hardcore pawnography

this post will mirror my life: random, no central theme, no real point or focus…

first off, in the email i got a cool link from Dave – legos and chess, two of my favorite things, combine them together and get THIS

i also got an email from a friend, and while he might not have meant for me to share it, tough, it’s chess related art (words and pictures) and dammit, people need to see it. there is a story that goes along with the picture, it’s in the comments, you gotta read down a bit, it can be found HERE

i’ve been trying to spend more time on tactics, at the chess tactics server, i’m at a success rate of 72.8, with a rating of 1363. i really need to pay more attention to tactics, i saw in my last two games great tactics that i missed because i didn’t take the few extra seconds to look.

speaking of tactics, i was seriously thinking of “doing the circles” informally, not as a knight errant but as a guy who just goes through them. don’t know if i will actually break down and buy ct-art or the other one, but i’m seriously considering it.

i made some kick ass beer battered fried catfish this weekend, it came out awesome.

i’ve been kicking some ass with the gruenfeld. with that and the benko/benoni, i shall not ever fear 1.d4, and i know a bit better how to play 1.d4 against them.

TAKCHESS is awesome.  but everyone already knows that.

crap, i gotta get to work. i wish i had more time to read other blogs and comment and write better blog posts. i miss being able to blog at work.

more to say, no time to say it.  i will continue to spew tomorrow.

wouldn’t it be cool if i could just drink knowledge and understanding.  like, you get a bottle of chess, drink it down, and you know chess, kinda like the matrix where you can plug in and learn.  then i could get a bottle of guitar and learn to rock like i’ve never rocked before.  (oh, i’ve rocked, i just haven’t rocked as hard and amazing as i would have liked to).   i think i would also drink a bottle of drawing so i could draw the kick ass art that i have in my head but can’t get out on paper.

so yesterday i didn’t have to work, but i didn’t get online like i normally would.  at about 8:30 am i sat down at my chess desk and went through a book on the gruenfeld.  i just went over and over the games, trying to learn the nuances, every nook and cranny of each game.

and a few hours later, i was done.  funny thing was it didn’t seem like hours, but when i stopped, it was 12:00 in the afternoon or so.   i’ve looked at games online, with the computer, but for me, i seem to get a better understanding if i sit at a desk and use a chess set.  the act of physically moving the pieces seems to help with the “muscle memory” and i seem to understand a bit better.  i can click away all day through games on the computer, but it doesn’t seem to sink in as well, my brain seems to say “yeah, seen this” and ignore it, whereas moving the pieces with my hands, looking at the board, my brain seems to respond to this better.

so after i “awoke from my chess fugue” and realized i had lost a few hours, i went to the gym and had a pretty good workout, so that felt good.   then i came home and made “the most awesome french onion soup ever” and that was cool.

since the day had gone so well, i logged on to play some chess.  and i lost all the games. why? why does it have to be like that?   perhaps because i only play blitz, and i only play against guys rated much higher than me?  ahh, i consider it training for the tournament.

hiesman said it, wang says it, most people say it:  i need to play slower games.  so now i’m trying to play 30 minute games.  thing is, no one seems to want to play a 30 minute game.  i’ve had one so far, a 14 move game where the guy resigned in 2 minutes cause i took his rook that he left hanging.

so today i gotta go to work, but i have the morning to do what i want, so i shall continue to look for 30 minute games and go over some grand master games on the board, not the computer.

then maybe tonight, when i get home from work, instead of actually playing, i’ll just have a few glasses of chess and see if i know the game any better.

i was sitting around thinking about what makes a great chess player, and one of the things that came to mind is having an encyclopedic knowledge of moves, gained through experience. the only way to get lots of experience is to start super young, when the mind is fresh and still remembers stuff. time, life span, is a factor.

then i thought, vampires are around for hundreds or thousands of years, they would be great chessplayers.  they “live” (they are dead after all) for hundreds of years so they can study and play for about 200 years and still be young enough to “burst onto the scene” and kick ass.  imagine if you had played chess for 200 years, you would know all the gambits, all the lines, seen chess change and progress over the years.  someone would play what he thinks is “new” and you would think “HA! i saw that move played in a park 237 years ago, and i know just how to refute it.”  vampires don’t have to worry about “getting old” and forgetting and all that.    but they have other attributes that would help in chess as well.

