hardcore pawnography

i got a job, i’m a part time security officer at a hospital.  it gives me a reason to shower and leave the house, and i get some extra cash that maybe i can use to go to a tournament.  i miss them, but i just dont feel like playing in one right now.  maybe next year.

the job is not that difficult, and i’ll be working midnight to 0800 am, so it should be pretty quiet.  i will bring my tactics book with me for something to do.

so the watchmen is coming out on march 6th, i remember reading it about 20 years ago.  i recently re-read it, got a lot more out of it, i’m looking forward to the movie.  i know it isn’t actually about superheros, its a story with superheros in it, but it got me thinking….

many superheros started out as cops or security guards who got shot up and almost died and were given some top secret treatment, usually some “super soldier program” and things went odd and they became superheros.  robocop (i consider him a kind of superhero), the punisher, remo williams (again, a kind of superhero) etc.

i thought since i will be working alone, at night, in a hospital, doing foot patrols in the basement which reminds me of something out of DOOM, there is a good chance i could get shot and beaten, almost to death, and whisked away by a black helicopter to a secret government lab and reconstructed, maybe with adamantium armor (if so, i’m growing out the muttonchops) or whatever, then i can go rogue, and i will be a superhero!  finally!

of course i will be some kind of chess themed superhero, that goes without saying.  i’ll probably go by the name of checkmate, my costume will be checkerboard, no cape, and of course, after i catch and round up the bad guy and leave him tied up for the police to get, i will utter my super cheesy yet somehow hip tag line “you’ve been checkmated.”

so yeah, i got that going for me.  perhaps if i do become a superhero, the first thing i will do is fight against ICC and have them totally remove that stupid “premove” option, where impatient people like myself can move before the opponent moves and end up doing shit that loses a rook or queen or whatever.  damn that thing.  yeah, i could just disable it, but i would just re-enable it.

i will probably write more about my adventures as a hospital mall cop in the near future.

the biggest thing keeping me from getting better in chess is my own mind. i have the attention span of a flea. when i study, i sit down, then all of a sudden, i need a cup of tea, then i need to just look at something over there, then i suddenly remember i have to find a socket wrench in the garage because i will need it later this week.

when i am actually playing chess, i want my opponent to move NOW, lets go, just move the damn piece, what are you looking at?!?!?!?

this is a very bad trait to have when you are trying to improve in something that requires you to sit for hours and focus on one thing.

i was told by a reliable source with direct access to the information that one of the things college kids are doing to get better grades is “cheating” by abusing ritalin. ritalin, used for kids with ADD to bring them up to a “normal persons” level of ability to concentrate, will allegedly help a “normal person” really really really concentrate and focus like a mad super genius. and who doesn’t want to be a mad super genius?

when someone who doesnt need it takes ritalin, supposedly it puts them in some kind of chemical induced “trance” where they will sit there and concentrate and focus for hours, able to study super hard with complete retention.

of course i am skeptical, but i was thinking, “damn, i could take ritalin and learn all the lines to the french defense and be unbeatable!” also, i could take ritalin at a tournament and sit there and ignore the annoying opponent across from me and destroy!

all i have to do is go to the doctor, prove that i have ADD, and walk away with the key to becoming a chess master in a plastic bottle. SWEET!

or i could hang out near schools and mug the ADD kids.  that also is an option.  if i’m gonna do the crime, might as well make it big.  go big or go home.

would it be cheating? would the chemically enhanced ability to concentrate be some kind of unethical upper hand? assuming it actually works, is ritalin the steroids of chess?

it almost makes me want to try it.

(no, i’m not going to try it, not for any reason other than i’m too lazy to go through whatever trouble it takes to get the ritalin, and i don’t trust ingesting any chemicals other than alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, sugar, and bacon [ yes, bacon is an addictive chemical that i love to abuse and will not go to rehab for])

it took me, what? about two years or so?

i finally learned the secret to playing chess.

just play chess.

and by that, i mean do all the stuff they say to do from the beginning, all the basic “yeah, i know that” stuff.  develop the pieces, put them on the squares they belong.  king belongs in the corner, rooks belong on open files, or the c file.  knights belong on c3/6, f3/6, unless on d2/7, depending on if you are gonna push the pawn.

i played against a 1700 guy, i won.  i didnt do anything crazy or weird, i developed boringly.  this put my pieces in the right spot for tactics and combinations, he made a small error, i got a tactic where i checked his king and won his queen and i won.

i played a 1500 guy, pretty much the same story, i won.

i play an 1100, i bring out the bishop and queen on move 3 to attack, i push the g pawn for no real reason, i lose.

you cannot attack prematurely.  you cannot siege a castle if your battering rams, ladder guys, archers, and infantry are not ready and coordinated.

its just so easy!

yet i still manage to lose way more games than i win, to people rated way below me, so what the hell do i know?

as much as i bag on ICC, i still like it a lot.  i do play on FICS occasionally (my FICS handle is mandalorian), i like it, but i seem to prefer the look and feel of ICC to FICS. i find my mind wandering and i’m not able to see the board or concentrate as well when i play on FICS. i use the baba chess interface if that matters.  i think part of the fun of ICC is the tools on there, as well as some really cool people.  but the cool people aren’t interesting to write about, they are just cool pe0ple.

so i’ve been revisiting and re-going over games in chernev’s logical chess move by move and i got turned on to the colle system of 1d4, where you put your bishop and knight so they can support e4, and you tear open the middle and such. i really like it, it speaks to me, i feel comfortable with it.  my brain seems to understand and accept it, it feels like a pair of comfy warm slippers, and it seems to work out ok on ICC.

