Raw and the Cooked: Chat at Chess Ninja

Believe me * I am NOT someone who needs to read every chat at chessninja.com, Mig Greengard's blog, but the comments there following Anands win at Mexico City prove to be a wonderful cross section of sentiment mostly for his unqualified status as WCC and some for him as not having beated Kramnik in match play.

*Reminds me a lot of some of the juvenile mentality at chessChat.com, but not nearly as bad with some quite good. The main advantage or benefit of reading it now, is that while chessBase.com is sure to provide much better letters

(and I am quite sure that THEY are being flooded with letters of accolade as well as those subverting the title in favor of a match play, saying de facto that Mexico City--despite what anyone says or is in contract--was really a qualifier acting as a proxy for Candidates Matchs),

chessninja is getting the freshest, most undiluted, raw (or cooked!)sentiment from the real chess addicts if not true cognoscentae, at least for this moment!

Let Us Not Forget how and with whom Unification Started!

My note to chessbase co-founder Frederic Friedel
(right; Susan Polgar at left)

"Dear Mr. Friedel:

Thank you to chessbase.com, all of your team, the ever copious if not affable Mr. Marin, and of course you too for the most excellent, colorful, accurate and timely coverage. This is a great service to our global chess community.

Anand is the undisputed champion in a now long storied if not contentious sorting process of enormous dimension, has the best rating and one that will be adjusted higher very shortly, and won convincingly and bravely and—need us not forget to mention—in a well mannered way. Applause.

And now our main point. What I have just said almost needs no mention. But let us also please not forget the enormous and selfless and gallantly sustained efforts of GM Seirawan in his epical Prague Accord, or as he says, his “parting gift to the chess world as” he went “into retirement". Many persons, players, and factors went into unification--but he foremost.














Often here in the United States, it seems some breathless newscaster shoves a microphone into the face of some Quarterback or top coach, for example, twenty minutes after winning some gigantic spectacle, only to ask him, XYZ star or coach: “What are your plans towards next year”. The best ones seem to keep their head, and invariably say something like: “Let the fans enjoy this, our city, our club…” etc.

And so here. Let us enjoy this moment. It took so long. In time it can be argued in classical match play chess--as some quickly said today in commentary--as Anand drew with Leko: “It is not for Kramnik to challenge Anand, but for Vishy to challenge Vladimir”. Going back to Steinitz, it can be argued as to the quality or verity of this unity, but it IS UNITY.

And this unity started with Prague, and GM Seirawan, a gentleman of chess of consummate character helped significantly and hope that he is recognized, too, and not just quick Vishy, his elegant wife Aruna,















or ever necessarily tactful 'second' Heine who must circle around not just a seasoned and now historic giant, but an up and coming Mozart--all at the same time! Many great characters helped this, and it started years ago.

Warmest Regards, David K[ ] Seattle"

*Alert readers can aptly ask: what must a man have in his brain, to be the second to the Fifteenth World Chess Champion ranked first in elo AND at the same time be second to a wonder boy, ranked 17th in the world? Link to fabulous chessvibes.com video: Heine interview here: link to recent video.

Who Do You Think is the Challenger, in the Classical Match Lineage?

Anand speaking to the public in Spanish and English (source: chessBase.com)

A note that surely mirrors contention sure to arrise in the discussion circles in the months ahead. Anand indeed is the best right now, has been winning, has the highest rating at a likely 2803*, and will be included in the new FIDE ratings lists due out in the next 36 hours or likely sooner**, BUT, there are those who will say he did not meet Kramnik in a match. A tell from ICC just now:

Heliopolitanus(GM) kibitzes: mig keeps talking as if it would be Kramnik challenging Anand next year
Heliopolitanus(GM) kibitzes: noway, Anand will be challenging Kramnik

[*Or 2804 according to another kibitzer now. **ratings are already done, but FIDE will simply have to include Mexico City, as announced will occur.]

