunow written in Kuibyshev (Samara since 1991), Russia, that was published in the second 1946 issue of the magazine "Shakhmaty v SSSR".
Beginning in the late 1960s, this opening idea was also promoted by Hungarian-American grandmaster Pal Benko, who provided many new suggestions and published his book "The Benko Gambit" in 1974. The name "Benko Gambit" stuck and is particularly used in English-speaking countries.
In his 1974 book, Benko drew a distinction between the "Benko Gambit" and the "Volga Gambit": "Volga Gambit" referred to the move 3...b5 (sometimes followed by an early ...e6), while the "Benko Gambit" consisted of the moves 3...b5 4.cxb5 a6, now considered the main line. Today the names are synonymous and are used interchangeably or joined together as "Volga-Benko Gambit".
Theory.
The main line continues 4. cxb5 a6 5. bxa6 Bxa6 followed by Black fianchettoing the f8-bishop. (Black players are leery of the double-fianchetto system, where White plays g3 and b3 and fianchettos both bishops, have preferred 5...g6 intending 6.b3 Bg7 7.Bb2 Nxa6! The point is that it is awkward for White to meet the threat of ...Nb4, hitting d5 and a2, when Nc3 may often be met by ...Nfxd5 because of the latent pin down the .) Black's compensation for the pawn takes several forms. First, White, who is already behind in , must solve the problem of developing the f1-bishop. After 6. Nc3 d6, if White plays 7.e4, then Black will respond 7...Bxf1, and after recapturing with the king, White must spend time castling artificially with g3 and Kg2, as in the line 7...Bxf1 8.Kxf1 g6 9.g3 Bg7 10.Kg2. If White avoids this by fianchettoing the bishop, it will be in a rather passive position, being blocked by White's own pawn on d5.
Apart from this, Black also obtains fast development, good control of the a1–h8 diagonal, and can exert pressure down the half-open a- and b-files. These benefits can last well into the endgame and so, unusually for a gambit, Black does not generally mind if queens are exchanged; indeed, exchanging queens can often remove the sting from a attack by White.
Although the main line of the Benko is considered acceptable for White, there are various alternatives that avoid some of the problems entailed in the main line. The simplest is to just decline the gambit with 4.Nf3. Other possible moves are 4.Nd2, 4.a4, 4.e3, and 4.Qc2. Another idea, popular at the grandmaster level as of 2004 and considered a safer option for Black, is to accept the pawn with 4.cxb5 but then immediately return it with 4...a6 5.b6.
In main idea is that after exchanging as many pieces as possible, having the black rooks on the a and b file, white's a and b pawns can become vulnerable and the black king can become very active and make it to the center via the black bishop's fianchetto diagonal.
Sosonko variation.
After 4. a4, Black has three replies. The most popular line is the "Sosonko Accepted" variation, where Black plays 4... bxc4. This often leads to sharp and sacrificial lines for both sides. Such lines include the "poisoned knight" variation where after 4. a4 bxc4 5. Nc3 e6 6. e4 exd5 and 7. e5, Black sacrifices a knight for a large central pawn majority and excellent advantage with good attacking chances; and the "River Styx Attack", which continues 5. Nc3 Ba6, 6. e4 d6, 7. f4 g6, 8. e5. This leads to a sharp and complicated pawn sacrifice by White, where White often delays or even prevents Black from castling, and has a solid grip over the kingside with the e6-pawn and Nf7 outpost combination. It is named after the Greek mythological river that interconnects the Earth and the Underworld.
These lines are diverse and complicated and are not well explored. Players who wish to avoid the Accepted Variation, and usually play the Declined with 5.b6 to avoid giving Black compensation of the Benko pawn sacrifice, ought to consider this line of play as well.
Other less common lines include the "Advance" variation with 4. a4 b4, leading to games with pseudo-Benoni structures; and the rare 4... Qa5+ which often transposes into an altered Advance variation with White playing 5.Bd2 and Black responding 5...b4.
Use.
The gambit's most notable practitioner was its eponym, Pal Benko. Many of the world's strongest players have used it at one time or another, including former world champions Viswanathan Anand, Garry Kasparov, Veselin Topalov, and Mikhail Tal; and grandmasters Vassily Ivanchuk, Michael Adams, Alexei Shirov, Boris Gelfand, and Evgeny Bareev. It is a popular opening at amateur level, where it is considered to offer Black good practical chances of playing for a win.


Blake Emmons

Blake Emmons is a Canadian country music singer and entertainer. Emmons hosted the 1974 CTV series "Funny Farm", the Canadian answer to "Hee Haw". He also co-hosted the Nashville syndicated music show "The Country Place" with Jim Ed Brown for Show Biz Inc. in the 1970s. In 1985, Emmons appeared on the American game show "The Joker's Wild" as a contestant. He later hosted the game show "Chain Reaction" on September 29, 1986, which aired on Global Television Network in Canada and on USA Network in the United States. He chose not to continue as host after the first series of shows due to the fact the shows were produced in Montreal rather than California as originally agreed. He was replaced by Geoff Edwards.series)|Alice]]", "Mary", and "TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes" for Dick Clark, as well as hosting the "Playboy Shopping Show" on the Playboy Channel. He appeared nationally on CBC Television's "Countrytime" in the early 1970s.
In the mid-1970s, Emmons hosted the ACT Telethon in Edmonton in support of Camp HE-HO-HA for disabled children. He also was instrumental in creating and hosted the Telemiracle telethon in Saskatchewan for several years beginning in 1977, and remained involved for some time afterwards. Emmons played the male lead "Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd" in the Broadway production "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" as well as the New York Theatrical Production road tour for one year.


Absolute Cobblers

Absolute Cobblers is a game show, based on an Australian format, that aired for one series on Challenge TV in 1999. It was hosted by Sean Meo and Wynnie La Freak. The idea of the show is that the host had to read out something and panellists have to decide whether it was true or 'absolute cobblers'. They would then throw the question out to the studio audience to see what they thought, with the chance of winning things in the process.


Mark Labbett

Mark Andrew Labbett (born 15 August 1965) is a British quizzer and television personality. He is a "chaser" on the ITV game show "The Chase", starting in 2009 and from June 2021, as one of the four chasers on ABC's version of The Chase.
He previously appeared between 2013 and 2015 on GSN's American version as their sole chaser, and between 2016 and 2020, as one of six chasers on the Australian version. His nickname on these shows is "The Beast".
Labbett has appeared as a contestant on several other television quiz shows and is a regular in quizzing competitions.
Early life.
Mark Andrew Labbett was born in Tiverton, Devon, to Carolyn and Jon Labbett. He has two younger brothers, Paul and Philip.
Labbett obtained a Master of Arts degree in mathematics from Exeter College, Oxford, a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) in secondary education from the University of Exeter and legal CPE and LPC qualifications from the University of Glamorgan (now the University of South Wales).
Career.
Teaching.
Labbett was a mathematics and physical education supply teacher at Caldicot School in Caldicot, Monmouthshire, South Wales.
Quizzing.
Labbett became interested in quizzing when working at Butlins holiday camp, where he supplemented his income with winnings from the quiz machines. His pub quiz team won a weekend in Paris in April 2001 after competing in the national competition Jumbo Quiz.
He works as a question writer for Redtooth, a quiz company from Barlborough near Chesterfield in Derbyshire. After two years of part-time work as a promoter for them, he moved to South Yorkshire in 2013 in order to work more often with them, but he no longer lives there.
Labbett appeared on "Mastermind" in 1999, where his specialist subject was the Olympic Games. He appeared again on "Mastermind" in 2000, with the animated television show "The Simpsons" as his specialist subject. Also in 2000, he competed on "Countdown", narrowly losing his first game on a crucial conundrum. In 2001, he appeared on "Stake Out", where he was the second contestant eliminated during the Face Off round. In 2003, he appeared on "Grand Slam", where he lost against Clive Spate in his first match.
In 2004, he won £500 on the Channel 5 show "BrainTeaser", and a year later he won £1,500 on BBC One's "SUDO-Q". He appeared on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" twice, firstly on fastest finger first in Series 18 broadcast on 5 November 2005. He returned the following series (19) and made the hot seat, winning £32,000 across two episodes in April 2006. In 2005, he also won £32,000 on "Millionaire Live", a live version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" that toured seaside resorts throughout the summer.
As captain, he led the Welsh quiz team to fifth place in the 2006 European Quizzing Championships.
Labbett's team, the Rugby Boys, won BBC Four's "Only Connect" in 2009. Other television appearances include "The National Lottery People's Quiz" (2007) where he came second in the grand final, "University Challenge" and "Are You an Egghead?".
In 2012, Labbett was ranked 89th in the World Quizzing Championships.
In 2016, Labbett took part in the three-part ITV series "Sugar Free Farm", when he revealed he has false teeth, as a result of eating too much sugar. That same year, it was announced that he would become a producer for Hull-based wrestling promotion New Generation Wrestling (NGW).
"The Chase".
Labbett is one of the "chasers" in the ITV teatime quiz "The Chase", first broadcast in 2009 and hosted by Bradley Walsh. In the show, his nickname is "The Beast", a two-pronged nickname referencing both his stature and his surname (Labbett sounds like the French "la bête", meaning "the beast").
In August 2013, Labbett appeared as the only chaser on the American version of "The Chase" on Game Show Network. He also appeared as one of the seven chasers on the Australian version of "The Chase" on the Seven Network, alongside fellow UK chasers Anne Hegerty and Shaun Wallace. His weakest subjects are horse racing and soap operas. He noted that the American version posed far more difficulties for him, as American game shows typically allow far more competent contestants than British or Australian shows; he stated that his most challenging opponent was James Holzhauer, co-winner of the first American version of "The Chase" and later a famous "Jeopardy!" contestant and participant in that show's "Greatest of All Time" tournament. (Holzhauer's "Jeopardy!" success led to him being named a chaser on the second U.S. version of "The Chase.")
Personal life.
Labbett moved to Caldicot, Monmouthshire, in 1998 and then to nearby Newport in 2003 before moving to Moorgate, Rotherham, in 2013. He lives in or near Herefordshire.
Labbett married his second cousin, Katie, who is 27 years his junior, in October 2014 at Arundel Cathedral. They separated in 2020.
Labbett's favourite football team is Sheffield United.


