OK, you guys. Enough of this fun-making about the octopus that lives in my basement. I have taken your tittering about smart squid as far I can take it. So this is what I did: I went to the squid store (Mr. Squid) and told the nice lady there I wanted the smartest squid she had. She had never measured their intelligence and told me to come back in a week. And that's what I did. At that time, she introduced me to Lydia, explaining that she had administered several tests to the squids she had and that Lydia had beaten out Tyrone and others in almost every test. I took Lydia home and put her in the basement with Herman. Well, you can imagine. Herman won every chess match they played----16 over a four day period. The closest Lydia got was when she tried to use the King's pawn in a Kleinmetz manouver. Herman countered quickly with the standard Schliebaum-Kalakov responce as any of you would have done. I took Lydia back to the Mr. Squid store and I understand she now wins two out of three from Tyrone. You guys out there have any more challengers, Herman is ready. Art