Zeus, Golden Goose Fischer

For those of us who started chess in 1972 (yes, I am that OLD), in my case, literally watching the Fischer-Spassky WCC match on television, growing up in a part of New Jersey ostensibly metro New York

(where even as a high school student I could simply hop on a bus, and in 0:50 minutes be standing in one of the worlds greatest cities),

we recieved the broadcast on what is now PBS or then channel 13 of the now famous live Shelby Lyman broadcast of the match, with a demonstration board. Imagine this as a 14 year old, sitting in a kitchen watching a small tv, and never having played chess but instantly becoming hooked. "Fischer has just played 11...Nh5!" in his famous benoni, allowing white to take 12. Bxh5. What a memory! I can feel electricity in my spine just seeing this memory in the top of my skull, that key moment of the third game.

Two years latter, I was literally at the Montclair Chess Club, when President Nixon resigned. They had the television on IN THE club when he did so. I can still see his gaunt, tragic, defeated face. I can see the monitor, just feet from our chess boards, the late day sun in the window behind the television, like an image from the Twilight Zone ...



This is after Kennedy was shot, Martin Luther King shot, Bobby Kennedy shot, Menachem Begin shot, the Viet Nam War every night on tv, Woodstock, the Man on the moon (I was that too, live, as a mere boy)... these are all heart felt black and white images. My mother had three kids. We were poor. 'They' were going to shut our electrity off, but she sold her piano instead. My grandfather was a concert piantist, and, yes, she could play. He played in Carnegie Hall.



So when I tell you, to see these videos of Fischer is a very, very, very, very deep experience for me, you will understand that I am not exaggerating in the slightest. I don't so much feel tears, as the sweep of what for me seems like fifty years of history, concentrated on the Golden Goose, the goose who laid the golden egg: Robert Fischer.




















I wished the contributor of these four videos posted at youTube allowed them to be embeded directly, but unfortunately does not. Doubtless they do not wish to allow farsical behavior encouraged related to such special content. I have watched these four videos several times, and I still get chills. I get a chill saying that I get chills (just felt the vital Kundalini shiver from my crown down my arms). This is amazing stuff. Truly amazing.

Without further ado:

Video One:
link

Video Two:
link

Video Three
link

Video Four
link.













May you all watch all four, and enjoy it. What do YOU feel? This is so deep. Kissinger, the Soviet Union, Bottvinnik, the Russian Chess School, Fischer from Brooklyn New York, his mother a physicist from Europe, the end of the 60's which, for me, really existed in 1976 chess I got an apartment in New York City, alone, at age 17... when I thought that I knew so much and knew SO little. Shocking memory.

Love dk

Addendum: If any of you don't have a swallow in your throat by now (from viewing any of those videos), then perhaps one more video will do it. While there is some small duplication of clips already shown in the first video to start off , such brief duplication might be forgiven for perhaps the most emotively hardest hitting of them all:

It seems to portray the edge of something giving way. At about the 2:34 point, it seems to paint psychological disIntegration with sound ...

Computers choose: who was the strongest player?

Hereby I announce a new series of related posts on ratings, and computor or heuristical evaluation of GM or club performance as the case may be. I will be reproducing entire articles, with appropriate attributions in all cases, with the simple goal of sharing a series of articles from different sources.

My goal is simply to share things some of you may not have seen and hopefully, and in placing each in close proximity, perhaps shed new light on previous discussions--either as fresh, established, or older. I sincerely hope that you enjoy them, and I can tell you, that text like below does take real effort and time to copy faithfully. These publications will be rapid. So if you can come by as much as three or more times per week cannot be a total loss. :) Their sequence will be cumulative. Without further ado, quoted from chessbase.com:

[Appologies for imperfection. Many of the graphs reproduce well, but not all of them. Please see original link immediately below for detailed view.]

Computers choose: who was the strongest player?
30.10.2006 – Who is the best chess player of all time? Entire books have been devoted to the subject, but all have one major flaw: they are mainly subjective. Necessarily so, since there is no direct way of comparing Morphy to Fischer, Lasker to Kasparov. Or is there? Two scientists from Slovenia try it with computers and statistics. The results might surprise you.

Who was The Strongest Chess Player of All Time?
Computer Analysis of World Chess Champions
By Matej Guid and Ivan Bratko
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Computer and Information Science, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Ljubljana, Slovenia. This article is based on a paper by the same authors published in the ICGA Journal; full reference is given below.

