antoher pussy motherfucker on ICC
lets all join in welcoming to FILOMATIC on ICC to
PUSSY MOTHERFUCKERS WHO DISCONNECT.
That’s right, FILOMATIC, you are a pussy and i hope everyone knows it.
while playing a rated game, i get a nice discovered check, take his queen, and suddenly he disconnects and the game is adjourned. maybe the guy happened to have a weird power outage, maybe he legitimately got kicked off the internet, maybe he has his settings to automatically disconnect upon losing a queen.
well, whatever the reason, he is going on the list.
thing is, i have my settings on auto forfeit upon disconnect. yet that doesn’t seem to matter. i don’t get it.
other than that….
it turns out bob barr is currently the ONLY LEGAL CANDIDATE ON THE TEXAS BALLOT. but you know for sure mccain and obama will still be on it. isn’t that somehow unfair or maybe illegal?
http://www.bobbarr2008.com/press/press-releases/108/barr-only-presidential-candidate-on-texas-ballot/
anyone reading this (except for maybe you, filomatic), have a great weekend
chess life TOTALLY ripped me off
got this month’s chess life, and right there on page 16 is the title…
What happens in Vegas…
Ends up in Chess Life
ok, now, yeah, the “what happens in vegas” thing is common and all that, but on MAY 18th (i think) i posted an entry with a title that is EERILY SIMILAR!!!! my blog title clearly states” what happens in vegas…..
will be mentioned on my blog (or something like that).
the point is, chess life clearly used my idea.
damn chess life magazine. can’t come up with thier own cool story title, have to take mine.
so i think chess life owes me for a title. they need to cut a check, made out to me, for $1.00, cold hard cash. nine words, 10 cents a word, plus ten cents for the actual idea.
i got my eye on you, chess life. if you start printing stories filled with obscenities, then i will know for SURE you are ripping me off.
*note: it’s possible they just came up with the idea on their own. even though i came up with it months ago. thing is, i don’t really actually care. i just have nothing better to write about today.
now i have to get good
i have it on my skin, permanently. people will look at it and think “oh wow, that guy must play some serious chess.” i’m advertising that i am serious, i can’t suck now, i have to get good.
on days where i might not want to study chess, all i have to do is look down at my arm, and know that i have to live up to the image my tattoo portrays.
i had thought about getting a pawn, what with the “hardcore pawnography” thing going on, but the bishop looks cool i think. maybe, perhaps, another day, i might get a pawn as well, i don’t know.
but i don’t have time to sit here and type crap. i have to study. i have a tattoo i have to back up with actions.
a new chess tattoo
yay tuesday!
today i have an appointment with the tattoo artist, hopefully he drew up my vision and i get the tattoo, otherwise, it will be i don’t know how long until i get what i want. so i might end up with a new tattoo today, which i will post tomorrow if i get it today…
speaking of tattoos….what if, on my left arm, i got the main line for the catalan tattooed, and on my right, the main line sicilian sheveningen? just a bunch of numbers and letters, right there on my arm. would that be cheating? would i have to cover up my arms during a tournament?
i wonder how many people have chess tattoos? i bet there are some cool ones out there…i’d like to see them…
along with the bookstore, and maybe the guy selling chess t shirts and chess art, it would be neat if there were a chess tattoo artist at the tournaments, and little johnny could be all “mom, oooh, can i get a chess tatoo?” and his mom would be all “Welllllll…..ok, sure…” and there would be a bunch of kids walking around with cool new chess tattoos….
yeah, that is what tournaments need…an onsite tattoo artist. and a wet t-shirt contest…..
slowed but not stopped
maybe its the warning signs of burnout, maybe its my short attention span, maybe it’s just some biorhythm circle of life thing, but my studies have slowed like an old guy in a big car driving right in front of you when you are in a rush and you can’t pass him.