Gwangsanghui


64th NHK Cup (shogi)

The 64th NHK Cup, or as it is officially known the was a professional shogi tournament organized by the Japan Shogi Association and sponsored by Japan's public broadcaster NHK. Play began on April 6, 2014, and ended on March 22, 2015. The 50-player single elimination tournament was won by Toshiyuki Moriuchi. All of the tournament games were shown on NHK-E. The during the NHK-E broadcasts was female professional Ichiyo Shimizu.
Participants.
Preliminary tournaments.
A total of 128 shogi professionals competed in 18 preliminary tournaments to qualify for the main tournament. These tournaments were untelevised one-day tournaments held at the Tokyo Shogi Kaikan and Kansai Shogi Kaikan. Each tournament consisted of seven or eight players. The initial time control for each player was 20 minutes followed by a 30-second "byōyomi".
The female professional seed was determined by a single-game playoff between Tomomi Kai 2-crown (Women's ōi and Kurashiki Tōka) and Manao Kagawa (Women's ōshō), which was won by Kagawa. Brackets from two of the preliminary tournaments are shown below.
Main tournament.
The first time control for main tournament games was ten minutes per player. Once this was used up, a second time control of 10 one-minute periods of began. Each player was given 30 seconds to make their move. If they did so, then no thinking time periods were used. If, however, they did not, a thinking time period began and they then had up to one minute (more specifically 59 seconds) to make a move before entering the next thinking time period. This process was repeated until a player had used all ten thinking time periods when the final "byōyomi" time control of 30 seconds per move began. "Sente" was determined prior to each game by piece toss.
The 50 players listed below qualified for the main tournament.
Notes:
The bracket at the start of the tournament is shown below.
Results.
Round 1.
A total of 18 games were played in round 1. Play began on April 6, 2014, and ended on August 3, 2014. The 18 preliminary tournament winners were paired against 18 seeded players. Out of the four players who qualified for the main tournament for the first time, only Manabu Kumasaka was able to make it to the second round. Namekata and Sawada actually had to play two games before a winner was determined. The first game between the two lasted more than two hours before ending in impasse after 252 moves. A second game with sente-gote reversed was then played at a time control of 5 one-minute "thinking periods" followed by a "byōyomi" of 30 seconds per move and Namekata won in 88 moves.
Round 2.
Round 2 began August 10 and lasted until November 23, 2014. A total of 16 games were played with 14 players receiving first round byes joining the nine winners from round 1. For the second year in a row multiple major titleholder Akira Watanabe loses in round 2. Also, for the second year in a row, Kōta Kanai beats Toshiaki Kubo in the round 2. Takeshi Fujii had to play two games against Yasumitsu Satō before a winner was determined. The first game between the two ended in sennichite after 70 moves. A second game with sente-gote reversed was then played with Fujii winning in 121 moves. Hisashi Namekata and Shingo Sawada also needed two games for a winner to be determined. The first game between the two ended in impasse after 252 moves, and Namekata won the replay with sente-gote reversed in 88 moves.
Round 3.
Play began on November 30, 2014, and ended on January 25, 2015. Out of the 18 preliminary tournament winners, only Kanai 5d made it to round 3.
Quarterfinals.
The eight remaining players were paired off against each other with play beginning on February 1 and ending on February 22, 2015. No major titleholders made it as far as the quarterfinals.
Semifinals.
The two remaining players from each block with paired against each other to determine the respective block winners. The 1st semifinal game between Kōichi Fukaura 9d ("sente") and Toshiyuki Moriuchi 9d ("gote") was broadcast on March 1, 2015. Moriuchi won the game in 166 moves to win block B. The guest analyst was Yaumitsu Satō 9d. The 2nd semifinal game was between Hisashi Namekata 8d ("sente") and Takanori Hashimoto 8d ("gote"). The game was broadcast on March 8, 2015, and won by Namekata 8d when Hashimoto 8d was disqualified for making an illegal move (Nifu) on his 92nd move. Namekata thus won block A and advanced to the finals of the tournament for the first time. The guest analyst for the 2nd semifinal game was Kazuki Kimura 8d. The host for both semifinal games was female professional Rieko Yauchi 5d.
Final.
After 109 preliminary tournament games and 58 main tournament games involving 161 players, Toshiyuki Moriuchi 9d and Hisashi Namekata 9d met in the final broadcast on March 22, 2015. This was the first NHK Cup final appearance for Namekata and the fifth appearance for Moriuchi. The piece toss before the game resulted in Namekata being sente. Moriuchi won the game in 134 moves, thus winning the tournament for the third time and becoming the 64th NHK Cup Champion. The guest analyst for the final match were Takeshi Fujii 9d and the hosts of the final were NHK announcer and female professional Ichiyo Shimizu.
The game score and a diagram showing the final position is given below.
Sente: Hisashi Namekata 8d
Gote: Toshiyuki Moriuchi 9d
Opening: Bishop Exchange
1. P-7f, 2. P-8d, 3. P-2f, 4. G-3b, 5. G-7h, 6. P-8e, 7. B-7g, 8. P-3d, 9. S-8h, 10. Bx7g+, 11. Sx7g, 12. S-4b, 13. S-3h, 14. S-7b, 15. P-9f, 16. P-9d, 17. P-4f, 18. P-6d, 19. S-4g, 20. S-6c, 21. K-6h, 22. S-5d, 23. S-5f, 24. P-4d, 25. G-5h, 26. G-5b, 27. P-3f, 28. K-4a, 29. P-1f, 30. P-1d, 31. K-7i, 32. K-3a, 33. N-3g, 34. P-7d, 35. P-6f, 36. S-3c, 37. R-4h, 38. G5b-4b, 39. K-8h, 40. K-2b, 41. G5h-6h, 42. G4b-4c, 43. P-9h, 44. P-3e, 45. Px3e, 46. S-2d, 47. P-4e, 48. Sx3e, 49. P*3f, 50. Sx3f, 51. Px4d, 52. G4c-4b, 53. B*4f, 54. R-9b, 55. P-1e, 56. Px1e, 57. P*1g, 58. B*5a, 59. R-1h, 60. Sx3g, 61. BX6f, 62. Sx2f, 63. G-5h, 64. Bx7g+, 65. Gx7g, 66. P*6c, 67. Bx9a+, 68. Rx9a, 69. L*2i, 70. B*4f, 71. Lx2f, 72. Bx1h+, 73. Lx1h, 74. R*2h, 75. S-6g, 76. Rx2f+, 77. Lx1e, 78. N*5e, 79. P-1b+, 80. Lx1b, 81. Sx5f, 82. Lx1e, 83. Sx5e, 84. Sx5e, 85. N*7d, 86. K-7c, 87. Nx6b+, 88. Gx6b, 89. B*8b, 90. Sx6f, 91. P*7f, 92. K-2b, 93. Bx9a+, 94. Sx7g+, 95. Nx7g, 96. S*6i, 97. S*3c, 98. Nx3c, 99. Px3c+, 100. Gx3c, 101. N*1d, 102. K-1c, 103. S*2b, 104. Kx1d, 105. G*1c, 106. K-2e, 107. R*6e, 108. L*3e, 109. Rx6i, 110. N*2d, 111. B*4g, 112. S*4f, 113. S*3g, 114. Nx7f, 115. K-7h, 116. Sx4g+, 117. Sx2f, 118. Kx2f, 119. R-2i, 120. N*2g, 121. R*6f, 122. P*4f, 123. Gx4g, 124. B*4e, 125. S*5f, 126. G*6h, 127. Rx6h, 128. Nx6h+, 129. Kx6h, 130. L*6f, 131. P*6g, 132. Px4g+, 133. Sx4e, 134. R*5h sente resigns (diagram)
The final tournament bracket is shown below.


Apache 3

Apache 3 is a 3D scrolling shoot 'em up arcade game released by Tatsumi (and Data East in North America) in 1988. Players control a yellow AH-64 Apache helicopter with weapons and shoot everything in the air and on the ground.


Gunderam Defense

The Gunderam Defense, also known as the Brazilian Defense, is a rarely played chess opening starting with the moves:
It is named after chess player and theoretician Gerhart Gunderam.
History.
Gunderam played it for the first time in a correspondence match against August Babel in 1958 and published an analysis of it in his book "Neue Eröffnungswege", in 1961. He named this defense "Damenverteidigung" ("Queen Defence"), which main line would be 1. e4 e5 2.Nf3 Qe7 3.Nc3 c6 4.Bc4 f5. He also analyzed a sharp line characterized by the moves: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Qe7 3.Bc4 f5 4.exf5 d5 5.Bxd5 Nf6 6.Bb3 Bxf5.
Overview.
Although 2...Qe7 does answer the threat against Black's e-pawn, it interferes with the development of Black's dark-square bishop. One of the ideas behind this awkward queen move is to unbalance the game by castling queenside while White will presumably castle kingside.
Brazilian Defense.
The 2...Qe7 response appeared in Brazil in 1954, created by International Master Hélder Câmara. Whereas Gunderam's suggestion was the f7-f5 break, as a delayed Latvian Gambit, Câmara's intent was to allow the use of the King's Indian setup against King's Pawn opening, proceeding with ...g6, ...Bg7 and ...Nf6 after 2...Qe7. It became popular among Brazilian players then, so much so they begun calling it "the Brazilian defense", being employed often in the top national competition the following years. Later on, Hélder Câmara requested that it be called "Camara Defense" instead.
Notable Games.
August Babel vs Gerhart Gunderam, Germany (corr), 1958


Lab Rats Challenge

Lab Rats Challenge is an Australian children's game show. The program began broadcasting on 4 August 2008 at 4pm on the Nine Network with hosts Drew Jarvis and Nicole Dixon. On 5 March 2012, the show moved to the Seven Network with Aleisha Rose replacing Dixon for the revived series. On 12 February 2013 at 10:15am, the show moved to ABC3 (now known as 'ABC ME'). The show has also been broadcast on Cartoon Network.
In contrast to other Australian children's game shows such as "Sharky's Friends", "A*mazing", and "Go Go Stop", which are filmed on a large set in front of a live studio audience, "Lab Rats Challenge" uses several smaller sets resembling an abandoned science laboratory as well as special effects sequences inserted in post-production. It is filmed in Brisbane's Channel 9 studio on Mount Coot-tha, Queensland.
Gameplay.
The challenges on the show are born from science experiments, such as guessing how many drops of water will fit on a twenty cent coin. Each episode's final challenge, The Labyrinth, features the children competitors racing through a series of physical and mental challenges. The 1st pair to make it through the labyrinth gets cheesed at the end. This is similar in style to the maze on early 1990s Australian kids game show "A*mazing" and 1990s American show "Legends of the Hidden Temple".
Rounds.
If there is a tie after What'll Happen If or the Rat Race, there is a tie breaker known as the Randomizer. Both teams are given a beaker of water along with two similar-looking containers of white powder. Only one would cause a chemical reaction when placed in the water. The team that wins the Rat Race gets to choose their powder first. Both teams pour their powder in the water and the one that has a chemical reaction wins. This tie breaker is completely based on chance.
Sounds boring, but there is one episode which has a sample Randomizer with white powder. More excitingly, there is one episode which has TWO Randomizers. It happened as both teams scored 15-15 and 65-65. This was in Series 1 Episode 20.