Who is the best chess player of all time? Chess players are often interested in this question to which there is no well founded, objective answer, because it requires a comparison between chess players of different eras who never met across the board. With the emergence of high-quality chess programs a possibility of such an objective comparison arises. However, so far computers were mostly used as a tool for statistical analysis of the players' results.

Our approach was different: we were interested in the chess players' quality of play regardless of the game score, which we evaluated with the help of computer analyses of individual moves made by each player. A method to assess the difficulty of positions was designed, in order to take into account the differences in players' styles and to compensate for the fact that calm positional players in their typical games have less chance to commit gross tactical errors than aggressive tactical players. We also give a carefully chosen methodology for using computer chess programs for evaluating the true strength of chess players.

The fourteen classic-version World Champions, from the first World Chess Championship in 1886 to the present, were evaluated. Matches for the title of »World Chess Champion«, in which players contended for or were defending the title, were selected for analysis. Several different criteria were designed. The basis for evaluation was the difference between the position values resulting from the moves played by the human and the moves chosen as best by the chess program. We also calculated the average number of blunders and observed how would the players perform providing they would all deal with equally complex positions. Our analyses, among other things, also clearly show that the percentage of best moves played depends on analysed position itself and that is in very high correlation with the difference of best two moves evaluations (according to the computer): the bigger the difference between best two moves evaluations – the easier it is to find the best move. By observing the average material quantity during the games, we tried to determine players inclination to simplify positions.

Generally, our computer analysis seems to have produced sensible results that can be nicely interpreted by a chess expert. Anyway, many will find some of the results quite surprising. The winner according to the main criterion, where we measured average deviations between evaluations of played moves and best evaluated moves according to the computer, is Jose Raul Capablanca, the 3rd World Champion.

As we did in the study, this result should be interpreted in the light of the comparatively low complexity of positions in Capablanca's games. Anyway, he was also on top according to other criteria where we measured quality of play and was only beaten according to one criterion (albeit a very important one), namely the quality of play provided that all players dealt with equally complex positions, by the present World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik. Both Capablanca and Kramnik distinctly deviated from the rest of the players.

Separatelly, we conducted analysis of the latest World Championship match between Kramnik and Topalov. The results (mean loss per move: Kramnik 0.1220, Topalov 0.1328; only the games with classical time control were taken into account) tell that Kramnik's play was somewhat better, while the overall quality of play in the match was on quite decent level (comparing to other World Championship matches), although the record (Kramnik's 0.0903 in the London 2000 match against Kasparov) was really not in danger. Note that the lower this measure the better the performance.

The chess program Crafty was used to perform the analyses. We needed an open source program in order to slightly modify it, as is described in the article. One may argue that Crafty is weaker than at least some of the fourteen World Champions who were taken into consideration. However, altogether more than 37,000 positions were evaluated and even if evaluations are not always perfect, for our analysis they just need to be sufficiently accurate on average since small occasional errors cancel out through statistical averaging. Anyway, we would like to encourage other researchers that might have access to source code of the strongest commercial chess programs, to modify and run them in the way we proposed, in order to obtain a comparison between various different engines as well.
















The basic criterion for evaluating World Champions was the average difference between moves played and best evaluated moves by computer analysis. According to this analysis, the winner was the third World Champion, Jose Raul Capablanca. This result should be interpreted in the light of the comparatively low complexity of positions in Capablanca's games which is quite in line with the known assessments in the chess literature of his style. For example, Garry Kasparov in his set of books My Great Predecessors when commenting Capablanca's games speculates that Capablanca occasionally did not even bother to calculate deep tactical variations. The Cuban simply preferred to play moves that were clear and positionally so strongly justified that calculation of variations was simply not necessary. He also describes Capablanca with the following words: “He contrived to win the most important tournaments and matches, going undefeated for years (of all the champions he lost the fewest games).” and “his style, one of the purest, most crystal-clear in the entire history of chess, astonishes one with his logic.”














The results of blunder-rate measurement are similar. We expected positional players to perform better by this criterion than tactical players, since in quiet positions there were less opportunities to blunder. Note the excelent result of Tigran Petrosian who is widely renowned as a pure positional player. In compliance with this observation, Steinitz, who lived in an era of tactical romantic chess, took clearly last place.

