but today is monday, a new day, and although i have to go to work, and after work i have to go to a meeting about town issues (my town is small enough to have meetings about town issues at the coffee shop!!!!) followed by pizza and beer night, i will get in some studying. i will go over some morphy, perhaps some closed sicilians as black.
one of my goals is, every time i study, i try to memorize one thing, be it a move, a position, an idea, a concept, a plan. something. if i could memorize just one thing each time, memorize it so i never ever forget it and i know it in my bones, eventually i will have a pretty decent chess knowledge to call upon during games and help guide me in the right direction, make the right moves.
part of it is focusing, being “present” in the moment and really seeing what i’m looking at.
i figure it this way. every little bit helps. if i only study for 15 minutes, but i really really make the most of that 15 minutes and i come away with one bit of knowledge, it’s more than if i didn’t study at all, or studied for 1 hour and came away with nothing.
so while i may not be submerged deep in chess, i will still get some chess on me. a small step forward is better than standing still.
i haven’t been so chessy lately
ugh. i feel like crap.
this week i’ve been doing lots of stuff, very very very little of it actually being chess. i’ve been working a lot, which has been getting in the way of me being a lazy jackanape. for a part time job, i’ve been spending lots of time there.
i’ve been cooking. i made a thai/indian dinner, with honeyed pork (indian), grilled spicy eggplant (thai), sweet and spicy corn fritters (thai), and perfumed rice pudding (indian). i don’t eat much meat, but the pork was pretty damn tasty.
warm a few tablespoons of honey in a pan, add oil, when it gets hot, add cubed pork and fry it up until golden. add chopped onions and garlic, ground cardamom, mace, turmeric and cinnamon, and zest of an orange and a lemon. cook until onions are soft, add yogurt mixed with a bit of flour. cover and let it sit for about half hour, to let the flavors bloom into awesomeness.
a few weeks ago, i had a minor wreck on my usual bicycle, bent up my rear deraillure, meaning now my bike shifts randomly or doesn’t shift when i need it to. this is an easy fix, but i’m lazy and mechanically retarded, so instead of fixing the bike, i’ve been riding my singlespeed. yesterday i went on a pretty long ride, effectively canceling the rest of my day. when i got home, i tried to study chess, but my head just wasn’t in it, i couldn’t concentrate, and i just fell asleep. when i woke up, i still didn’t want to study.
it seems this whole week, or at least the last few days, i’ve just not wanted to study, and when i try, my brain rejects it like a kid closing his mouth and refusing to eat.
i’ve actually considered taking my travel board, a book, and my tent, going up into the mountains, and camping. i would be all alone, with nothing to distract me, and i would force myself to study. drastic, but perhaps necessary.
the point of all this is….i just haven’t been studying or playing or anything chess related. and now i feel guilty, like i’ve sinned. chess has been on my mind, but when i try to focus on it, my mind goes elsewhere.
sometimes i think i will never ever ever really learn chess, because i don’t have the obsessive passion required for true mastery. is that a bad thing? it might be. i don’t know.
so i work tonight, i will try to get in some quality chess study before work. quality being the operative word. quality in the “zen and the art of motorcyle maintenence” sense.
it’s friday, anyone reading this, have a great weekend.
book review: crooked little vein
holy crap, i’ve actually read something other than a chess book.
here is the deal. years ago i got into a comic book called TRANSMETROPOLITAN, it was written by this guy, warren ellis. great story, kind of a hunter s. thompson in a blade runner kinda world type of thing. after that, there was a hilarious and awesome comic book called NEXT WAVE: AGENTS OF H.A.T.E. which was a parody of the marvel hero universe, with lots of inside jokes and such, and it was funny. also written by ellis.
so i’m in the bookstore and i see a book by warren ellis, crooked little vein so of course i have to buy it, and i’m so glad i did.
