CTS Art!

What is better than a lot of blitz or bullet, without study or review?

What is better than a lot of CTS alone, hour, after hour?

What is better than a lot of CT-Art 3.0 so that you hate it, and cannot wait to leave the chair, or get up from where you sit, or flip television channels between?

What is better than seven RHP games, some involving deep analysis of moves that take twenty two hours for four moves for ONE single game that is already won to you but wish it to be more beautiful architectonically?

What is better than reading Lev Alburt's Pocket Chess Training in bed, before sleeping each night for eight months, however briefly, at the commode, on the freeway in 'bumper to bumper' traffic, or in a hospital emergency ward waiting room?

What is better than Fritzing key positions at Moriela-Linares, when Morozevich is said to have put his king on the wrong square against Top-a-Love? Or when the prior missed the well earned mate of Aaronian with a clearance Queen sake on f8, then a elegant smothered mate with a pawn?

Not much is better than all that. But I have found something better for ME:

To do a little CT-Art but to do it VERY slowly, after work on my RHP game where I looked at pawn structures as early as move three, THEN to move onto some CTS, where I did 5f/61s=66 among my last two sessions at 1526 elo @ 92.5%.

My point is this: I can no longer afford to sit for hours at CTS. I cannot play 40 bullet in one night. I cannot bear to do CTA unless, as I did during round 7 of Linares yesterday, taking three hours on one move, albiet unconstantly, but between moves, alt tabbing back, and trying again, taking variation upon variation. And guess what? I see now what I never used to see, and at CTS I see myself able to calculate much better, and much more accurately. Let us now see, once I step up my energy and focus again, if I can finally attack my intermediate goal for bullet, so that I can then again move back to rapids or slow blitz.

Lastly, I can no longer go without sleep or overdo my activity in life. I am age 48.5. I counted customers today: 110 interactions today in five hours. And today was not that busy. That is 2500 in the next two weeks when I work fourteen of sixteen days, if we figure 200 in five hours on Sundays, etc. I asked Yasser once: "Don't you feel like you are down 100 elo when you play tired or late at night?" "No. NOT one hundred points, but three-hundred points! Yes, it makes a huge difference!"



He repeats to me that rest is the best thing for my chess improvement, of course, with the caviat that you have worked hard first, then, like a marathoner, or alpine climber, or Iron Man competitor in the triathelon, loaded on carbs!

So to added to balanced study without overemphasis on one facet now, I am resolved to not wear myself out so that, what I do, I do with all my juices flowing.

And to get better...

warmly, dk

Rest, Sweet Rest and other odds and ends

Rest in this corner after too much chess, too much chess study, too, too much!





















Ivanchuk, the very image of genius or disturbed genius (the deep blue eyes, staring deep into outer space) concieving deep, uncanny things inside his head without recourse to a chess board



















Real trouble of an altogether different kind













The old saw revisited; whatever you do, you don't want to ever piss off an elephant.

Perseverance Furthers

tonight, finally hit the 96.2% at CTS as dogWaste. 3f/459s= 462 @ 99.351% since 5,694 tries--at 1311 elo currently. dkTransform is back to 85.000% after an extended experiment up to 1591 but resulting in a decrease from 85.1% to 84.8%. i am annualizing 90.00% there, again, now, on average for all recent problems among the last 170 problems. needless to say, there is a big diffence between gaining percentile (often occompanied by a significant fall in ELO) and holding a percentile (often allowing a gain in ELO), as i will now get to do after this near ordeal




one more win at RHP correspondence chess, and i will have enough provisional, to be able to post a rating, of any kind, depending on which of the games occurs as the fifth win, so will show 1500 to 1600 TO START OUT, depending. i calculate i aught to be about 1580, at an all but now certain 7/0/0 = 100%.

i am not starting any new games, as i do not wish to challenge anyone now with a 1200 rating, but instead as 1550-1600, even if provisional. then i will start a new tranch of games, four at a time, maybe three. of course, i can do a LOT more, but quality over quantity, and i only wish to challenge 1500-1650 to get the next 13 games.



also, daily i exert very serious effort into my bullet games, and have another two hundred to go to get to <39.99%. see previous post as to why i want less wins.

yasser emailed me, and we will meet in early spring, when he will be back in towne, and go for one of our long walks, and, of course, a wonderfull teriyaki-sushi-misho soup lunch at my 82 year old friend jason's resturant. jason taught buddhist sutras in korea, and yaz loves the food. this korean man works like a real dog.



if current market conditions continue, 'lunch is on him'... long story among many investment emails! greatly looking forward to next set of stories about his always burgeoning chessBase commentary of topy-kramnik and toiletGate, wijk aan zee, and doubtless also now morelia-linares, and then tell him more about my surgery and other similar, and the community here at blogger and CTS and CT-Art. ive seen him twice a year (or more) for years since 2002 (sometimes more), but not since last spring, when i took him to the beach, i think it was. our average talk is at least three, often four hours. he does NOT tire.

many fine stories of his time with korchnoi, and must hear the story directly about when victor the terrible told him not to be 'affraid', in the dark, sleeping in victors bedroom at his home as a guest at his insistence, when he came to help victor prepare for karpov-korchnoi. this invitation resulted from yassers most impressive prepared win (english opening) he had killed korchnoi with in their first ever game, so latter asked him to be second. the begining of the story was posted at chessBase in the fall during T-K.

warmly, dk
now off to my bullet salt mines...

'Girls gone wild' or LOWER percentages gone wild?

ive got a major post, ive been cooking in my head, i just need more time to type it out, or more energy than i have right now, and am challenged to type for LONG without feeling like i am rubbing my elbow, which i must not irritate.







daily i am playing bullet, sometimes twenty or thirty a day--so i promise you all i AM very active!

another 150 games or so, and i think that i can hit <39.99%. i focus my challenges always upon players ++150 to 400 elo above to me. of course, inevitably i do play 'peers' but only as a matter of last resort.

for example, today i lost 9, won 26, and drew one = 36 games. folks message me, and ask me 'what is wrong, you lost a LOT today?' why nothings wrong--i am practicing! there is more to chess than rating. who would you rather be, overated or underated??? if you loose three and win one, against higher ups you can GAIN or hold your rating--believe it or not.



agonizing, but to have my transgressions punished is necessary. it's painfull, and so many close wins, but the wins are so sweet and they are so shocked when they occur! the odd silence when there is no reinvitation!

dk