in addition to being around so  long they’ve seen everything, they never have to eat, drink or go to the bathroom.  that means, in a 5 hour game, at a tournament, they don’t have to worry about breaking concentration to get up and pee or get a drink cause they are thirsty.  they don’t’ have to worry about blood sugar levels getting low and eating healthy. they only have to drink some good blood and they are ready!  they could sit at the board and hang out, no bodily distractions.  they never get sick  or injured, so they would never feel under the weather or not feel up to it.

also, when games go late, they won’t get tired or fatigued.  they could play all night long, and as the night gets later, they get more energized.  some of them have that mind control hypnosis thing, so they can “get you mentally” as well as over the board.

the only real downside would be daylight games. but if they play only tournaments in casinos, they never have to leave the casino during the day, and while they might be “tired” as it would be their “nighttime”, they could still play. or at least take bye’s during the daylight games.

other than that, i learned something, and that makes me feel pretty great.  on ICC some guy answered my 1d4 with e5, the Englund Gambit.  i had no idea what to do and i lost pretty badly.  this pissed me off, so i looked it up, and i found how to refute it.  i went over it and over it until i knew it, and honestly, it all seemed pretty easy, once i saw how, it was logical and made sense, nothing weird to remember.   so i got on icc, and lo, some guy answered my 1d4 with e5, and i played the line.  he followed me along for a good 5 or 6 moves, until he realized his little parlor trick wouldn’t work on me.  i lost the game later, on time i think, but no matter, i still enjoyed the hell out of the game, because i got to lose on my terms, not someone else’s.   that made me feel like i have a chance, like i can actually learn and play good chess.  perhaps, even though i’m not a vampire, i might still become a decent chess player.

today was so fucking cold, my shitty ass car wouldn’t start. so i didn’t go to work. i was home all damn day, and what did i do with my time?

i tried to study chess, but every few minutes, i would think “ooh, that looks cool, i should try that” and i logged onto ICC and played a bunch of games and lost and felt like shit, but then, a few minutes later, i was back online like a meth addicted heroin junkie on a vh1 reality show.

that is what the next cool reality show should be – chess addicts, poor losers who can’t stop playing chess and lose family, jobs, all that, go insane, just because they are trying to learn all the damn lines in the slav. fuckin slav…..

you would think that, as i played, i would get more experience and get better. you would be wrong. in fact, as i played, i continued to suck brilliantly, making what appeared to be the worst move possible at every move. in the bizarro world, where making the move a retarded wombat with a missing eye would make is the goal, every one of my moves would get a !
ok, some of the people i played were internet rated in the 1500 – 1700s, and some were those anon unrated people who are probably incognito IMs, ( i say this because they play moves no one plays, magical moves that dont’ seem to do anything but end up in your crushing death) i figure, if i play against those better than me, i will learn. no. i’m the kid who keeps touching the stove to see if it’s still hot, when the grill is glowing red.

i’ve been going over kramnik’s games, him as white when he won. using chessgames.com, i open up five or so windows of his games, all of one opening, for example, the catalan closed. out of six games, 4 of them on move 6 he didn’t castle, he played Qc2, which is what he was going to do anyway, he did that the next move in the other games. but instead of castling, he played the same moves, but seemed to be one move ahead. i thought that was cool as fuck. i don’t know what that means, or how i could use that in my games, but i noticed it.

i try to emulate the actual grandmasters, play the moves they play. i know wang, in his epic miniseries about truth in chess, talks about playing as yourself, and yeah, i can see that. but myself sucks donkey balls, why would i want to play like me? i hate playing like me. kramnik and karpov and tal won a lot, why wouldn’t i want to play like them?

so i am trying to make the moves they make. in the d4 games, kramnik plays cxd5, so i play that. and then i lose. i know it’s not that specific move that loses the game, but, fuck, throw me a bone here. if i play similar to the grandmasters, aren’t i playing good chess? ok, so i dont’ understand really what they are doing, but why, if i play over their games and use their moves, aren’t i learning what is truly going on? seriously, am i that dullwitted? and, if i’m playing “grandmaster moves” and the other guy isn’t, why am i losing? why does it work for them and not me? i seriously doubt pawntaker2000 and badblitz (not real ICC names) would beat kramnik or karpov, yet they beat me in a matter of a few moves.