its about a private investigator hired by the US chief of staff to find the actual original secret constitution of the united states. on his way to get the book, he encounters some pretty messed up people, comedy ensues. it’s a pretty funny book, a great story line, and it becomes an interesting study into american culture. the wierd people the character meets, the fucked up situations he gets into, are all based off of actual real things happening in the us. so it’s a strange book, in that the really weird stuff in the book is true, to some extent. WARNING: ALL THE WEIRD STUFF IN THE BOOK IS SEXUAL. that is, the story revolves around different sexual deviancies, and puts the question of “what is mainstream” out there. if people are doing it and you can see it on the internet or get videos of it and it’s pretty easily found, is it mainstream?
it’s written well, reads super quick, and was totally worth whatever time i took from chess to read it.
that said, i’ve also been studying and i think i may have learned stuff, not quite sure. in the game zukertort-blackburne, london 1883 (did blunderprone already talk about that game? i think he did) move 9 was the critical move. blackburn underestimated the impact of the white knight on b5, didn’t do anything to prevent it, and that knight eventually took the the bishop on d6, pretty much destroying anything blackburn had going. amazing how one piece can make a difference, and amazing how strong a bishop can be. i have to learn which pieces are the really important ones in each position, and pay attention to the opponents threats and such.
so i have been studying, but i made some time to read some great fiction. if you need a good fiction book for a trip or something, and you aren’t offended too easily, think about the crooked little vein, by warren ellis.
ok, back to chess…
how cooking has helped my chess study
i love to cook for a few reasons. first off, i love to eat, gluttony is one of my favorite of all the deadly sins, (lust is tied, or a really close second, depending on the day). also, i cannot draw or paint or do anything artistically creative well at all, and yet i have this desire to create artistically. i’m clearly not doing a great job in chess, so i think i love to cook cause it enables me to be artistically creative, and i can produce something that makes others happy, along with myself (damn, i love to eat).
so i cook a lot, which means i have a well appointed, bad ass kitchen. i have lots of kitchen stuff and use just about all of it. i have almost as many cookbooks as i do chess books. (i actually use all my cookbooks).
one of my biggest complaints about studying chess is holding the book open with one hand, moving pieces with the other, flicking back and forth between book and board to see what the fuck is going on.
“damn,” thought i. “if only i had someone holding the book open for me.” suddenly, an epiphany.
a while back, i tired with putting heavy things on my open cookbooks to read the recipe while i cooked, and the book getting in the way, and getting various food stains on the pages (although i think it shows you use the book and the stains are a great way to find the recipes you made.) so i went out and bought a cookbook holder. (a similar one to what i have can be found here: http://www.cooking.com/products/shprodde.asp?SKU=136856)
well duh!!!! it finally occurred to me that i can use it for chess books as well. so now i have my chess book in the holder and i can concentrate a bit more on the board.
and the cool plexiglass clear shield thing is great for when i’m drinking tea while i study, i take a mouthful, and do a spit take spewing hot tea all over because of some crazy ass move tal did. (happens all the time, oh yeah)….
so, maybe i’m the last guy to figure this out, but the book stand makes studying chess just that much better. now, maybe i’ll learn more efficiently, get better, and i will become a chess master, all because i love food.
chess is hard. it’s harder when you’re stupid
there i am last night sitting at my chess desk, its quiet, temperature is perfect so i’m not hot or cold, i’m not distracted by anything. just me and my chess board and a book. i was going over a reti – lasker game, that had notes on it.
i slowly moved each piece, looked at where the pieces were going, what they were doing, trying to figure out why they were where they where. (read those last six words fast over and over, it makes a nice rhythm). i looked at the sidelines, i tried to see everything that was going, and not only the what but the why.
when i was done, i stood up, and i swear the whole thing left my mind. i could not, and still cannot, remember one fucking little detail of anything i went over. what the fuck is that??????
ok, so the main thing i have to deal with is distractions. things to do, bikes to ride, a cat who bothers me to pet him or open the door for him or lots of other things. but i got rid of that obstacle, no distractions.