Battle Realms

Battle Realms is a real-time strategy video game published and released by Crave Entertainment and Ubisoft in November 2001. It was the first game created by Liquid Entertainment. An expansion pack "" was released in November 2002. In 2012, the game was re-released on GOG.com. In 2019, the game was re-released on Steam as Battle Realms: Zen Edition, in its early access state with functioning online multiplayer.
Gameplay.
"Battle Realms"' gameplay is like many other real-time strategy games. There are several factions which all have various types of available structures and units to produce. Unlike other real-time strategy games though, the basic worker units (peasants), which are used for resource gathering and construction, also act as the base unit to be upgraded into military units. Thus, military buildings in "Battle Realms" are used for transforming and upgrading units rather than producing them directly.
Another unusual trait is unit generation, where peasants are produced automatically at no cost. The rate at which new peasants are produced is inversely proportionate to the current population of the player's army.
Peasants gather three resources in the game: rice, water and horses. Horses are war units that can be used to combine with other military units i.e. riding or can be turned into pack horses when assigned for peasants. Only one type of builder unit is required. Peasants are the only units that can be produced outright. Most of the buildings available are training structures where peasants are trained to become other units.
All factions start off with three basic training structures which produce units along different paths of warfare, such as melee or ranged combat. In most cases, units can be trained in three different structures to produce more highly skilled infantry or Battle Gears (commonly abbreviated as BGs) to improve their combat ability. This allows lower tiered units to defeat higher tier units, which they could not normally defeat. BGs also allow the player to further define the role of a unit, such as damage absorption, building destruction, or reconnaissance.
Another key element of "Battle Realms" is the Yin/Yang system. Each army obtains points of Yin or Yang when in combat, depending on their moral alliance to the forces of light or darkness. Hero units, or Zen Masters, require Yin/Yang to be summoned and increase their damage. Yin and Yang are also used by structures in the faction's base for military upgrades. The rate of Yin/Yang growth depends on the strength and flair of the army and how far they are from the main base.
Factions.
There are four available factions, called "clans" in "Battle Realms", and each has a different philosophy towards life and combat:
Unlike most strategy games, all units in "Battle Realms" have a melee attack, however, missile units typically have drastically weaker melee attacks. Units are very detailed and have distinct fighting animations. Units can dodge projectiles if they run fast enough, and projectiles have different speeds and fire at certain angles.
A unit's attack has a property - either cutting, piercing, blunt, explosive, magic, or fire, as well as a bonus damage against buildings. The property of a unit's missile attack may also differ from its melee attack. Most units have resistances to particular properties and weaknesses to others. For example, the Dragon Samurai has excellent resistance against cutting attacks, but has a poor resistance to explosive and magic damage.
Plot.
In single-player, the plot mainly revolves around Kenji, the last heir to the Serpent's Throne. When he returns from exile, Kenji comes across bandits raiding a peasant village. From there, he can either save the peasants or help the bandits in killing them. If he chooses to save the peasants, he will follow the path of the Dragon clan. If he aids the bandits, he will follow the path of the Serpent clan.
In Kenji's Journey, the player may choose which territories he or she wishes to attack first. (Otomo, his lieutenant, gives you the options.) When Kenji returns from Malcomson, he must decide whether to rebirth the Dragon Clan and save the peasants honor with righteousness or take up reigns in his brother's and his father, Lord Oja's, footsteps and lead the Serpent Clan. Taking specific territories might give benefits, and other Zen Masters may join Kenji. Later on, the player can summon these Zen Masters from the Keep. The story focuses on an artifact Called Tarrant's Orb/Orb of the Serpent which Kenji and the other clans are seeking out. Kenji must get to the Orb before them.
There are four clans in the game: Dragon Clan, Serpent Clan, Wolf Clan, and Lotus Clan, each with their own motivations. The ancient Dragon Clan prizes honor above everything else and because of their devotion to such ideals, the Dragon deity assists them during times of great peril. The Serpent Clan, followers of Yin, have forgotten their honorable ways and have resorted to thievery and deceit. Wolf Clansmen prizes freedom above all else, while also being down-to-earth, hardworking people, and take a delight in nature. Lotus clansmen follow the Forbidden Path, which focuses on death and decay.
Reception.
The game was met with positive reception upon release, as GameRankings gave it a score of 82.04%, while Metacritic gave it 82 out of 100.
"Igromania" magazine gave the game 9 out of 10, calling it an "ideal contemporary Real-time strategy". The reviewer noted good gameplay and praised the graphics and animations, but he said the game did not deviate much from traditional RTSes and the AI did not stand out.
The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences nominated "Battle Realms" for its 2001 "Computer Strategy Game of the Year" award, which ultimately went to "Civilization III".
Expansion.
"Battle Realms: Winter of the Wolf" is the expansion pack, announced on July 7, 2002 and released on November 5, 2002.


Video games in Italy

In 2017, the Italian video game market posted a revenue of €1.8 billion.
In 2018, Italy had 26.2 million players.


The Three Stooges (arcade game)

The Three Stooges, shown as The Three Stooges in Brides is Brides on the title screen, is a 1984 arcade game by Mylstar Electronics. It is based on the comedy act of the same name.
Gameplay.
The game features digital voice samples. At the start of the game, up to three players control Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard. Players must help the Three Stooges find their fiancees, Cora, Nora and Dora, who were kidnapped by the Mad Scientist. In all rooms, players must find three hidden keys that unlock the exit. Interfering socialites and cops are dealt with in typical Stooges-style: face slaps, hammer hits, and the ever-dependable cream pie throws. In the bonus rounds, players must the opera singer's sour notes, as well as cops, while collecting the three keys to the exit. In the Mad Scientist's laboratory, the players will be able to save only one fiancée, before players must find the other two fiancees. After all fiancees are saved, the game starts over.


Raye Hollitt

Raye Hollitt (born April 17, 1964) is an American actress and female bodybuilder, also known by her stage name Zap, one of the original cast members of "American Gladiators".
Biography.
Hollitt graduated from Lake-Lehman High School in 1982, then worked as a paralegal for seven years.
She appeared in Season 1 of "American Gladiators" in 1989, taking off the second season (1990–91) for maternity leave, before returning for Season 3 and continuing on the show through 1995. She reappeared for an alumni show in the final season (1995–96).
Before she was famous as Zap, Hollitt was a contestant on the game show "Card Sharks," and had a speaking role in Blake Edwards' 1989 film, "Skin Deep". Raye also did the pilot for JAG (Judge Advocate General) where she played a pilot, Cassie. Raye also appeared on Baywatch, Blossom, and several other TV shows. She and her husband, Kenn, now reside in South Lake Tahoe.


Blockbusters (Australian game show)

Blockbusters was an Australian children's game show, broadcast on the Seven Network, where players from two schools competed over the course of a week (five episodes), in a rolling format - where games could be started in the middle of an episode, and stopped and continued on the next episode. The school team earning the most points (based on questions answered from the main game, except tie-breaks) won a major prize for their school, such as an encyclopedia. The show was hosted by Michael Pope. It ran in Australia from 1991 to 1994.
The game board consisted of 20 interlocking hexagons, arranged in five columns of four. Each hexagon contained a letter of the alphabet. A contestant would choose one of the letters, and would be asked a general-knowledge trivia question whose correct answer began with the chosen letter. (A typical question was something like, "What 'P' is a musical instrument with 88 keys?" The answer would be a piano.)
Two students from each school played in each match. Similar to the 1987 American version of the show, the shorter path alternated between the teams in the first two games, and a 4x4 tie-break game board was used in the event of the first two games in a match being split between the two teams. Five points were earned towards the school team's weekly total for each question correctly answered, with no points scored during tie-breaks (nor for Gold Runs).
The winner of the match went on to play the Gold Run bonus round. The board consisted of a pattern of hexagons similar to that of the main game, but the hexagons had 2 to 5 letters inside them; those letters were the initials of the correct answer. (For instance, if a contestant chose "BS" and the host said "Where people kiss in Ireland", the correct answer would be "Blarney Stone.") If a contestant guessed correctly, the hexagon turned gold. However, if the contestant guessed incorrectly or passed, it turned black, blocking the player's path; it was then up to the contestant to work around it. The object was to horizontally connect the left and right sides of the board within 60 seconds (or before blocking off all possible horizontal connections).
Gold Run questions had two-word answers, with a successful run resulting in a small prize for that player and their teammate. As there was no consolation prize for each question in a failed Gold Run, the game would be terminated early if the board became completely blocked from black spaces.
Board Game.
A board game was released by Croner in the 90s.


Beetle (game)

Beetle is a British party game in which one draws a beetle in parts. The game may be played solely with pen, paper and a die or using a commercial game set, some of which contain custom scorepads and dice and others which contain pieces which snap together to make a beetle/bug. It is sometimes called Cootie or Bugs. The game is entirely based on random die rolls, with no skill involved.
Playing.
The part drawn is decided by the roll of a die. The traditional rolls are:
The part corresponding to each roll of the die, however, may vary depending on the rules established by the players.
It is necessary to roll the correct number for the body before any other part may be drawn. To the body, one may attach the head, legs or wings, but the head must precede the antenna and eyes. The first player to draw all the requisite parts is the winner.
Table-top games.
Beetle has been converted to a commercial game called Cootie, and is also released under the name Beetle by Milton Bradley. Beetles are constructed as plastic models. There are some minor gameplay differences, such as there being no wings on the beetles.
Beetle drive.
This game is played at social occasions known as a beetle drive, in which many rounds of the game are played. The players are in groups of four with a communal die, and the first player to complete their beetle shouts out "Beetle!" stopping the play of all the groups. Then the winner of each particular group (the player with the most complete beetle in that group) will move around a circle of tables to the right (clockwise), and the loser (the player with the least complete beetle) to the left (anti-clockwise), or sit still. The ultimate winner is usually either the one who has drawn the most complete beetles, or the one who has drawn the most parts in total. Beetle drives were very popular as church fund-raising events, especially amongst Non-conformist churches, and the tradition continues to the present. These are often accompanied by a "pie and pea" supper, particularly in the North East of England.