Capablanca is renowned for playing a 'simple' chess and avoiding complications, while it is common that Steinitz and Tal faced many 'wild' positions in their games. The results of complexity measurement clearly coincide with this common opinion.














The method for assesing the complexity of positions is described in detail in the original article (see also the reference below). Graph of errors made by players at different levels of complexity clearly indicates the validity of the chosen measure of complexity of positions; the players made little errors in simple positions, and the error rate increased with increasing complexity.



















We used the above mentioned metric of position complexity to determine the distribution of moves played across different intervals of complexity, based on positions that players had faced themselves. This, in turn, largely defines their style of play. For example, Capablanca had much less dealing with complex situations compared to Tal, who is to be regarded as a tactical player.

The main deficiency of the two criteria, as detailed in the previous subsections, is in the observation that there are several types of players with specific properties, to whom the criteria do not directly apply. It is reasonable to expect that positional players in average commit fewer errors due to the somewhat less complex positions in which they find themselves as a result of their style of play, than tactical players. The latter, on average, deal with more complex positions, but are also better at handling them and use this advantage to achieve excellent results in competition. We wanted to determine how players would perform when facing equally complex positions. The winner was the fourteenth World Champion Vladimir Kramnik. Kramnik also had the best performance of all the matches; his average error in his match against Kasparov (London, 2000) was only 0.0903. We also tried to determine how well the players would play, should they all play in the style of Capablanca, Tal, etc. It is interesting to notice that Kasparov would outperform Karpov, providing they both played in Tal's style.














The percentage of best moves played alone does not actually describe the quality of a player as much as one might expect. In certain types of position it is much easier to find a good move than in others. Experiments showed that the percentage of best moves played is highly correlated to the difference in evaluations of the best and second-best move in a given position. The greater the difference, the better was the percentage of player's success in making the best move.



















Based on that observation, another criterion was the expected number of best moves played providing that all players dealt with positions with equal difference between the best two moves, as was described in the previous section. It represents another attempt to bring the champions to a common denominator. See the results right below.

















Kramnik, Fischer, and Alekhine had the highest percentage of best moves played, but also the above-mentioned difference was high. In contrast, Capablanca, who was right next regarding the percentage of the best move played, on average dealt with the smallest difference between the best two moves. The winner by this criterion was once again Capablanca. He and Kramnik again clearly outperformed the others.
















The purpose of calculating the average material quantity, that is the sum of the numerically expressed values of all pieces on board, was not to determine the quality of play, but to collect additional information on a player's style of play. We mainly tried to observe a player's inclination to simplify positions.
















Among the players who stand out from the others, Kramnik obviously dealt with less material on board (remember his early queen exchanges in his Berlin Wall games against Kasparov?). The opposite could be said for Steinitz, Spassky, and Petrosian.

The authors

Matej Guid has received B.Sc. degree in computer science at the University of Ljubljana. He works on his Ph.D. thesis at Artificial intelligence Laboratory, Faculty of Computer and Information Science of Ljubljana University. His present research includes machine learning, computer chess, heuristic programming and robot learning by experimentation. At the present time he works on programming an automated Chess Tutor that will be able to intelligently comment chess games in a language comprehensible to humans. Chess has been one of Matej's favourite hobbies since he was a little kid, he was also a junior champion of Slovenia a couple of times.

Ivan Bratko is professor of computer science at University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is head of Artificial intelligence Laboratory, Faculty of Computer and Information Science of Ljubljana University, and has conducted research in machine learning, knowledge-based systems, qualitative modelling, intelligent robotics, heuristic programming and computer chess (do you know the famous Bratko-Kopec test?). Professor Bratko has published over 200 scientific papers and a number of books, including the best-selling Prolog Programming for Artificial Intelligence. Chess is one of his favourite hobbies.

The original paper was published in the ICGA Journal, Vol 29, No. 2, June 2006, pages 65-73. It was also presented at the 5th International Conference on Computers and Games, May 29-31 2006, Turin, Italy, and was published in the proceedings book.

DK-Frequently Asked Questions

!!!!! PRELIMINARY DRAFT UNDER CONSTRUCTION !!!!!!!

