i’m currently stuck in west by god virginia. i can’t seem to get out, as much as i want to. at least i have the new york 1924 tournament book to go through. i’ll write all about it if and when i get home. i’m just letting anyone who reads this know i still intend on playing chess and writing about it and all that. god i hope i’m back for the tournament in july.
i’m going to spain, i leave tonight, i’ll be back hopefully in july.
i’m hoping that by being in spain, i will really understand the motives and true essence of the ruy lopez and the catalan, and i will be a much better player for it. actually, me and two freinds are going to spain to see the salavdor dali museum, and to spend the nights chest high in foam, dancing under the influence of absinthe while euro techno deafens us and we get siezures from the strobe lights. i will be bringing a small travel chess set and a book, i will study as much as i can, but i don’t think it is an adequate preperation for the upcoming tournament in july.
hardcore pawnography will be taking a short break, i’m hoping to post again by july 1st. take care all, good luck on all the games and such, see you when i get back. there will be pictures, oh yes, there WILL be pictures….
it seems that for one week every month i can’t do anything right in chess. for the last few days i’ve been trying to study and analyze moves and i just see a bunch of pieces, i couldn’t get my head around what i was looking at. online, i lost every game, couldn’t win for the life of me.
speaking of online, i kind of like the new world chess live. it is simliar enough to the old us chess live so it’s not a culture shock, but it seems….bigger. waaay more people are involved, there are waaaay more games being played, etc etc. i just wish i could be playing well.
i think real life also had gotten in the way. i had stuff to do, things were going on which kept part of my mind occupied no matter what i was doing. i hate to use that as an excuse for my suckiness, but there it is. i don’t think capablanca ever said “i lost because i was preoccupied with some things going on.” then again, i don’t think capablanca ever said “i lost.” but you get the idea…..
today i need to focus, really apply myself, and break through whatever hazy fog has clouded my mind, i need to be clear and see the potential moves, see the overall plan. perhaps that comes from the studying of positions, as i’ve mentioned earlier. perhaps after i see enough master games, and see how they move, then when i see pieces, i will instinctively know what piece needs to move where.
if you are reading this, have a great weekend.
yesterday was a big mail day for me, i not only got this month’s chess life, i also recieved “think like a grandmaster” by kotov and “alexander alekhine master of attack” from amazon. awesome, i have even more chess books.
i didn’t mean to start reading “think like a grandmaster” i just wanted to look at some of the words, and before i knew it, i was about 20 pages into it. what a kick ass book. not only is it written in a freindly, easy approach type style, it made me feel i too could someday attain a master rating. it is reccommended by just about everyone, and now i can see why. i feel stupid for waiting this long to get it.
thing about chess books and chess, for me, is… things i used to do are falling by the wayside. i used to try to read 52 books a year, a book a week. best i ever did was 43. now, i have a ton of books to read, but i no longer read them. every moment i have to spare i read a chess book or study chess, and i don’t read other books. when i do read other books, i feel like i am “cheating” and i feel guilty that i am “wasting time” in frivolus fun fiction instead of chess. ok, so i tend to fritter and waste a decent amount of time on the internet, there is that. but i see myself concentrating on chess and neglecting other things i used to do, like cycling.
and part of me doesn’t mind that at all. i really really really really like chess, and the desire to become a master =really x avogadro’s number. (avogadro’s number, for those who don’t know, is 6.02 x 10 to the 23rd) .
the other thing about all the chess books i have is, i have a lot of chess books, more than 30. ok, to many people, 30 chess books is less than they have in one of thier boxes of chess books. but really, are they helping me? i wish i could learn what they have in them merely by buying and having the books, but alas, it don’t work like that. each book must be studied, pored over, digested, re-read, internalised, etc. and that takes a good amount of time, which brings me back to having to take time from previous activities.
what is this post about? i don’t know, i’m just rambling, emtying my thoughts as they come onto a screen. i have a lot of chess books, i am getting even more. i need to study and learn from the books i have, simply buying books isn’t going to improve my chess, i must devote time to it, and that means putting other interests aside, maybe not cycling or reading as much as i had in the past, but it’s not a loss, it’s a gain. i can still cycle (went for a ride last night), i can still read other books (i’m almost done with a book about an economist who travels around the states finding fault with all the cool places to live) but now, i will also have chess.
back to “think like a grandmaster.” kotov says, right up front, it requires serious study, lots of work, dedication. i’d like to think i can give chess that. i know his book makes me feel like i can, and his book makes me want to. even if i have “too many” books, i am sure glad i bought this one, it just might be the most important book i have.
