GR translation: he alternates long lethargic backing and filling with bursts of idiot razzle-dazzle

[Mark Wright]

I always thought of "backing and filling" as a player making a move or two
and then immediately undoing them, not so much because he's recognized
error as because he has no idea of where he was a few moments ago. The
moves of a player so green as to have no conception of the shape of
rational play

On Sunday, February 8, 2015, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> If one has played chess earnestly---and if one has been obsessed--see
> Nabokov's The Defense and real life--- as many have been---this bit is
> HILARIOUS.
>
> On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 2:33 AM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> > V576.3-12   Pökler is living in the basement of the town hall. He has
> some
> > coffee heating on a driftwood fire in the stove.
> >        "Do you play chess?"
> >        Frieda kibitzes. Slothrop, who tends to play more by superstition
> > than strategy, is obsessed with protecting his knights, Springer and
> > Springer--willing to lose anything else, thinking no more than a move or
> two
> > ahead if that, he alternates long lethargic backing and filling with
> bursts
> > of idiot razzle-dazzle that have Pökler frowning, but not with worry.
> About
> > the time Slothrop loses his queen, "Sa-a-a-y, waitaminute, did you say
> > Pökler?"
> >
> > What is "backing"?  Does it have any specific meaning in chess?
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>
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