The Oil Drum

Bush doesn't have to know a darn thing, even how to play the game. He just has to be able to parrot the words fed to him. Convincingly would be a nice plus, lol. Heck, have Bushie act weird just so no one takes him seriously. You can be sneaky right out in the open then.

Think Rand Corporation and the other think tanks that have been around for decades, buildings full of supercomputers gaming the situation full time, over and over. TPTB and their advisors jockeying for position, all with an ax to grind.

At this point, I don't think there is a single variable that could change that they haven't gamed to death already. If not they are incompetent and need to be replaced.

Chess is a beautiful, complex game, the Game of Kings. I actually was quite good at it at one time. Led my high school team to the Minnesota State Championship. Played 1st board every match (no one could take it away from me, and boy they tried, hehe) and never lost a single game in match or tournament play for 3 years. I was within 150 points or so of Master, probably would have made it in another year or so if I had continued playing tournaments.

This oil thing has even more variables, so fascinating, and I believe very apt analogies can be drawn from Chess.

When you see one of the players trumpeting to the press, what is he doing? Telling you the truth? Yea right...

No, he is saying something for a reason. He may be establishing a position for a move further into the game. He may be setting you up for a combination. He may be setting a trap for a player he doesn't like. You just don't know for sure. He may just be trying to take your eye off of something else, a distraction.

Like Chess, all you have is the pieces on the board for sure. Look at what your opponent does, not says. Analyze as objectively as possible. It is best if YOU move in such a way that he has to respond to you, thus dictating the flow of the game to your best advantage while you develop position. You can make an opponent's strategy meaningless if you beat him to the punch.

Use your pieces to their best advantage. Get your Rooks out of the corners and into the game, pair them up, use them, they are the most powerful pieces on the board next to the Queen. The US has a military machine that is unmatched at this point. You think they aren't going to use it?

However, don't look for the overt or obvious reasons behind moves. Be devious, like Fischer, look for the deeper possibilities. Misdirection can be extremely important, the longer you can fool your opponent, the less able he will be to respond effectively when he discerns the main threat.

The main real tool the Saudis have is production. Let's see what they say this week, and then wait to see if they really follow it up afterwards, lol. This time lag between words and action in this part of the game is tiresome, but can not forget what they say, have to see if their actions later are real.

Production increase? Don't bet on it, I don't think they can for more than a very short period, a few months at best maybe. What excuse will they have this time? Outside Opec projects coming online? Ethanol stealing volume from crude? Refining capacity bottlenecks? How about blaming it on the oil sands? Market well supplied?

Yea right to all of the above. Give us something new for the talking heads to cuss and discuss, please.

Or maybe, increase output a few hundred K bpd and trumpet to the world about how much spare capacity you have. Would not be at all surprised by this. Surely they have a little spare capacity left and this could give their mouthpieces in the MSM some real ammo to put the hurt on us POilers.

I would love to be on the inside in this game. I think I could maybe even contribute meaningfully if given access to all the facts. Without putting my Rooks in harms way. Sometimes the threat of a move can be better than the move itself.