hardcore pawnography

fucking government is run by clueless incompetent monkeys who, armed with a thousand typewriters and 5 bazillion years couldn’t bang out one line from cat in the hat much less shakespear. these fucktards are spending the Gross Domestic Product of fucking myanmar (Burma) trying to convince people to vote for them instead of spending the cash on, say, curing malaria or putting the cash back into the economy so people have houses and water and food and shit.

thing is, they are fucking shit up and the gas prices rise and the economy is tanking and it all affects my chess, and now i’m pissed off.

high gas prices mean airlines go out of business, so i can’t get to tournaments too far away. also driving is getting to expensive, so i can’t get to tournaments too short to fly but too far to ride a bike. i found out today that my man wang can’t make it to vegas and i doubt i’ll make it to tucson.

goddammit, how is my rating supposed to go up (even though it would most likely make like the lusatania and go down) if i don’t play in tournaments? how am i supposed to meet other chess bloggers and get drunk and party like a fucking rockstar if i and others can’t get to tournaments? what happens to the tournaments themselves? soon, people will stop showing up, too damn expensive with the gas, the hotel, food, entry fee, buying books, renting hookers, booze, drugs, bribing police and hotel managers, etc etc, all the regular things that go into a good tournament.

still, i’m going to chicago in a few weeks and i’m excited. my main concern is, how am i gonna pull of a huge party in my room? i want to invite the chessplayers and a bunch of chicks and have booze and music and rip it up. but from what i’ve seen, most players at tournaments are too busy studying in their rooms, or their moms won’t let them drink.

i can’t be the only chess player who also likes to party. i’m thinking of making up flyers and passing them out.

super interesting discussion over at elizabeth vicary’s, but it all takes place in the comments. some dude, who i think is an IM, has a thing against the knight errants and the de la maza school of chess. no big deal, but he came off as an assclown when he said liquid egg product and wahrheit were part of it. the guy was claiming chessbloggers as cultist and such. i think he is just jealous. *note: i realize now as i type this both LEP and wahrheit already posted about this. as with everything in my life, i’m a day late and a dollar short

it’s friday, pizza and beer night. i just got back from a bike ride, i’m gonna study a bunch of alekhine, and then ride my bike down to hot tomato and get me some pizza and beer. anyone reading this, have a great weekend, i wish you all good bishops, strong knights, and open files. chess it up!

went mountainbiking the other day on a trail that was way beyond my ability, both technically and fitness wise.  i knew it would be, but i wanted to do it anyway for two reasons:  1. so i know what that trail was about, so i know for sure it is beyond my ability and i don’t just take what is told to me as truth, i wanted to prove to myself for sure it is beyond my ability.  question everything.  and B. i can’t improve unless i push myself and do things beyond my ability.   the only way to learn how to ride that trail is to ride that trail.  i’m hoping i can someday ride that trail a bit better, i’m hoping that trail will be within my ability and i deserve to be on(?) belong on(?) that trail

the beautiful thing about that trail was the downhill parts, where i had to really really stay focused and concentrate and think.  when mountainbiking on a twisty sketchy trail, your mind can’t wander, or you fall off a mountain or at least fuck up you and your bike on rocks or in cactus or against a tree (note:  trees are really really hard and can crack your ribs if you hit them just right.  cactus needles stick in are difficult to get out).

for me, mountainbiking is a zen practice.  i have to live “in the now” and my mind can’t wander, it has to stay focused on what i am doing, my breathing, where i put my feet, all that stuff.  i don’t care about bills, work, who the next president will be any of that, there is just me and the mountain.  but at the same time, i have to “think ahead.”  when you are on a trail, you have to look as far ahead the trail as possible, and “pre-ride” the trail in your mind, see where you are going to go.  you don’t look down where you are, you look ahead where you are going to be, and you adjust now for what will be in a few seconds.  the now is already gone, past, done.

to me, this applies so much to chess it’s not even a stretch for me to make it apply.   first off, my mind can’t wander when i play, i have to “be present” and see what the fuck is going on on the board.  i can’t think of chess when i am biking down a mountain on a trail that is barely wider than my front tire, and i can’t think of biking when i’m playing chess.  obvious when i’m sitting around typing it out, but when i’m at the board actually playing chess, what is really going on in my mind?  cycling teaches me to focus, teaches me to keep my mind on one task, and i need that when i play chess.

thinking ahead, mentally “pre-riding” the trail is important to be ready for what’s coming and set up to deal with whatever is ahead.  my position now is important, but i have to look ahead, what will my position be in two or three moves?  so i have to think of now, but also think of the immediate upcoming unavoidable future and prepare to handle that.  will i need a bishop covering that square?  will i need my rook on that file?

so how can i improve my chess?  questions.  proving to myself what is the truth.   when a child learns a language, he takes it at face value, doesn’t ask why, just copies and does.   i tried learning chess by taking the moves from grandmaster games as the answer, not questioning, just copying them and doing what they do.  but that only lasts so long, eventually a child starts asking why.  “why is the sky blue?”  (cause if it were green, you wouldn’t know where to stop mowing the lawn).  “why is it raining?” (cause god is crying.  “why is god crying”  probably something you did, now shut up and leave me alone).   i have to ask why.  why did alekhine move his bishop there?  why didn’t he take the knight first?  why did he take the pawn with the bishop and not the knight or the other pawn?  why why why?