Deal or No Deal (Irish game show)

Deal or No Deal is the Irish version of the Endemol game show, which was first broadcast on TV3 in Ireland on 13 November 2009. The show is hosted by magician and entertainer Keith Barry. The show is sponsored by Ireland's National Lottery, which sells scratch cards for a chance to appear on the show.
Format.
The game is played using twenty-six identical sealed green boxes, each with an identifying number from 1 to 26 displayed on the front. The boxes are opened by the contestants' family members. Inside each box is a label showing a different amount of prize money between 1 cent and €250,000. All the boxes are sealed by an independent adjudicator; the value inside each box is not known to Keith Barry, the contestants, The Banker or the production team before the game. To enter the game, players must purchase a "Deal or No Deal" scratchcard from a National Lottery agent, and reveal a "Deal" on the "Bankers Bonus" section of the scratchcard. Each week, players are selected to appear on the show from all scratch card entries received by the National Lottery, and the draw takes place live on TV3's "Ireland AM".
"Deal or No Deal" Scratchcard.
The "Deal or No Deal" Scratchcard is largely based on the TV game show. Entry to the main game show on TV3 is only possible by purchasing the "Deal or No Deal" Scratchcard from any National Lottery agent. If a player reveals the word "Deal" on the "Banker's Bonus" section of the scratchcard, they can send it to the National Lottery in the special "Deal or No Deal" envelopes, for a chance to appear on the show. The "Deal or No Deal" Scratchcard costs €3.
Trivia.
The Irish version is similar to the UK version, with elements from the US version as well. The values are the same as the UK version, but in euros instead of pounds as well as additional amounts of 5c, €25, €2,000, and €150,000 to compensate for the fact that there are 26 boxes which are green (rather than 22 red ones).
Because there are 26 boxes, the player has to open 6 boxes before the first bank offer, then 5 boxes after saying "no deal," then 4, then 3, then 2, and then 1 at a time, until only 2 boxes are left. If the player says "no deal" to every offer, he/she then has to decide whether to keep his/her box or swap it with the one box left in play.
Like the UK version, the small amounts on the left side are labeled in blue, while the larger amounts are labeled in red. The boxes are also opened the same way, by breaking a seal off first, and then opening the box.
Similar to the UK version's "Power Five" and "Banker's Power Five" names for the highest five valued boxes and lowest five valued boxes respectively, the highest six valued boxes and lowest six valued boxes are respectively referred to as the "Super Six" and "Banker's Super Six".


Lisitsin Gambit

The Lisitsin Gambit is a chess opening characterised by the moves:
History.
Became widely known in 1931 when it was played (and probably for the first time in official matches) by Georgy Lisitsin against Nikolai Riumin in their fight at Moscow for the first round of the USSR Chess Championship.
Theory.
The Lisitsin Gambit is registered in "Encyclopedia of Chess Openings" under the code A04.
The gambit which alternatively can be transposed to the lines of Dutch Defence and is quite easy to learn these lines in relation to the lines of the Dutch Defence.
White can delay the gambit for one move, playing first 2.d3 wherein Black often continue with 2...d6, or any other move, depending on the variation of the Dutch which trying to apply. Then White can try here the gambit playing 3.e4. This variation is referred by some researchers as improved Lisitsin Gambit.
Black continuations.
2. e4 is a very counter-intuitive move, as after the pawn is captured White does not get to make a developing move but must move an already developed piece again. However, practice has shown that the knight landing on g5 is hard to chase away and creates certain tactical threats (more than simply Nxe4!) that compensate for the lost pawn.
Central idea.
If Black tries retaining an extra pawn at any cost, he might be punished, e.g.: 1.Nf3 f5 2.e4 fxe4 3.Ng5 d5 4.d3 exd3? (4...Nf6) 5.Bxd3 Nf6 6.Bxh7 Nxh7 7.Qh5+ Kd7 8.Nf7 Qe8? 9.Qxd5#


Space Cadets (game show)

Space Cadets was a British comedy panel game broadcast on Channel 4 in 1997. It was presented by "High Commander" Greg Proops with Bill Bailey and Craig Charles as the "Space Captains" (captains of the two teams). It ran for just one series with 10 episodes.
Like the BBC's "Have I Got News for You", the contestants were celebrities and the show was played mainly for laughs. Bestselling author Terry Pratchett once appeared as a guest. When the contestants were asked who was Britain's most shoplifted author, Pratchett immediately answered "I am!" which was the correct answer. (The other contestants and Proops all immediately pulled out "shoplifted" copies of Pratchett's books, one of which Pratchett proceeded to sign.)
Opening sequence text.
The following text appeared on the screen in the opening title sequence (over footage of Charles, Bailey and Proops): "3 Cosmic Comics, On A Journey From Planet Mirth To Do Battle Against The Weird, The Unthinkable, The Unknown. They Are Space Cadets."
Rounds.
These are only some of the rounds used on the show. It is unknown if any other rounds were played in episodes 8 or 9.
Episode guide.
The coloured backgrounds denote the result of each of the shows:


Damiano Defence

The Damiano Defence is a chess opening beginning with the moves:
The defence is one of the oldest chess openings, with games dating back to the 16th century. It is a weak opening that gives a large advantage for White after 3.Nxe5. Even if White does not go for this continuation, simple leads to an advantage since 2...f6 weakened Black's as well as took away the best square for the g8-knight.
The "ECO" code for the Damiano Defence is C40 (King's Knight Opening).
3.d4 and 3.Bc4.
Black's 2...f6 is a weak move that exposes Black's king, weakens Black's kingside and takes away his knight's best square. The moves 3.d4 and 3.Bc4 are strong replies; I.A. Horowitz wrote (substituting algebraic notation for his descriptive notation), "Simple and potent is 3.Bc4 d6 4.d4 Nc6 5.c3, after which Black chokes to death."
3.Nxe5!
Most forceful, however, is the knight sacrifice 3.Nxe5 Taking the knight with 3...fxe5? exposes Black to a deadly attack after 4.Qh5+ Ke7 (4...g6 loses to 5.Qxe5+, forking king and rook, leaving Black down the exchange, though other options are worse) 5.Qxe5+ Kf7 6.Bc4+ d5! (6...Kg6 7.Qf5+ is devastating and leads to mate shortly after) 7.Bxd5+ Kg6 8.h4 (8.d4? Bd6!) 8...h5 (see diagram; 8...h6 is similar, except Black cannot play 9...Bxb7 because of 10.Qf5) 9.Bxb7! Bd6 (9...Bxb7 10.Qf5+ Kh6 11.d4+ g5 12.Qf7! mates quickly) 10.Qa5!, when Black's best is 10...Nc6 11.Bxc6 Rb8, and now White will be ahead by several pawns. Bruce Pandolfini notes that Black's opening is thus sometimes described as "the five pawns ". Alternatively, White can continue developing his pieces, remaining four pawns up. In either case, White has a clearly winning position.
Since taking the knight is fatal, after 3.Nxe5 Black should instead play 3...Qe7! (Other Black third moves, such as 3...d5, lead to 4. Qh5+! g6 5. Nxg6!) After 4.Nf3 (4.Qh5+? g6 5.Nxg6 Qxe4+ 6.Be2 Qxg6 leaves Black ahead a piece for a pawn) 4...Qxe4+ 5.Be2, Black has regained the pawn but has lost and weakened his kingside, and will lose more time when White chases the queen with Nc3, or 0-0, Re1, and a move by the bishop on e2. Nick de Firmian in "Modern Chess Openings" analyses instead 4...d5 5.d3 dxe4 6.dxe4, when White had a small advantage in Emmanuel Schiffers–Mikhail Chigorin, St. Petersburg 1897.
The fact that Black can only regain the pawn with 3...Qe7! shows that 2...f6? did not really defend the e-pawn at all. Indeed, even a relatively useless move like 2...a6 is less risky than 2...f6? After 2...a6?! 3.Nxe5, Black could still regain the pawn with 3...Qe7 4.d4 d6, when he would have done so without weakening his kingside or depriving his of its best square.
History.
The opening is named after the Portuguese chess author Pedro Damiano (1480–1544), despite the fact that he condemned it as weak. In 1847, Howard Staunton wrote of 2...f6, "This move occurs in the old work of Damiano, who gives some ingenious variations on it. Lopez, and later authors, have hence entitled it 'Damiano's Gambit'." Instead, Staunton's contemporary George Walker more logically reserved the term "Damiano Gambit" for the knight sacrifice played by White on the third move: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6 3.Nxe5. Staunton referred to [1.e4 e5 2.Nf3] 2...Nc6, a highly respected move then and now, as "Damiano's defence to the 's opening".
The Damiano Defence is never seen today in top-level play. The greatest player to play the Damiano in serious master competition was Chigorin. As noted above, he played the 3...Qe7 line in a game against Schiffers at St. Petersburg 1897. Chigorin lost his queen on move 10 (see diagram), but Schiffers played so weakly that Chigorin later missed a brilliant and only escaped when Schiffers agreed to a draw in a winning position. Robert McGregor played the Damiano in a 1964 simultaneous exhibition against Bobby Fischer, essaying 3...Qe7 4.Nf3 d5 5.d3 dxe4 6.dxe4 Qxe4+ 7.Be2 Bf5, and drew, although Fischer did not play the best moves.


The King of Fighters (film)