next, i have to deal with my short attention span, (reinforced as a child by damn sesame street, who trained me to think in one minute bits and move on, and want cookies). i find when i go over games, i rush through them, or i’m so busy looking at the book to see what the moves are, then looking at the board, i don’t concentrate on the actual pieces or game. i get too caught up in seeing what the book moves are. so i have to force myself to slow down, look at the pieces and the board and see what is happening. and sometimes it’s like a blind guy seeing for the first time, or the first time you get glasses after a year of not realizing you needed them. you see details that you never saw before. but those times are few, and that is not good.
so here i am, in a quiet room, forcing myself to consciously pay attention to the moves and the pieces and the situation on the board. and when it was all done, it’s like it didn’t happen.
fuck, no wonder i suck. i will try again today, i will sit in my quiet room, go over the reti-lasker game, read the notes, pay attention, and hopefully maybe if i’m lucky, something just might stick in the wasteland that is my brain.
ok, maybe just one more tournament this year
just got an email about a tournament happening close to home.
if you aren’t doing anything on labor day, and you have the time and cash for travel, may i suggest
THE SOUTHERN UTAH CHESS FESTIVAL IN MOAB!!!!
you could have breakfast at the world famous jailhouse cafe, you could take a walk around arches national park, and it’s happening labor day, so there will be the moab music festival all weekend long. if you haven’t been to moab, and you like the outdoors, moab is THE place. really small town, but freakin spectacular scenery. the orange mountains against the cerulean blue sky makes you feel like you are in a maxfield parrish painting.
i don’t know if i’m gonna go though, as much as i kind of want to. one problem is i think i’m working that weekend, which kind of sucks the balls. and i don’t know if i want to play in a tournament right now. i’m kind of in this weird “hibernation-study” phase.
i’ll see if i can get off work, and if i can get there, and if i feel up to it.
but damn, it sounds like it might be fun, and its in a great location for when you aren’t playing chess.
information on the tournament is here: http://www.utahchess.com/Upcoming_Tournaments.html
blitzing my life away, one quickie at a time
it’s not like i meant to do it, it just seemed to…happen.
i sat down at the computer, checked some emails, surfed around a bit, and then, just kind of clicked on the ICC icon, just to see what was happening. next thing i know, i click on a little green circle and i’m playing a game. i vaguely remember my wife asking me if i want some tea.
next thing i know, hours have passed, its dark, there is a cold cup of tea sitting on my desk next to me. i mean hours have passed. i played about 30 games. i’d lose, and want to play just one more to win, like a down on his luck gambler thinking he is gonna hit it and break even on this next roll, only to go further into debt. yeah, i won a game, and though, ok, no more, i’m done, but next thing i know, my finger is clicking the mouse button, defying my brain. there is a small revolution going on, my finger is seceding or something, but it’s playing another game, and my body is dragged into it.
i can only assume i have a problem. perhaps i need help. these are hours of my life that i could be doing something constructive, something that needs to be done.
why is it so damn addictive? is it the instant gratification? getting in a chess quickie seems to lead to getting in many. i can only hope they count as experience, and i am somehow getting a subconscious feel for things. i think i’m honing my opening moves, seeing what works, what doesn’t.
thing is, i went for a few days without playing any chess at all, only studying, going over games in books and such. it’s like my body went haywire, greedily sucking up every drop of chess it could get and storing up for the lean times when i don’t play. perhaps i should regulate my intake, play a game or two a day, so my mind doesn’t go into chess debt and then overcompensate by gorging on blitz when it gets a chance.
so i lose a few hours to blitz now and then, it could be worse, i could be sitting on the couch staring blankly at two and a half men.