you wrote a book and formed a cult following on gaining 400 points in 400 days. well i got you beat brother. i gained 1124 points in 3 days. that’s right, THREE DAYS. YEAH! who’s the man now? i am halfway to my goal already, and i’ve only played 6 games of chess to get there. SWEET! if i do as good as i did, i’ll be rated master in an unprecedented 4 months, with only 11 games. i don’t think even capablanca did that well. i can start writing books, have videos, chicks will be all over me, i can do beer commercials, perhaps be a guest judge at the x-games or something. they will make a cool movie about me, it will show me training hard, with a cool montage that shows me playing chess on a mountain top, playing chess under a waterfall, playing chess under a tunnel against a chess thug, running to the top of the stairs in philidelphia with my chess set. in the movie there will be a part where i needed to find a chess coach to teach me, and i went into the swamps of russia and this little guy said he could help me find the guy i was looking for, but it turns out the little guy WAS the chess master, and i will tell him how i want to be a great chess master, and he will say “chess makes not one great.” i will tell him how i want the chicks and cars and fame that chess brings, how i want the excitement and danger of chess, and he will tell me “excitement? danger? a chessmaster seeks not these things.” then he will help me train, and i will have to play chess with him sitting on my shoulders, and the time will come when i have to face a GM rated 2700, and i’ll be all like “i’m not scared” and my chess master will be all “you will be…you WILL be….” it will be a cool movie.
i could be on the next cover of chess life! sweet, all my dreams will come true.
ok, well, i went from no rating to a provisional rating of 1124 after my three day tournament, so, maybe it’s not such a big deal. actually, i was hoping i would have done better, i was kinda shooting for 1300. damn, i suck.
but now i know where i stand. i can enter the “ye old pueblo” tournament as an 1124 player in the under 1400 section and hopefully i will win a game. i should probably go study chess or something….
didn’t study as much as i wanted to this weekend, but that’s ok, i will hit it hard this week. my new thing, for this week anyway, is to take a position from a game, early on, maybe somewhere from move 6 - 10, and really study it, burn it into my brain. i look at all the possible moves for white and formulate a plan. then i look at all the possible moves for black and formulate a plan. i pick what i think is the best move then i check the next moves in the book to see if i’m close.
the other reason i am studying positions is: “if you have to think of the next move, you’ve already lost. let the masters from the last 100 years play the game for you, make thier moves.” this was told to me and it clicked, i found chess enlightenment. i have to study positions and what moves are best, and know them, deep in my bones, so when i see the position, i already know the plan and what moves are best. the more i know, the more choices i have of moves. for example:
in the zurich tournament 1953 book, there is the najdorf -petrosian game, king’s indian. on move 12 black moves c7-c5, which it turns out is a serious positional error. later in the book is a najdorf - geller game, they reach the exact same position, but on move 12 of that game, black playes R - b4 instead and kicks some ass. so, if i ever get into that position, i now know not to play c5.
perhaps this is all obvious to everyone, but i just learned it, and now my study and focus will be a bit different, but guided. i’m kind of excited.
i still don’t know my provisional rating from the tournament, i hope it’s posted this week. i will enter the “ye old pueblo” tournament, coming up in july, i’ll enter the under 1400 section. i hope to do much better.
i gotta go study some games now.
wow, i feel like blue devil knight…
hey everyone, there is a new chessplayer here in arizona, and he has a new blog. lets make him feel welcome.
what would you do if you were white?
here is the thing, you could draw, or you could lose, depending on the move you make.
if, as white, you moved b4, follwing the general rule to advance the pawn that is free from opposition you would draw. if you didn’t know what you were doing, like me, you would play maybe a4, and black would play …a5 and win by following the principle of high strategy of chess - a unit that holds two. in this case, the black a pawn would be holding off the two white pawns on a and b.
i also learned you want to get the opposing king to the last line on any side of the board. here, the next move for white would be to move the the rook to a7 to keep the black king imprisoned on the last rank. black moves his king to g8 and next white moves his king to g2. the rule to follow here is keep the king as much as possible on the same rank or, as in this case, file as the opposing king.
ok, lets say the black king is in the center. the best move for white is moving the king to e2 and if black moves to d5 then e3, moving the king strait into the center of the board, not in front but to the side of the other king, and if the black king goes to e5, move the rook to h5 with check. if after the white king moves to e2 black moves his king to c4, then white would move his rook to h5, keeping the black king confined, and if black next moves to c3, then the rook goes to h4, shrinking blacks space to move.
it’s these little things i need to learn and know deep in my bones, as these basic principles apply and can be used throughout the game.
for those interested, i got these examples and pretty much plagerized the text from the book “chess fundamentals” by jose capablanca, which i picked up at the library when i went to chess club. it’s a pretty good book, very basic, but it has stuff that i just don’t know yet, like keeping the king on the same rank or file as the enemy. the book is in algebraic notation, printed in easy to read font, and has 14 games at the end which illustrate the points made in the book.
i’d like to use this new knowledge in actual play, but us chess live is down because it’s becoming world chess live, so no internet chess for me for a little while longer, unless i play on yahoo.
and, thanks to blue devil knight bringing this to everyone’s attention, i shall join in and say MONROI SUCKS. and, it turns out the monroi will disrupt pacemakers and cause sterilty. (ok, i made those up, but you never really know, do you?)
anyone reading this, have a great weekend..