The King of Fighters (also known by fans as KOF 2010) is a 2010 American science fiction-martial arts film that is a loose adaptation of SNK Playmore's best-selling fighting game franchise. Directed by Gordon Chan, it stars Sean Faris as Kyo Kusanagi, Maggie Q as Mai Shiranui, Will Yun Lee as Iori Yagami, and Ray Park as Rugal Bernstein.
Plot.
The King of Fighters is a tournament held in an alternate dimension. When contestants are issued challenges, they enter the tournament via a special bluetooth headset.
Mai Shiranui and her boyfriend Iori Yagami attend a private unveiling of three relics at a museum in Boston: The Kagura Mirror, the Yagami Necklace and the Kusanagi Sword. Rugal Bernstein storms into the exhibit and steals the three relics, and uses them to disappear into a dimensional portal to awaken the mythical entity known as the Orochi, which grants limitless powers. The sword is revealed to be a fake and the quest is delayed. Mai is told by an injured Chizuru Kagura the real sword is with Saisyu Kusanagi at a mental institution. She is warned that Iori should not be involved in her quest to defeat Rugal. At the institution, Mai meets a catatonic Saisyu and his son Kyo but Iori's presence suddenly breaks Saisyu's catatonic state, and the elder Kusanagi threatens to kill Iori before losing consciousness and dying.
At another hospital, Chizuru is informed by her colleague Scott that Rugal has altered the King of Fighters database and issued challenges to fighters around the world. CIA agent Terry Bogard enters Chizuru's room, demanding information on Rugal's whereabouts and the tournament. She tells that different dimensions exist, but when he does not believe it, she tells him to go to Seattle and ask Mai, who is an undercover operative sent by the CIA to infiltrate Chizuru's organization a year ago.
At a cemetery in Seattle, where Saisyu is buried, Kyo and Iori confront each other. Iori explains that both Kusanagi and Yagami clans were destined to be enemies. Mai hitches a ride with Kyo to his home, where she explains that she is looking for the Kusanagi Sword. Kyo tells her that centuries ago, a Yagami ancestor attempted to release the Orochi, but it consumed him with murderous rage. Kyo's ancestor killed the Yagami and returned the Orochi into its world. Mai tells Kyo that Rugal is out to unleash the Orochi. Kyo wants to confront Rugal, who destroyed his father's mental state.
At a hotel, Mai and Kyo meet up with Iori and Terry. Rugal is using the tournament dimension to merge it with the real world. After Mai blows her cover in front of Kyo, Iori puts on his Bluetooth headset and enters the tournament dimension to confront Rugal. There, he defeats Rugal's servants, Mature and Vice, only to have his mind consumed by the Orochi.
The next day, Kyo is lured into the tournament dimension, where he first fights Rugal and loses, but is allowed to live as a warning. Kyo brings out his ancestral sword and joins Chizuru and Terry into the tournament after Mai is dragged in by Rugal. When the four meet up, they are separated into different dimensions, with Kyo fighting Rugal, and Mai and Terry facing Mature and Vice. Rugal is about to decapitate Kyo, when Iori appears and intervenes. Rugal reveals to Kyo that several years back, he battled Saisyu, Chizuru, and Iori over control of the Orochi. During that fight, Iori allowed the Orochi to take over his body, defeating Rugal, but also destroying Saisyu's mental state by bashing his head against a wooden barrier several times. This leads to a fight between Kyo and Iori until Kyo slashes Iori in the back, releasing the Orochi from his body.
Disappointed by the outcome of the fight, Rugal sends Kyo, Iori, and Mai into another dimension to face them with his full potential. Chizuru and her multiple clones appear, revealing that she has found the mirror and the necklace. The heroes fail in their first attempt to combine the relics and trap Rugal, with Chizuru mortally wounded. Mai takes her place as the mirror holder, but as she, Kyo and Iori corner Rugal, they are once again overcome by his powers. Rugal destroys Kyo's sword, but as he is about to finish him off with a fireball, Kyo magically generates a new sword to block it. He then throws the sword and destroys Rugal.
Back in the real world, Scott places a lantern on the ocean in memory of Chizuru. Kyo decides to keep the family tradition by continuing with the tournament. He reflects on his late father's teachings while Iori stares at him from the other side of the pier.
Production.
Filming began on November 3, 2008 at Aja Tan Studios, North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and finished on January 19, 2009.
Reception.
Release.
"The King of Fighters" was released direct-to-DVD in the United States on September 7, 2010 through Vivendi Home Entertainment. It was re-released in the U.S. by Well Go USA Entertainment.
Criticism.
"Beyond Hollywood" gave the film a negative review, saying that this movie:
Felix Vasquez, Jr. of "Cinema Crazed" gave the film one-and-a-half out of four stars, commenting:
Reboot.
Ledo Millennium announced that they are working with 37 Mutual Entertainment for new animated and live action adaptations of "The King of Fighters".


Best of Friends

Best of Friends is a British children's game show that ran from 7 March 2004 to 13 August 2008. It first aired on CBBC for series 1, then on BBC One from series 2-3 and then back on CBBC from series 4–5.
Format.
Tasks and Treats.
In the show, five friends with a strong friendship must complete a series of three unpleasant tasks in order to win a final treat. The tasks include mucking out pigs, cleaning bins, picking up ice with the bare feet, getting your feet tickled without laughing or smiling and so on, for the test of friendship. While some members of the group are doing the task, their friends do treats such as visiting animals at the RSPCA, getting a manicure, shopping, going to a football game, going to a theme park etc. They must make decisions deciding on who will do the task and who will do the treat or they can use the "Unlucky Dip".
"The Unlucky Dip".
The unlucky dip contains three, two or one blue sweet(s) in a bag. The friends choose a sweet each (without looking) from the bag, and then suck it. The number of children to do the next task, and therefore the number of blue sweets in the bag, will depend on the success of the previous task. The people or person with the blue sweet(s) will have a blue tongue and will be forced to do the task, while the others will do the treat. The first task requires three people and, each time the children pass a task, the number needed to do the next task will reduce. For the final task they have three options: the unlucky dip, volunteer or the whole team can do the task as it is the hardest.
The presenters also have an option of volunteering to do the task. If they do not volunteer, the presenters also do a compulsory Unlucky Dip with each task. The presenter with a blue tongue will be forced to do the task.
Episodes.
There are 5 friends in each episode. These are the friends.


Sweat the Small Stuff

Sweat the Small Stuff is a British comedy panel show broadcast on BBC Three, presented by Nick Grimshaw and featuring team captains Melvin Odoom and Rochelle Humes. Humes, formerly a regular panellist, replaced Rickie Haywood Williams, who was a team captain in series 1.
On 14 March 2014, it was announced that the show had been recommissioned for a third and fourth series.
The show ended in December 2014.
Rounds.
Grimmy's Sweats: (Series 1): Grimshaw gives the teams clues to a particular "sweat" or topic that has been affecting him that week, and the first team to guess what the sweat is wins a point for their team.
On the Quiff of Grimmy (Series 1–3): Grimshaw gets the great British public to swear 'on the quaff of Grimshaw', a wig of Grimshaw's hair, to give an honest answer to a question they are asked. The teams have to guess whether the person said yes or no.
The Challenges (Series 1–4): In this round, Rochelle competes against Melvin in a street challenge given to them by Grimshaw, which involves a number of tasks. The person who completes the most tasks is the winner. Rickie participated in this round in series one.
The Sweatbox (Series 1–4): In this round, a member of the studio audience goes into the 'Sweatbox', a small wooden hut in the studio, and tells the teams about their dilemma. The teams will give them their advice and the person must choose whose advice is better.
Grimmy Examinates (Series 2–3): Grimshaw investigates a particular "sweat" or topic provided by a listener of his BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show. Grimshaw then invites the team to take part in a studio game relating to that sweat.
Quick Fire Sweats (Series 3): The teams pitch a sweat to the studio audience against the clock, in an attempt to prove to the majority of the audience that the sweat is truly annoying. If the sweat is annoying, the team wins a point.
Sweaty Headlines (series 4): The teams are shown pictures of three celebrities who have featured in the week's news, and have to guess which celebrity the studio audience believes has had the 'sweatiest' (worst) week of them all. A point is awarded to the winner.
Sweat Selector (Series 4): In this round, a number is generated from 1-99, and a sweat relating to that number is then revealed. The team captains or panelists then have to compete in a studio game or quiz related to that number to earn points for their team.
Episodes.
The coloured backgrounds denote the result of each of the shows:


English Defence

The English Defence is a chess opening characterised by the moves:
Description.
White often gains a broad with 3.e4, which Black puts pressure on with moves like ...Bb7, ...Bb4, and sometimes even ...Qh4 and/or ...f5. It was developed by the Leicester player P. N. Wallis, and was taken up by several leading English players in the 1970s, such as Tony Miles, Jon Speelman and Raymond Keene. It flouts several traditional opening principles, as Black often bishops before knights and brings out the queen early. It is a somewhat unusual opening, but has been seen in high-level grandmaster play, usually as a surprise weapon, for example when Viktor Korchnoi used it to defeat Lev Polugaevsky in their world championship semifinals match at Évian 1977 (see below).
References.
Bibliography


Nintendo Comics System

The Nintendo Comics System was a series of comic books published by Valiant Comics in 1990 and 1991. It was part of a licensing deal with Nintendo, featuring characters from their video games and the cartoons based on them.
The comics.
Valiant Comics's Nintendo Comics System series of comic books was published between 1990 and 1991. The comics are based upon Nintendo video game and television intellectual property from "Super Mario Bros.", Game Boy, "The Legend of Zelda", "", "Metroid", and "Punch-Out!!".
Valiant's "Super Mario Bros." comic books are based on the three main Mario games on the Nintendo Entertainment System, as well as "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show". It features the five main characters from the games and cartoon: Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool (as the name Peach was not known in America at the time until "Yoshi's Safari" in 1993), Toad, and Bowser as "King Koopa". Wart (the main villain from "Super Mario Bros. 2"), the Koopalings, and the viruses from "Dr. Mario" also make minor appearances. New characters are also featured for these comics, including: Stanley the Talking Fish, an annoying fish who often pesters Mario about his dating problems; King Toadstool, the Princess' father, who is not very intelligent; and Wooster, the king's much smarter and more sensible advisor. One particular character created for the comics is Dirk Drain-Head, a comic book superhero favored by Mario and all of Bowser's minion, and disliked by most other characters. Mario's line was renewed for 1991, in which he has two different books: "Super Mario Bros." and "Adventures of the Super Mario Bros."
The stand-alone "Game Boy" comic books, despite having that title, are based solely on "Super Mario Land" since it was the only Game Boy adventure game around at the time. It ended at four issues. The stories feature an original character named Herman Smirch, a quasi-hero of the storyline. He is an ill-willed character whom Tatanga—the villain of source game—could easily hypnotize into doing his bidding due to the bitterness in the man's cynical soul. In each issue, Smirch releases Tatanga and his minions into the real world, and a child then releases a tiny Mario to battle them.
"The Legend of Zelda" is based on the two Zelda games released on the NES at the time as well as the animated series that aired alongside on "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show".
"" is based on the animated series of the same name but with some major differences. All third-party characters are excluded due to Valiant not licensing them from Capcom and Konami as the creators of the animated series had done, but the characters made for the show (Kevin Keene, Princess Lana, Duke, and King Charles), as well as Pit, remain. Simon Belmont and Mega Man are replaced by Samus Aran, the "Metroid" heroine who does not appear in the cartoon, and Mother Brain's second-in-command is Uranos, the demigod from "Kid Icarus". For unexplained reasons, Pit's toga is bleached yellow, and in most of the stories, Lana's dress is purple. However, she has a weapon: the scepter she had in concept art but never featured on the show. However, the comics retain some of the creative license taken by the cartoon's creators for elements of the original game (i.e., Metroid being a place, King Hippo being blue, Mother Brain's appearance).
"Metroid" and "Punch-Out!!" appear as stories in the graphic novel-like issues, and do not have their own books. Samus is portrayed as self-serving and interested in Captain N.
External links.
 on the Internet Archive


