Howlers

You can make your own "motivational" poster here at http://flagrantdisregard.com/flickr/motivator.php

Let's Play Chess All Night

Polar State are experimental rock along the lines of GYBE.

Golden Blitz 2005

Geri's Game

Threefeat

Pale Morning Dun was kind enough to wish me luck in my Quad this past weekend, and, apparently, I needed it since I went 0 for 3. ;-) There are a few lessons I have learned from these defeats:

• Though I have played chess off and on for most of my life, I have never played chess seriously. So, I am a beginner despite my age.
• I need to use the clock much more. I am finishing my games much too fast and, obviously, making many blunders along the way.
• My first match was against an opponent who traded pieces. I needed to realize this much more quickly and also keep my pawn structure intact, which it wasn't, but their's was.
• In playing my second match against an opponent I had beaten before, I was all over trying to use "tactics" to kill his king. However, this did not work. To offset my computer training, I have just started Neil McDonald's Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking. In the first game annotates, he writes

  Black cannot return the compliment as the rook on a8 isn't easy to activate. Therefor it is no surprise that White will have a marked advantage in firepower when the tactical combat begins.

  Though I know tactics are used throughout a match, I just need to make sure when I go in for the kill, the kill is there. For the record the third match, I just had way too many blunders.
• The last item that comes to mind is that I find the process I need to follow each and everytime I move.

BTW, I'm still at it with PCT.

Inside Chess

Cool little video -- okay, it's not that cool, but at least the players aren't killing each other.

Beer Chess

I can't really tell what's happening here, other than these boys drink a lot of crappy beer.

Chess Playing . . . Driving in India

In a recent post about driving in India, DG, at the Boylston Chess Club, asked if anyone knew what "occupying the next available gap, as in chess" meant? Well, this video might explain.



BTW, that's 2 minutes of your life you'll never get back. ;-)

Tactics 01 Unit 10-13

Wow. Took the day off, did some yard work and then some PCT. I'm doing 3-move checkmates. If my addition is right, I've done 1110 exercises repeating some 331 problems. I still haven't "learned" any of them, since PCT says that I need to repate a problem 6 times to learn it.

Tomorrow, I head to West Chester, PA to play in a Quad.

Ghostly Chess

Apparently chess is a good game to pass time with when you stuck in a preternatural unexplained phenomena.

Chivalry is never dead at Chateau Laroche, a hand-built, Norman-style castle in Loveland. Nor are some of the spirits that swirl along its ramparts. Two Shawnee ghosts love to play checkers and chess in the German game room, according to Sir Joe Carey, a Knight of the Golden Trail at the castle for more than 35 years.

link

Tactics 01 Unit 09