many of the games that i lost today, it looked like i had a winning position, right up until i lost. it’s like, deep down inside, i am afraid of winning, which makes no sense at all, but i can’t explain it any other way. perhaps by being such a crappy chessplayer, i have removed any pressure on myself to play correctly, to think hard and make the right moves. “hey, i suck, waddya gonna do?”

but that is clown posse insane. why the fuck am i trying to figure this damn game out and build this super awesome monster battleship of a chess juggernaut if my subconscious is over in the corner secretly drilling holes in the boat so it sinks and removing nuts and screws so the sides fall off?

makes me wonder if i’m at some threshold, doorway moment. i can either say “whoo, i’m tired, think i’ll give it a rest” or i can say “ever oneward, fuck sanity, i’m pushing it to see where this can go.” perhaps what made the grandmasters so damn grand was when they got to this point, they said “fuck fatigue, i have to see what happens next, i have to learn just one more move.”

yeah, think i’ll push it just to see what happens…..

if you haven’t seen the movie juno, you won’t understand the title.  i would go see the movie, not just so you could understand my blog title, but because it is a really really really well put together movie.  good story, excellent dialog (although no teen  actually speaks that intelligently in real life) good cinematography and a soundtrack that fits that movie.   well worth it, go see it.

i don’t know what everyone else is doing from feb 29 – mar 2, but i plan on playing in the e class (*shudder of embarrassment*) in the eastern class championships, sturbridge massachucests.  first tournament of the year, and so help me god, i plan on destroying that class.

i actually think i’m learning.  i spent a good deal of time going over slav games, what to play as white, and i think i understand what to do in the first 10 moves or so.   i’m still a little hazy on what to play as black against e4, i still try to play the sicilan pin variation, and i do ok with it.  but i don’t know if i’m totally comfortable with it, or if i should go back to the french, or ruy lopez or what.   i know it doesn’t really matter at my level, but i’m also thinking of the future, i want to start now to be the chess player i’m gonna be in two years.

anyway, i have the rest of this month and almost all of next month to get ready for the tournament, i’m pretty damn excited.   and now i gotta get studying….

i don’t know what everyone else is doing tonight, but i’m saying “yes yes yes” to watching VH1’s celebrity rehab. that is gonna be some quality tv right there….

so tuesday night i went to the chess club in the thriving metropolis of Delta, colorado. the total populatin is about 8,000 people, yet they have a pretty damn good chess scene, better than the one in Grand Junction (which is no chess scene…yet), even though junction is way larger. how does that happen?

anyway, thanks to my blog, a local chess guy found me and emailed me (thanks Bill) and he took me down to the club, where i lost all of my games, including a game or two i should have won. i forgot what it was like to play over the board against a real human. it is different, i don’t know why. the folks there were all super friendly and cool and there was some damn good chess being thrown down. the club meets at the town rec center, and it’s a totally relaxed atmosphere. much talking and laughing and fun, which i enjoy. and after everyone has played a few games, they close the night with bughouse. sweet! i can’t wait to go next week.

so one of the openings played by this kid who kicked my ass was 1 Nf3, the reti system. it occurred to me i really don’t know how to answer that, and while i did ok, i could have done lots better. so part of my focus this week will be to learn the answers to 1 Nf3. one of the openings i will look at is the zukertort, only cause i want to use the word zukertort in casual conversation, just throw that in there wherever/whenever i can.

me: “oh, yeah, i’ve been checking out the zukertort lately. i really like the zukertort, it just feels right, ya know? i’m definitely turning into a zukertort zealot, if you know what i mean. for lunch, i think i’ll have the zukertort, on rye, with mustard”

every other human on earth: “you need help. seriously.”

so that is what i got going on today. the reti system, celebrity rehab, and i’m gonna make some tasty fideos for dinner.

and in closing, i’d just like to say:

ZUKERTORT