Fault Milestone Two

Fault Milestone Two is a visual novel developed by Alice in Dissonance and published by Sekai Project for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and Linux. It is the second entry in the "Fault" series, and is set immediately after the events of "Fault Milestone One". The game features no player choices, and follows the characters of Selphine and Ritona, who were transported across the world following an attack on their kingdom of Rughzenhaide. Together, with their newfound friend Rune, the game follows their attempt to return to Rughzenhaide to confront the forces that lead the attack.
The game is written and directed by Munisix, with artwork by Hare Konatsu. It was originally intended to be released as a single game, but was split into two episodes due to its length and how the developers did not want to raise its price to match. The first episode, Side: Above, was released in 2015, while the second, Side: Below, is planned for release in 2020. The episodes are designed to fit around the prequel game "Fault: Silence the Pedant", which is under development. According to Munisix, the first episode was a commercial success.
Synopsis.
Structure, characters and setting.
"Fault Milestone Two" is a linear visual novel without player choices. It is set in a world where magic exists, and takes place immediately after the events of its predecessor "Fault Milestone One". It follows the characters of Selphine and Ritona, who have been transported far away following an attack on their homeland, the kingdom of Rughzenhaide. Together, with their newfound friend Rune, they attempt to return home to confront the forces that lead the attack.
Development.
The game was developed by the doujin group Alice in Dissonance as part of "Project Written", the name of their operations. It was directed and written by Munisix, with character designs and other art by Hare Konatsu. Munisix had previously intended to localize "Fault Milestone One" himself, but Sekai Project ended up doing the localization following a crowdfunding campaign in 2014; because of this, Munisix was able to focus on the development of "Fault Milestone Two". While the game had originally been intended to be released during Comiket in January 2015, it ended up being delayed. Alice in Dissonance stated that the game was playable from start to finish, but that several sections of the game required improvements before the game could be released.
In July 2015, they announced that the game would be broken up into the two episodes, known as "Side: Above" and "Side: Below", as they thought the story had gotten too long to be sold for 15, with "Side: Above" being roughly the same length as "Fault Milestone One", and they wanted to avoid raising the price to match. Due to this split, they had to rein in some story elements, which Munisix later stated was a beneficial thing, as those elements could have otherwise gone out of control. Munisix briefly considered giving "Side: Below" the title of "Milestone Three", but decided against it as they wanted each "milestone" to have its own consistent theme. For "Fault Milestone Two", the theme is explored in different ways in each of the episodes. They were designed so that they could fit around the upcoming prequel game, "Fault: Silence the Pedant". Like with "Fault Milestone One", the developers wanted to include one player choice in "Side: Above"; they had one in mind, but eventually had to remove it as it broke the flow of the story. A new presentation system was added for the game, intended to make the experience more immersive and feel "larger than life".
Release and localization.
"Fault Milestone Two" is being released in two episodes: "Side: Above" and "Side: Below". The first episode was released for Microsoft Windows, OS X and Linux on August 16, 2015 in Japanese, and in English on September 8, 2015. The second episode was originally planned to be released in 2017 before being pushed back in 201. "Side: Above" will also be released for the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch in December 2020.
Work on the game's localization began in January 2015, when Sekai Project stated that they had started the planning phase of the localization, released a teaser trailer for it. A demo was released in April 2015. It was first only made available for people who had backed "Fault Milestone One" crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, but was later released to the public.
Reception.
According to Munisix, the game was a commercial success, with the series selling over 420,000 copies combined by March 2018. The Steam release of "Side: Above" had an estimated total of 50,000 players by July 2018. It was reviewed by Marcus Estrada at "Hardcore Gamer", who said that the plot was less dramatic than that of "Fault Milestone One", but still managed to be compelling and giving insight into the characters of Ritona, Rune, Selphine and Rhegan; he did however think that it felt like a detour from the main plot, and that the episode's ending felt "truncated". He criticized it for being short, and said that the lack of player choices meant that there was little reason to replay it. He said that the game's visuals looked "gorgeous" and worked well with the story, and that the art style was above the more "standardized anime art" used in other visual novels from the same time. He also enjoyed the music, saying that the soundtrack was "full of standouts" that emphasized the story well; one criticism he had was that there wasn't more music for some scenes that only use ambient sounds.


Giulio Cesare Polerio

Giulio Cesare Polerio (c. 1550, – c. 1610; reconstruction of places and dates by Adriano Chicco) was an Italian chess theoretician and player.
Name affixes used for him are "l'Apruzzese", Giu[o]lio Cesare "da Lanciano" (Salvio/Walker), and "Lancianese", because he was born in Lanciano, a town in the province of Chieti of the region Abruzzo of Italy. He died in Rome.
Chess playing.
The first published mention of Polerio is from 1634 in "Il Puttino" by Alessandro Salvio. It recounts an event that must have occurred around 1575. "Il Puttino, altramente detto il Cavaliere errante" is a nickname used by Alessandro Salvio for Giovanni Leonardo. According to Salvio, Polerio accompanied Giovanni Leonardo on his way to Madrid until Genoa.
After returning to Rome around 1584, Polerio became a chess player and writer in ordinary of Giacomo Boncompagni, Duke of Sora and son of Pope Gregory XIII (born Ugo Boncompagni).
Polerio wrote a number of codexes in which a lively international chess dialogue is described involving the exchange of ideas among players in Italy, Portugal, and Spain. In these codexes, besides new ideas regarding chess openings, Polerio describes some of his own matches.
In "Il Puttino", Salvio mentions that, starting in 1606 from "Città di Piazza", "Geronimo Cascio, on his way to Rome, beat Giulio Cesare (Polerio), companion of Il Puttino, the best in Rome, in the house/court of his Excellence Giacomo Boncompagni, Duke of Sora."
The Codexes of Giulio Cesare Polerio.
The first systematic investigation of the Codexes of Polerio was published by Antonius van der Linde in 1874. The subject of the investigations by Van der Linde can be found at the Bibliotheca Van der Linde-Niemeijeriana, part of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, National Library of the Netherlands.
The current systematics of the Codexes of Polerio has been performed and published by Alessandro Sanvito in 2005.
Impact of Polerio on chess history and theory (before 1874).
The systematic organisation of overall seven Codexes, described and called A-G by Van der Linde, and attributed to Polerio in 1874, had major impact on the further description of chess history, and history of chess theory. A relevant part of the work of Van der Linde was to compare Codexes of Polerio and Gioacchino Greco even superfine. According to this investigation, most of the analytic work of Polerio was mediated outside of Italy, up to 1874, via Gioacchino Greco. More recent work by Peter J. Monté compiling game scores from all sixteenth and seventeenth century manuscripts reveals where Greco copied Polerio and where he carried the games further.
Impact of Polerio on chess terminology (after 1874).
Polerio Gambit.
On p. 186 of "Das Schachspiel des XVI. Jahrhunderts" van der Linde wrote in 1874:
"D. Polerio-Gambit
224
1. e2-e4 e7-e5
2. f2-f4 e5-f4:
3. Sg1-f3 g7-g5
4. Lf1-c4 g5-g4
5. 0-0! g4-f3:
6. Dd1-f3: "e cosi ancor che habbia perso un pezzo resta con buonissima postura di poter uencere il gioco sapendo guidarlo à presso, il che sarebbe superfluo inogni modo se si uolesse mostrare la fine di tutti giochi, e per questo basta insino à un certo che, tanto che si conosca apartemente il uantagio del gioco, si come per la postura di dette giochi ogni giudicioso giocatore lo potrà facilmente cognoscere".")
... in modern terms:
"Polerio Gambit: 1. e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3. Nf3 g5 4.Bc4 g4 5.0-0! gxf3 6.Qxf3 +/−"
Exactly this move order was also found later even in a second Polerio Codex discovered and described by J.A. Leon in 1894.
Of note is that the position after 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.Bc4 g4 5.0-0 gxf3 6.Qxf3 may be considered by most recent grandmasters as a forced win for White – provided that 5.0-0 would mean "free castling", i.e. bringing the White King from e1 to h1. Actually, Polerio did claim 5.0-0 gxf3 6.Qxf3 to be favourable for White although the white king of Polerio did stand, after 5.0-0, on h1 but not on g1 (i.e. castling as defined in our days).
However, in 1874, the move order 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.Bc4 g4 5.0-0! was already occupied by the term "Muzio Gambit". This term derives from a translation of a work of Alessandro Salvio, supposedly the third book of the reprint of 1723, by Sarrat in 1813. On page 209 Jacob Henry Sarratt (translated) and wrote:
"SALVIO states that the following Gambit was sent to him by Signor Muzio, ..."
Actually, Alessandro Salvio never stated this. Rather, in the third book of the Il Puttino he wrote that Signor Mutio d'Alessandro did see that Geronimo Cascio did play the move order (with free castling, also called "Italian method" of castling).
With p. 165, vol. 2, of the 1821 edition of A New Treatise of the Game of Chess the term Muzio Gambit was coined by Jacob Henry Sarratt. And with the latter work of Sarrat, in 1821 the modern theory of the "Muzio Gambit" with castling according modern rules started – an idea and a position already Polerio analysed in 1579/80.
Thus, Antonius van der Linde, changed the view on the historical development of the move order 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.Bc4 g4 5.0-0 in 1874, most notably in the last editions of the Handbuch. Thereafter, a trend can be seen to call this move order either with hyphenated terms such as Muzio–Polerio, Polerio–Muzio, or simply Polerio Gambit. Such a terminology is both in honour of Giulio Cesare Polerio and partially misleading since the major body of the theory of this opening was generated in the time span in-between 1821 and 1874. The number of games played by Adolf Anderssen, Paul Morphy, and Wilhelm Steinitz with 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.Bc4 g4 5.0-0 or 5.d4 in the time span 1821–1874 was already rather high. The rules for Chess opening nomenclature, and their historical development, should be taken into account while assessing van der Linde's claim of 1874 "D. Polerio-Gambit".
"Polerio Gambits and Variations".
In 1874, Van der Linde suggested as well (p. 188) to rename the move order 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 g5 4.Bc4 Bg7 5.h4 h6 6.d4 d6 7.Nc3 c6 8.hxg5 hxg5 9.Rxh8 Bxh8 10.Ne5!? into "Polerio's second Gambit". This suggestion is based on the observation that "im Handbuch (1864, S.. 366, § 3)" this move order is called "das Gambit des Calabresen". This is a rather interesting observation since in the "Handbuch" in its 2nd edition as of 1852, on p. 205 it is mentioned that the move order 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 f5 can be found "at the Calabrese". That's a rather wise wording since both 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 f5 and 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5, according to Codexes of Polerio, occurred in games of "Gio. Leonardo" (games 236–238, p. 190 in van der Linde). Both Giovanni Leonardo and Gioacchino Greco were from Calabria, the first from Cutro, the second from Celico.