i was reading secrets of chess training by dvoretsky/yusupov, which i know is waaaaaaay beyond me, but i like it, it makes me think and i intellectually understand what’s happening. in it, yusupov talks about keeping a sheet of papers (i use my notebook) and when you come to an interesting position in a game, draw it and talk about it and such. this helps to burn it into your brain, you end up with a nice catalog of positions, and it helps you learn all around. in the book they use a position from the zukertort – blackburne london 1883 game, (ive mentioned this in a previous post) and yusupov says draw the position and label it “attention to opponents possibilities” etc etc etc.

so i’ve been doing that with positions i like and i seem to get into or near. thing is, my drawing is shit. i could and probably should do the position online and print it out, but sketching it seems to help make you really “see” the position. so now my notebook has a bunch of pages with some shitty drawings that you cant really tell what the hell is going on in, and my 3rd grade scribbles next to them.

i can only assume im somehow learning. at least its a fun activity i can do on a rainy day, and it keeps me off the streets. it doesnt keep me from blitzing though. i still have to deal with that addiction.

oh wow, after reading my title, i bet it looks like i’m gonna make a joke about getting a drawn game.  i’m not.

when i play a game of chess online, i honestly appreciate the opponents time. especially when they are rated higher than me and i challenge them, i feel like they are taking their time to play me, even though its probably a waste, and i appreciate it.

because of this, i have an automatic response which pops up as soon as my game has ended. something to the effect of “thanks for playing a game, i hope you had fun.”

i also want to kind of remind people that this is a game, a fun way to pass the time, it signifies nothing.

my (and your) ICC rating means nothing to anyone. its the superfluous nipple of numbers, there but no real purpose.

it amazes me the weird replies i get after a game. after i lose, usually they write and say “yes, i had a great time!” of course you did, you won. its odd they say it though, it’s almost like “yeah, you suck, i loved it!” i have yet to have someone say they had a good time after they lost.

i have had people who won and then told me how i suck and they are great, bullies and trash talkers. really? is your life so miserable beating someone online in a game is all you have? grow up, beat your wife and dog and children, and have a nice life. sorry about your penis.

when they lose, i’ve gotten “fuck you,” i’ve been put on no play lists, accused of cheating, and had some other not too nice responses.

my tag is chainsmoke, and i get a large number of people who send me the “smoking is bad for you, stop smoking” messages. really? you think i should? thanks doc, this is the first i’ve heard that smoking is bad, i guess i will quit now cause you said to. i just have to start first.

i am always suspect of the guys who play a 5 minute or less blitz game, and take up to 10 seconds for each of the first 5 or 6 moves. i can only imagine some kid or guy sitting with his “beat the sicilian” book open, furiously flipping pages to see what the next move should be. really, i dont trust half of them and usually think they are cheating when that happens.

one guy actually put me on his no play list because i open with 1d4. we would start, i would play 1 d4, he would abort. twice this happened, then he sent me a message saying “you are on my noplay list, i dont waste time with boring 1d4 players.” i hope he doesnt play some of those boring grandmasters at some of those boring tournaments.

then there is the guys rated higher than me who play me in a rated game, they win, then they keep on challenging me, over and over, i guess to show me how they can beat someone rated 300 points lower then they are. usually by the 4th game (yes, i keep on playing, i dont care) i make retarded moves on purpose, then resign, and they keep on challenging me to a rated game. i play, lose, wash, rinse, repeat, until they get bored or annoyed or realize i’m not even playing, then i end up on a no play list. i didnt challenge them, i wasnt wasting thier time, why put me on a no play list? saves me the time to put them on the list, i guess.

there is a small town’s worth of people who put their queen en pris, i take it, they ask for a takeback, a draw, abort the game, get angry when i dont do anything, and then disconnect.

it just strikes me as scary how many people on the other side of the screen appear to have their whole life wrapped up in it, how they seem to define themselves by their ICC rating or how well they play chess.

there are some way cool folks, more than the pathetic mental cases, but the fagtards seem to be the ones who really stick out, come to the surface, have the presence.

i gotta say, i think i like them for the same reason i have to watch “i love money 2″ or any of the vh1 reality shows. amazing how humans can act and be and still manage to live so many years. you would think they would have been weeded out by now, but oh no.

they are out there. and playing chess on ICC.

hey anyone reading this, how’s it going?

for those wondering:

i am indeed back in the states, had a great time travelling, saw lots of cool crap, learned a lot, met lots of folks, and frankly, i miss it.
but now i’m back in colorado, snowboarding and figuring some things out. things are still kind of up in the air as to what will happen, what i will do. i wont be playing in any tournaments this year. i want to, i miss the tournaments, the whole scene, but it doesn’t look like it will happen. i’m hoping to return to the tournament scene next year, we’ll see.

i really didn’t plan on continuing blogging, but, i’m like steven adler with heroin when it comes to blogs and blitzing, i have a serious problem that not even dr drew can help with. but i admit it, and that is the first step.

so what do i do all day? i sit, unwashed, not eating, wearing my cool
ENDGAME CLOTHING t-shirts, or my WHAT WOULD MORPHY DO t-shirt, and blitz all damn day until my eyes hurt. kind of pathetic.

so there is that.

i will occasionally write here, but not as much as i used to, and probably not the quality it used to be.   also, not always about chess, i have lots of ideas and various crap in my head that i might want to get out, and this will be the venue for that.   just so you know.

rock on.