book review: a first book of morphy by Del Rosario
i’m going to do a book review, but i’ve noticed something about book reviews: they tend to be not that helpful. any book out there, ANY BOOK, can be helpful to someone who needed that information, or who needed the information explained in that particular way. ANY BOOK out there can also be useless to someone who already knows the info or doesn’t take in info in the way that book presents it. so really, what works or not for me might be opposite for you. really, who am i to say if a book is good or bad? what qualifies me? i don’t know enough to say a book is good or bad, i just know if i like it or not, so any qualifying statements i might make, they apply to me and ME only. they might apply to you, they probably don’t.
so, here is my review opinion on a first book of morhpy by Frisco Del Rosario.
i am a sucker for good packaging, i am one of those who judge a book by it’s cover, and the cover of this book is one of the reasons i bought it, it just looked cool.
as far as a book goes, not material or substance, but aesthetics, i love it. it is printed in what i call “Read me” font, meaning the words jump off the page, into your eyeballs, and embed themselves in your brain. you don’t have to work to read the book, just open it up and it reads itself to you. the diagrams are a nice size as well, and i like the feel of the book. quality paper, comfortable.
as for how the book is organized, i love it. kind of divided into three sections, opening, middle game, ending. and each section is further “broken down” into rules, for example, “middlegame rule #1: have all your moves fit into a definite plan” and then it has a morphy game illustrating that rule. 10 rules each section, and some “rules” show a short game, not played by morphy to also illustrate the point. as for organization, i like it.
how is the book on material? well, it’s morphy’s games. i don’t play any of the lines morphy plays. i also don’t care about games where morphy gave odds, because an odds game, where he doesn’t have a rook or a bishop or whatever, is a totally different game of chess and i’ll never play that kind of game. but to see how morphy used his pieces, how he developed with an attack, or attacked with a developing move, that is awesome. and the material is presented in a clear way. often i would ask “but why didn’t he play such and such?” and the notes would explain why he didn’t play the move that i thought was obvious. so instructionally (is that even a word?) and materially, i like the book. maybe it’s elementary and basic, but i like the book, it helped me out, and i learned from it.
so what’s wrong with the book? well, like i said, i don’t’ play the king’s gambit, evans gambit, or any of the lines morphy plays. but i can still learn from how he played those lines. i mentioned this before in the post about getting this book, there are no + or x ! or ? to denote checks, captures, or good or bad moves. this seems to be a downside for some people. i don’t understand those people. i guess it makes it difficult for them to play the game in their head, but then, if they don’t know when the king is in check or a piece is taken, they aren’t doing a good job at blindfold, are they?
so what is the negatives to the book? um….uh….other than i don’t care about odds games, and morphy played enough games to not need to use one of his odds games, i can’t really think of anything bad about the book. now that i’ve gone through the whole book, i feel like my chess eye is a bit better honed, i am looking for moves that attack and develop, i’m thinking “what would morphy do?” just like my shirt says.
i love this book, and give it 6,798 stars out of a possible 6,799 stars. how’s that for arbitrary?
if you are thinking about getting it, get it. it might not help you if you are rated 1700 or more. then again, it might, i don’t know. i just really really really really like this book and i’m glad i got it and i would recommend it to someone who is thinking of getting it.
stuff in the mail and going to rehab
so i got an email about a new lightweight, travel chessboard that you can frisbee across a room and play chess in a hurricane with.
and how many times have i been in some super high windy areas trying to play chess?
but it’s made of corrugated cardboard, and really it looks kinda cool.
you can see it here (paste) http://tinyurl.com/5qkryj
Visit www.paradoxyproducts.com to order.
and then,
abuteague sent me a link to a really hardcore chess story. if you haven’t seen it, about the chick who spent all her cash to play in a tournament, in hopes of winning enough to pay everything back and not be homeless and eat and such, here is the link
http://main.uschess.org/content/view/8631/471/
so today i’ll focus on the tactical parts of alekhine’s games, how he got into the positions, what he did with them.
tonight i’m going to rehab. that is, i’m gonna see rehab live tonight, which should be a kick ass time.
anyone reading this, have a super kick ass weekend.