Argumental

Argumental (working title Whose Side Are You On?) is a British improvised comedy panel game hosted originally by John Sergeant and later Sean Lock, alongside two teams captained by Marcus Brigstocke and Rufus Hound, followed by Robert Webb and Seann Walsh, debating and arguing on various topics with help from various guests. It is made by independent production company Tiger Aspect Productions for Dave and made its debut on 27 October 2008. Series three was commissioned for Dave and four episodes from the second series aired on BBC Two, making it UKTV's most successful commission in terms of reach of audience.
Participants.
The programme was originally chaired by journalist John Sergeant whose post-journalistic career at the time the series began was on the rise due in part to his appearance on the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing. He was joined by team captains Marcus Brigstocke, the host of "The Late Edition", and comedian Rufus Hound. Each team captain was accompanied by a guest panellist who have included Jimmy Carr, Sue Perkins, Reginald D. Hunter, Phill Jupitus, Charlie Higson, Johnny Vegas, Lucy Porter, Dara Ó Briain, Sean Lock and Frankie Boyle. From the 2011 series, Sean Lock replaced John Sergeant as presenter, while Seann Walsh and Robert Webb took over as team captains. This coincided with a revamp of the show's set and graphics.
Format.
Each episode comprises a series of rounds in which each team takes its turn debating a variety of topics, whilst also trying to be amusing. Topics have included: 'recycling is a waste of time' and 'the Royal Family serve no purpose'. After each round the team members often make humorous observations about what has just been said, before the studio audience votes for who they thought put forward the best case. Voting is done by holding up a red or blue paddle to vote for the red or blue team respectively. The votes are tallied before the winner of the round is decided. The team that wins the most rounds wins the show.
Rounds.
Each episode normally contains 5 rounds. Sometimes however some episodes contain 4 rounds with 1 round dropped altogether.
Classic debate.
A representative from each team takes their turn to argue for or against a given motion, respectively. After the main arguments have been put forward the teams are invited to discuss the subject further to reinforce their team's argument or attack their opponent's.
Visual aids.
Team members try to argue over a topic while incorporating pictures from a slideshow that they have never seen before into their case.
Flip-flop.
Each team is given a different topic to argue about in this round. The team representative must argue for the motion until a buzzer sounds at which point they must argue against the motion. The contestant continues to alternate between for and against until the end of round buzzer is sounded. This round does not appear in every episode.
That's a Brilliant Idea.
Introduced in series 3, representatives from each team take turns being given a typically nonsensical, illogical or outrageous statement, and have to argue a convincing case for that statement being a good thing, starting each argument with the words "That's a brilliant idea.".
Popular culture round.
In series 1, this round was similar to the 'classic debate' round except the topic involves a famous person or celebrity. The person being debated was represented by a life sized cut-out placed in the centre of the performance stage. Past celebrities have included Piers Morgan, Victoria Beckham, Amy Winehouse, Wayne and Coleen Rooney, Simon Cowell and Jeremy Kyle.
Since series 2, this round has not always featured cardboard cut-outs; in some episodes, real-life people (e.g. a body builder) come on stage instead.
Final picture round.
This round doesn't involve any arguing per person, alternatively contestants are shown pictures for which they must invent a motion to suit. Unlike the other rounds, both teams remain seated throughout. Like the flip-flop round, this round has not always been included. The audience still votes red or blue.
Guest appearances.
The following appeared on the show as a guest.
a. Appearances made before becoming the host.


Barry Simmons

Barry Simmons (born 24 November 1948) is a Scottish-born quiz show contestant and was the winner of the BBC Two show "Are You an Egghead?" and as a result became the sixth "Egghead", joining Kevin Ashman, CJ de Mooi, Daphne Fowler, Christopher Hughes and Judith Keppel on the regular show in December 2008. He told "The Jewish Chronicle" newspaper, "It’s the best job in British quizzing and to get paid for doing something you love is just the icing on the cake. But I have to admit I hate losing."
Simmons was born in Edinburgh and now lives in Leeds, West Yorkshire.
Career.
Before becoming an 'Egghead', Simmons won £64,000 on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?", broadcast on 5 February 2005 (Series 17, Episode 6). He reached the hot seat on his 3rd attempt, having appeared as a fastest finger first contestant on two occasions during Series 15 in early 2004. One of these failed appearances (on 24 April 2004) featured Pat Gibson becoming the 4th UK winner of the £1,000,000 jackpot. Gibson would later join Simmons on "Eggheads" in 2009.
Alongside teammates and fellow former "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" contestants Diane Hallagan and Lee Warburton, Simmons won the final series of Radio 4 quiz "Masterteam" in 2005/06.
He was a semi-finalist on "Mastermind" and also reached the final of the 2008/09 series of the radio programme "Brain of Britain", but was defeated by Geoff Thomas. He has been a researcher at text question and answer service AQA 63336 since 2006.
Simmons was part of an AQA team that appeared on "Eggheads"; he won his own round but the team was defeated in the final round. He returned to compete individually on spin-off show Are You an Egghead? in 2008, where he won Series 1 and earned the right to appear as the 6th Egghead on the regular programme. He defeated fellow future Egghead David Rainford in the semi final and beat Shaun Wallace in the final. This meant he became the first person to appear on Eggheads as part of both the Eggheads and a 'challengers' team.
In 2012 he again reached the final of the "Brain of Britain" and won the competition. Before the final, some controversy was caused as he was thought of as "a professional quizzer". As reported by the BBC website, "There is no rule banning Eggheads from appearing on "Brain of Britain" – the only rule is that former champions are not allowed to return."
In 2013 he was ranked number three quizzer in the world. He also appeared on Only Connect in 2013.
Personal life.
Simmons is Jewish and is a member of the Beth Hamidrash Hagadol Synagogue. On 4 July 1976 he married Janet Simmons. They have two children.


Ignition (video game)

Ignition is a PC game released in 1996 by Virgin Interactive. It features miniature cars, much like Death Rally and different vehicles such as school buses, police cars and trucks - many of which are unlocked as the game progresses. It was re-released by Interplay in 2017.


Pump It Up (game show)

Pump It Up is a British game show for children that was produced by Carlton Television broadcast on CITV from 26 February 1999 to 31 March 2000. Andy Collins was the host and was joined by Julia Bradbury in the first series and Fearne Cotton in the second series. Voiceovers were provided by ITV Sport broadcaster Jim Rosenthal.


Ben Fong-Torres

Benjamin Fong-Torres (方振豪; Cantonese: Fong Chan Ho; born January 7, 1945, in Alameda, California) is an American rock journalist, author, and broadcaster best known for his association with "Rolling Stone" magazine (until 1981) and the "San Francisco Chronicle" (from around 1982).
Biography.
Due to the Chinese Exclusion Act, Fong-Torres' father Ricardo (born Fong Kwok Seung), changed his surname to Torres and posed as a Filipino in order to immigrate to the United States. His family later adopted the hyphenated surname, "Fong-Torres". He is the brother of the late Shirley Fong-Torres.
Fong-Torres, who graduated from San Francisco State University in 1966 with a B.A. in radio-TV-film, was a writer and senior editor of "Rolling Stone" nearly from the magazine's inception.
In 1972, Fong-Torres lost his older brother, Barry, a probation officer and community worker, in a Chinatown gang war.
He conducted interviews for "Rolling Stone" of entertainment figures including Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, comedian Steve Martin and Linda Ronstadt's first cover story in 1975. He also profiled Marvin Gaye, Sly and the Family Stone, Bonnie Raitt, Paul McCartney and Rodney Dangerfield. A Fong-Torres interview with Ray Charles was awarded the Deems Taylor Award for Magazine Writing in 1974.
Fong-Torres was also a rock DJ for San Francisco radio station KSAN-FM in the 1970s. He later hosted a live, weekly entertainment and talk show, "Fog City Radio," on NPR affiliate KQED-FM. On television, he is the five-time Emmy Award-winning co-anchor of the Chinese New Year Parade broadcast on KTVU (Fox) in San Francisco.
Fong-Torres was a contestant on the game show "Wheel of Fortune" in 1993.
He has published several books, including: "Hickory Wind", a biography of Gram Parsons; "The Rice Room", a memoir; "The Hits Just Keep on Coming", a history of Top 40 radio, and two compilations of past articles, "Not Fade Away" and "Becoming Almost Famous" (published in May 2006). His book with The Doors ("The Doors By The Doors") was published by Hyperion in November 2006, and he published "The Grateful Dead Scrapbook" (Chronicle Books) in 2009. The Rice Room was reprinted, with additional material and photographs, by the University of California Press in 2011. That year, Fong-Torres published "Eagles: Taking It to the Limit" (Running Press). In November 2013, "Willin': The Story of Little Feat" (Da Capo Press), was released.
In 2020, Welbeck published an updated version of his Eagles book, and he signed with Audible to narrate his memoirs and his book on Little Feat.
From July 2005 to April 2019, Fong-Torres wrote the bi-weekly column "Radio Waves" in the San Francisco Chronicle's Sunday Datebook. He has been a contributing editor to "Parade" magazine, and has served as Senior Editor for Qello, an app and site that streams music concerts and documentaries. In 2007 to 2008, he hosted "Backstage" Sundays on San Francisco's KFRC-FM, and he was a DJ on BossBossRadio.com until 2016, when he became program director and DJ for Moonalice Radio.
He was portrayed in the 2000 film "Almost Famous" by actor Terry Chen. The fictional version of Fong-Torres is the lead character William Miller's editor at "Rolling Stone". He is depicted on a mural on the side of a building at Haight and Clayton Streets in San Francisco.
Fong-Torres was inducted into the SF State Alumni Hall of Fame in 2004 and delivered the commencement address in 2005. Frequently called upon to MC community events, Fong-Torres has also sung at senior facilities, Broadcast Legends luncheons and weddings. As an officiant, he has married some 30 couples. Fong-Torres was also a judge for the 7th annual Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.
In 2010, Suzanne Joe Kai, founder of the AsianConnections.com site and a television and film producer, began work on a documentary on Fong-Torres, called "Like a Rolling Stone."


Alexander Wagner

Alexander (Aleksander) Wagner (7 August 1868 – 1942) was a Polish chess correspondence master and theoretician.
He studied law in Lemberg (Lwów, Lviv), playing chess in the Lviv Chess Club. He took 4th at Lviv 1895 and 6th at Lviv 1896, both won by Ignatz von Popiel, tied for 6-7th at Berlin 1897 (Arpad Bauer won), tied for 7-8th at Berlin 1903 (Horatio Caro won), and tied for 5-8th at Berlin 1905 (Erich Cohn won). In that time, he published an article "Das Schachspiel in Polen" in the "Österreichische Lesehalle". After study, he worked in railway administration in Lvow. Then he moved to Khodoriv, and next settled in Stanislau, Galicia (then Austria-Hungary, next Poland, now Ukraine). He played in local and international correspondence chess tournaments, and published many theoretical analysis in chess magazines.
In February 1912, he published an article "A New Gambit. The Swiss Gambit." (1.f4 f5 2.e4 fxe4, 3.Nc3 Nf6, 4.g4) in the "Schweizerische Schachzeitung". He introduced in practice, along with Swiss Gambit (1.f4 f5 2.e4), Polish Defense (1.d4 b5) and Lemberg Gambit, also known as Tennison Gambit or Abonyi Gambit, (1.Nf3 d5 2.e4).