now, instead of taking every move i see as the absolute correct one, i have to ask why.  i have to have that annoying childlike wonder, question each move and prove it was correct or not.  doing so which will hopefully lead me to the answer, and i will learn lots of little crap along the way that i didn’t’ even know existed.  and hopefully i’ll learn the game better and be stronger.

right now, a rating of 2000 is a trail way beyond my ability, and i know that.  i’m hoping i will somehow learn enough to deserve to be on(?) belong on(?) that trail.

ok, its a battle royale between two tactic giants. tal and alekhine? nope. morosevich and aronian? nope.

chess tactics server VS chess tempo!!!!

i started with the CTS and liked it, spent lots of hours with it. then one day a friend told me about chess tempo, and i tried it, it was odd, slow, different, i didn’t get into it. many months later i revisited the site, and now i like it.

but i don’t’ know which is better. CTS seems to have a bit more variety of situations, chess tempo seems to be mostly mating puzzles. chess tempo moves slow, you can take your time and look at the board, cts is timed and no matter how much i try, i can’t ignore it.

the wierd thing about chess tempo is, for some reason, even though the problems aren’t harder, it’s hard for me. i miss obvious shit, i just don’t see it.

i’ve been trying to do what Phaedrus had wrote about, and what DK had told me to do, just “sit” with the problems, talk them out, say “this pawn is pinned, the knight attacks the bishop.”   and i do that, yet i have this strange blindness to the board, my mind won’t put together the pieces of the puzzle.   yet on cts, i don’t have as much of a problem.

is it because the pieces look different?  is it the way you move the pieces?  chesstempo board and pieces are larger, which should make it easier but it seems more difficult to me.

for now i do them both, but i’m edging a bit more towards chesstempo.  i wonder in a chessfight, who would win.

i got a cool idea for a horror movie, i will get M Night Shamalamadingdong or Wes Cravenicecream to direct it. it will be called “rest area” about a couple who are driving down the highway, perhaps to or from a chess tournament, and get off at a slighty sketchy yet sceninc looking rest area to go to the bathroom and then the car “breaks down” and they are stuck and a killer tries to kill them and it turns out while they were going to the bathroom the killer had messed with their car etc etc and it’s really scary. the tagline of the film could be “they stopped to poop, now they are dying to leave” or perhaps “they were just dying to poop” or something like that. i had another one but i forgot it.

you never hear about anyone surfing a river. what if you surfed down a river? you wouldn’t have to worry about getting a wave, the rapids would be pretty gnarly, but it might be fun. that should be the new thing this summer, river surfing.

so i’m gonna go to chicago for the chess tournament. i was thinking of showing up to the first round wearing a pinstripe suit and a fedora and carrying my chess set and clock in a violin case, all capone-style. on one hand i don’t feel ready, on the other hand, fuck it, i’m so ready to play, i just have to remember i’m playing under 1300, i am so (overestimating myself in my own mind of course) better than that, i should destroy them (lying to myself that i’m actually good, when i know i suck but my ego won’t let me admit it)

i’m going with a huge stack of stickers, i’m gonna give em out to everyone i see no matter what. it’s gonna be a huge chess party whether people want it to be or not. i’m gonna have a blast.  yeah, i’m excited.

it’s monday, i have pretty much the whole week off, so i’m gonna concentrate on chess this week.  i’m gonna study games, do tactics, try and really learn and see the influence of each piece on each square and why some squares are better for pieces than others.  all that chess stuff.  and i gotta get a pinstripe suit and a violin case.

it’s the first of may. i am playing in the chicago open three freakin weeks from now, may 23-26th. i don’t think i’m ready for it, but fuck it, i’m playing, cause it’s chess, and that is what i do.

but wait! as if that isn’t enough, i just, nary moments ago, registered for the vegas chess orgy june 5 - 8. as if i’ll be ready for that, or even want to play chess after chicago.

what the fuck am i doing? i’m an addict. i’m a masochist. i have a disease.

i wanna be like the “real” chess slingers. i know that real chess players, the pros, they play in all the tournaments, on the road like rock stars, driving from tourny to tourny, leaving a trail of trashed hotel rooms, broken hearts, and poor suckers reeling from acute and massive rating loss in their wake. i wanna be like a chess tornado, leaving a trail of devastation across the country.  because that is what they do. that is what i wanna do.

but i’m not a professional chessman. i’m just an enthusiast. and a sucky one at that. who am i to go to all these tournaments? i may be able to win the occasional game online against some drunk guy, or someone trying some new weird line, yeah, great. but in the tournament hall, at the board, when every heartbeat can be heard, when things are so on edge and you are so focused the bead of sweat running down your back feels like a stampede of horses and you can hear your opponent breathing, it’s different. every move matters, no time for fucking around, the shit is on the line. its real.

seriously, am i ready for that? sitting here in the comfort of my room the idea of playing in a chess tournament is amusing, interesting, sounds like fun. but i forget what it’s like sitting there. i forget the agony, the hellish pain of failure, the sheer stress of it all.

i feel like martin sheen in apocalypse now. when i’m there, i want to be home. when i’m home, all i can think about is getting back. i wanted a chess tournament, and for my sins, they gave me one.  actually, now i have two i’ll be going to.

i should probably start getting ready for chicago now.