my cool idea #52
for the last few days, i’ve been going over alekhine’s games in vukovic’s art of attack, looking at tactics, and going over the catalan for white and the sicilian sheveningen for black. i think i might have played 2 or three blitz games on icc, i don’t know. i’ve learned how small moves such as a3, b4 help lock up a side and prevent counterplay. interesting how moving the a pawn helps you attack something in the middle or on the kingside. i understand it, it makes sense, and it’s like a small revelation. suddenly, because of that little smackeral of knowledge, i feel like i have an advantage, like i know more than most people my rating. doesn’t mean i will play any better of course, but it should count for something.
so all this studying i’ve done, combined with lots of mountain biking, has sparked a bit of creativity in my mind. i’ve come up with a cool idea for a movie, not chess related though.
the movie will be jazz hands luke, about a guy who joins a dance group, but won’t conform to their ways. the main lead dancer stud of the group challenges luke to a dance off, and luke dances until he can’t stand, and even though he loses, he gains the respect of all the dancers, especially the lead dancer.
but the director of the dance group doesn’t like luke’s popularity and tries to break his spirit, won’t let him do his jazz hands stuff, and luke tries to dance with other dance troupes, but the director gets him blackballed so luke has to keep coming back to the director, who sadistically enjoys tormenting luke. at the end there is a huge dance scene, and all the dancers, led by the lead dancer, do jazz hands and defy the director.
yeah, i think it’s got potential.
ok, back to studying games…
participation > being great at home
the more i think about it, the more i like my idea of your ratings go up when you win, but when you lose they do not go down. everyone has a bad day, is off a bit, etc. if ratings never went down, there could be no sandbagging. problem solved, why can’t the uscf figure this out?
anyway, ray cheng sent me an email on his recent performance at sturbridge. in the grand scheme of things, he didn’t have a kick ass tournament.
but he PARTICIPATED.
i think it was richard decredico who opened my eyes o this point.
it’s not necessarily about the winning or losing, although winning is the primary goal and feels much better than losing. but the fact that you played, you were in it, part of the group.
chess tournaments are a weird animal, playing in a tournament isn’t like playing chess, there are odd factors and things. knowing that there are people in your section who belong in a higher section kind of takes some of the fun out of it. makes me not want to play in a tournament at all, there is more to chess than tournament play.
but playing in the tournament is, to me, an important part of the chess culture. and while everyone looks to see who finished first, who won, who dominated, the guy who lost all his games is just as important, if not more so, than the guy who won all his games.
anyone can sit at home, study, know every line of the sicilian najforf and catalan, be a super bad ass at solitaire chess and the chess tactics server. but the guy who is at the tournament, playing under conditions you can only get at a tournament, e.g. the lights that kept dimming, the air conditioning system that made that sound like someone farting, the guy in the 1700 section who lost it, started slamming the clock and then swiped all the pieces off the board in disgust, the rapper who made everyone stop their clocks so he could do his little rap that noone wanted to hear. you can’t replicate that at home.
when you play in the tournament, you are a combatant, in the ring, a warrior. you competed, and win or lose, you can say “yeah, i played in that tournament.” you put your shit on the line, and i think that counts.
it’s easy, when you are losing and suck like i do, to say “i’m just in it to be part of it, i don’t care if i win or not.” me, i do care if i win or not. i play to win, i want to win (most of the time, some games, i just don’t want to play and i truly don’t care). but no matter what, i still was part of it, i participated, i helped make the tournament what it was. i was “that guy” and if nothing else, i gave people a story to tell.
tournaments are about wining chess games, but you don’t have to be the guy who wins all the chess games to make it count. being there, losing all your games, is still, to me, worth more than talking shit at home and never facing someone over the board.
no matter what happened ray cheng and anyone else who recently had a shitty tournament, you kicked ass! because while i was here at home sitting in my boxers reading chess books, you were there, fighting in the trenches, playing real chess, and that’s more than i can say for myself.