Client-side prediction

Client-side prediction is a network programming technique used in video games intended to conceal negative effects of high latency connections. The technique attempts to make the player's input feel more instantaneous while governing the player's actions on a remote server.
The process of client-side prediction refers to having the client locally react to user input before the server has acknowledged the input and updated the game state. So, instead of the client only sending control input to the server and waiting for an updated game state in return, the client also, in parallel with this, predicts the game state locally, and gives the user feedback without awaiting an updated game state from the server.
Client-side prediction reduces latency problems, since there no longer will be a delay between input and client-side visual feedback due to network ping times. However, it also introduces a desynchronization of the client and server game states, which needs to be handled to keep the game playable. Usually, the desync is corrected when the client receives the updated game state, but as instantaneous correction would lead to "snapping", there are usually some "smoothing" algorithms involved. For example, one common smoothing algorithm would be to check each visible object's client-side location to see if it is within some error epsilon of its server-side location. If not, the client-side's information is updated to the server-side directly (snapped because of too much desynchronization). However, if the client-side location is not too far, a new position between the client-side and server-side is interpolated; this position is set to be within some small step delta from the client-side location, which is generally judged to be "small enough" to be unintrusive to the user.
Another solution to the desynchronization issue, commonly used in conjunction with client-side prediction, is called "server reconciliation". The client includes a sequence number in every input sent to the server, and keeps a local copy. When the server sends an authoritative update to a client, it includes the sequence number of the last processed input for that client. The client accepts the new state, and reapplies the inputs not yet processed by the server, completely eliminating visible desynchronization issues in most cases.
The earliest known first-person shooter to use client-side prediction is Duke Nukem 3D, which had it built-in since the January 29, 1996 shareware release. The technique was also a prominent feature of "QuakeWorld", the popular add-on to "Quake". While network play was included in the original "Quake" game, it was optimized mainly for LAN play. Having had high-speed home connections (a rarity at the time), "Quake"'s designers overlooked their assumptions of high bandwidth and low ping times that made playing online frustrating for dial-up users. After a series of experiments in a long private beta, id Software released "QuakeWorld" with a new predictive model that proved popular with both high and low latency players.


Lee Unkrich

Lee Edward Unkrich (born August 8, 1967) is an American director, film editor, screenwriter, and animator. He was a longtime member of the creative team at Pixar, where he started in 1994 as a film editor. He later began directing, first as co-director of "Toy Story 2".
After co-directing "Toy Story 2", "Monsters, Inc." and "Finding Nemo", Unkrich made his solo directorial debut with "Toy Story 3" in 2010, and most recently directed "Coco" in 2017, both of which won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
After working at the studio for twenty-five years, Unkrich left Pixar and the film industry in January 2019 to be able to spend more time with his wife and three children.
Early life and career.
Unkrich was raised in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. His father Bob Unkrich, a World War II Veteran ("He stormed the beach at Normandy") and artist, who later converted to his mothers religion, is originally from a family of German-Catholic descent, whereas his mother is from a Jewish background. He spent his youth acting at The Cleveland Play House. Unkrich graduated from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts in 1990.
Unkrich was Vice-President of Editorial and Layout at Pixar. Before joining Pixar in 1994, Unkrich worked for several years in television as an editor and director. He is the 2011 recipient of the University of Southern California's Mary Pickford Distinguished Alumni Award recognizing alumni contributions to the cinematic arts.
On January 18, 2019, Unkrich announced he was leaving Pixar and the film industry to spend time with his family.
Personal life.
Unkrich is married to Laura Century and they have three children: Hannah, Alice, and Max.


Episode (video game)

Episode is an interactive story video game developed by Pocket Gems.
The app is a storytelling network and platform that features interactive stories built for mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets. Users enter one of 84,000 stories and make choices as the storyline progresses. The product also has a UGC creation platform that enables users to create their own stories, 12 million of which have registered.
Episode features three types of stories: user generated, in-house originals and IP licensed. Some IP stories include "Demi Lovato: Path to Fame", "Pretty Little Liars", "Clueless", "Pitch Perfect: In Deep Treble", "Mean Girls: Senior Year", "Mean Girls: Sorority Rush", "Cameron Dallas: It Started With a Lie", and "Falling For the Dolan Twins".
External links.
Episode Choose Your Story 2


Night Fever (TV series)

Night Fever was a karaoke style show airing in the United Kingdom on Channel 5 from 5 April 1997 to 30 March 2002. It was hosted by Suggs and in the early series, he was helped by "The Big Guy in the Sky" – a disembodied voice giving the scores, and later by 'Wolfie' – John Ireland dressed as Mozart. Later series were co-hosted by Will Mellor and Sarah Cawood replaced later by Kieron Elliott and Danielle Nicholls. The programme often had themed shows such as Valentine's Day. Also, Suggs was helped (or often hindered) by Pop Monkey (a man in a costume) who supposedly gave Suggs the choices of songs.
Format.
Two panels of celebrities faced a boys against girls singing contest together with quiz questions and interaction from the audience. Team captains in the early series were Craig Charles and Philippa Forrester, who were working together on BBC Two's show, Robot Wars. Special guest stars made appearances as well – these included Gary Numan, Labi Siffre and Limahl from Kajagoogoo. The format was re-developed from the French show – La Fureur (The Fury) hosted and devised by Artur – by Richard Hearsey who produced the show for Channel 5. Dawn Airey had seen the French version of the show and both Richard Hearsey and Alan Boyd travelled to Marseilles to see a live version prior to re-developing the show for Channel 5.


Igor Zaitsev

Igor Arkadyevich Zaitsev (; born 27 May 1938) is a Russian grandmaster of chess.
Early life and family.
Zaitsev was born in Ramenskoye, a town outside Moscow. His Armenian father, Arkady Gevorgovich Aghaian, was a deputy commander of a warship; his mother, Anna Fyodorovna Zaitseva, was a worker at the Red Banner Textile Factory.
Chess career.
In 1969, Zaitsev attained the title of Moscow Champion by defeating Yakov Estrin using the Giuoco Piano opening. The next year, Zaitsev was given the title of International Master and in 1976 he became a Grandmaster.
Zaitsev played in six USSR Chess Championships (1962, 1967, 1968–69, 1969, 1970, 1991), his best finish being joint 1st (coming 2nd after a play-off) in 1968-69.
His results in international tournaments include 2nd at Polanica-Zdrój 1970; 2nd at Dubna 1976; 1st at Quito 1976.
Contribution to theory.
Zaitsev is best known for his contribution to opening theory. His variation of the Ruy Lopez opening (known as the Flohr–Zaitsev Variation, jointly named for Grandmaster Salo Flohr) follows one of the main lines of the Ruy Lopez and remains in wide use today. In the Flohr–Zaitsev Variation, Black plays 9...Bb7 after the moves: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0-0 9.h3. The move fianchettoes the light-squared bishop, putting pressure on White's pawn on e4.
Coach.
Zaitsev became one of the trainers of World Champion Anatoly Karpov in the late 1970s, following the death of Karpov's coach Semyon Furman in March, 1978. Zaitsev was one of Karpov's seconds in a number of his World Championship matches, including the matches against Garry Kasparov in 1984 to 1990.
Karpov popularized Zaitsev's line at the top level, playing it with success for many years.
Zaitsev is Honoured Coach of USSR and Russia. In 2006 he was awarded the title of FIDE Senior Trainer.


Password (British game show)

Password is a British panel game show based on the US version of the same name. It was originally aired on ITV produced by ATV from 12 March to 10 September 1963, hosted by Shaw Taylor. A decade later, it returned and aired on BBC2 from 24 March to 28 April 1973 hosted by Brian Redhead before moving to its flagship channel BBC1 from 7 January 1974 to 1976, first hosted by Eleanor Summerfield, then by Esther Rantzen. It returned six years later, airing on Channel 4 produced by Thames in association with Talbot Television and Goodson-Todman Productions from 6 November 1982 to 14 May 1983 hosted by Tom O'Connor and then finally aired back on ITV produced by Ulster from 22 July 1987 to 29 July 1988, hosted Gordon Burns.
Gameplay.
Gameplay is identical to the US version. Two celebrity-civilian teams compete, and after being given the password, the team in control has to decide whether to pass or play. Clues were worth 10 points if the player guessed the password on the first try, 9 on the second try, and so on down to 5 points for the last try (teams only got three guesses each in the UK version). The first side to earn 25 points won the game, and celebrities switched partners after each game. The first player to win three games continued as champion.
After a team accumulated 25 points or more, the points were turned into cash, at £1 per point. The winning team then played the lightning round, where teams had to guess 5 passwords in 60 seconds. Each word earned the contestant an extra £5 per word, or £50 if the team guessed all 5.


List of animated series based on video games

This is a list of cartoons shows based on video games. It does not include Japanese anime series, which are listed separately on the "List of anime based on video games".


Spook Squad

Spook Squad is a British children's television gameshow created by BBC Scotland. It ran on CBBC's section BBC1 and BBC2 from 6 January 2004, to 30 March 2004. The gameshow featured three children contestants entering a haunted castle in Scotland to assist Professor MacAbre in hunting ghosts before they reach their "death day" and gain superpowers. The show was filmed in Fyvie Castle.
Format.
Spook Squad follows a repetitive format with each of its episodes. The gameshow's plot involves three children visiting a haunted castle in Scotland to gain a place in the Spook Squad, a league of Ghostbusters-like ghost hunters. They are met by Professor MacAbre (Andrew Pepper), an eccentric and rather cowardly paranormalist, who acts as the gameshow's host and gives instructions to the children when they play the games. Each episode involves the contestants and Professor Rupert MacAbre preventing ghosts who died in the castle from obtaining a valuable item on their death anniversaries, otherwise the ghosts will gain supernatural powers and immortality (e.g. The "Devilish Debutante" seeks a necklace or "The Headless Knight" seeks a gauntlet). The antagonist to the contestants is the ghost of Lord MacAbre (Ford Kiernan), Professor MacAbre's villainous ancestor who sets up each game for the contestants. The contestants have until the last stroke of midnight to complete the task.
The contestants' goal is to collect "ectoplasmic residue" of the ghosts in order to gain letters that will eventually spell out the item that the ghost is seeking. The contestants travel to two different rooms around the castle in search of the ectoplasm, but are placed into games by Lord MacAbre. There are at least three different games per episodes, including a memory game in which the contestants must match sound effects to their origins and then play them in a certain order; and a game where they have to play a bowling game of sorts involving knocking down skeletons using large rubber balls and mops to guide the balls. Other games include a maze or throwing hula-hoops over statuettes or memorising the features on different statues and placing them all on another statue.
The third game involves a contestant going outside the castle, whether he or she enters the castle's dungeon or the graveyard to complete the third game. However, in the dungeon, they are locked in and must find a key to escape otherwise they remain in the dungeon, unless the other contestants forfeit some of the letters they have gained. In the final game, they enter the room the episode's ghost had died in. Professor MacAbre reveals the letters the contestants have gathered and asks them to spell out the correct item and then must locate it before midnight to win the game. If successful, the ghost will be banished from the castle and the contestants win medals and a "entry" into the Spook Squad, but if they fail then they are haunted by the evil ghost and run out of the castle .