What is a 'DK-Meter?"

What is 'Classic-DK'?

Who is chessDog?

What sort of games are in, and from what books comprise your GM game collection in chessbase?

What do you like about CTS?


How Karpov Wins: Game 1

George Jempty playing chess moves from memory of the first game in the collection "How Karpov Wins"

"Yeah i can learn a lot from Karpov because he plays "open" openings, but is more patient than me. By the way, the few times I've done this memorizing of a couple of world champion games, I've had some of my best tournament results immediately thereafter. I'm convinced it's a valid training technique."

Do you personally use CT-Art 3.0?

How do you keep track of accuracy there?

How did you become a close friend of GM-Seirawan?

How do you find time to blog so much? And how do you find time to study chess so much?

What is your rating?

When did you first start playing chess? And when did you start back into chess?

Why do you consider bullet (0/4 variety) to be not only chess, but so recommended?

What books do you recommend, and would make the core of an aspiring chess players working library?

Not to laugh, but seriously, why do you so ardently recommend against both careers either as an architect or broker? What is needed to succeed in the latter, and how can I start, if I must?

Do you still accept new students, in coaching personal effectiveness and time management, and goals without charge? What is required?

Who was your guru?

Special thanks to BDK for helping me set up this segment! Thank you BDK! You are the best.

Extremely Tired

DK right at the Canadian border, with the North Cascades in the background, coming off 6500'.

Very, very--very, very--tired after working a lot of days in a row at work... I have the outlines of at least six posts here in draft on wide and varying subjects, but no 'real' energy to push them through to my own standards--at this brief time.

Once a month, I am required to work a crazy schedule, and, I never did quite get over the flu from six weeks ago, after a lot of chess study, running training... mountain climbing, a bad cough, and now preparing my store tool department for inventory, which occurs twice per year.



If you guys think I am intense here, you should see me in motion at work. I am THE organizer of a concentrated revenue environment, with lots of detail and all the tendencies of the public towards rapid escalation to clutter and benign neglect of 'the commons', with yours truly the anti-entropy salve. As Trungpa Rinpoche once said: "The Dharma is a Sherman Tank, all forward gears, no reverse". Yes, that's me at work.



















Despite all the dogs here this last year, I am a cat owner and love them all.

I think that I slept about 46 hours, in five nights (4*9 hours and 1*10 hours, when I usually sleep six hours or less), and have been eating extra well (with cooler weather, I'm able to cook daily again, often brown rice prepared every couple of days added to organic vegetables, so, so healthy!), so I need tell no one here that times like these add the foundation for the next big push.

Otherwise, bidding my time with CTS daily, in fact, quite diligently... hit 87.15001% tonight, for a 87.2% post. Will show 88% soon.

CT-Art 3.0 back on hold after vacation. Was playing bullet again, limited to one hour per day max, and now again that is on hold despite new found prudence. Watching Mexico city with great delight, and since I start work at two pm, and it starts at noon, at PST, I have seen the start of ALL the games.





















Lastly, gleefully again able to read Euwe-Kramer's The Middlegame -- Book One. This is a low stress way to keep moving forward. 1001 efforts for the moment at a complete standstill. The broken binding actually makes me feel physically uncomfortable. I am serious. As I wrote BDK at my last note, there must be a visceral-sensual connection to a book.

That is it for now. I am not MIA, 'missing in action'.

Prolegomena To any Future Blogger Community, or Blunderprone, The Jolly Good Heart: Essay Ten

The Very Image of Gravitas!

The long awaited Blunderprone essay:

I hereby reinitiate ‘The Essays’. While they will not be posted as frequently, fast or in as concentrated a form as before, they will continue and hopefully will 'not be unworthwhile’ to the reader.

Blunderprone is a good hearted fellow, with a jolly good heart. But don’t be deceived by the humor and rotund or portly countenance--he has teeth! Like most strong persons, Blunderprone can hit when he wants to—I have seen it—having seen him play live at ICC in truly lost games that I for mine would promptly resign (I am not the type to play most lost games, as some do, which I disavow but respect in others and of course can also find infuriating). Moreover, I can tell you that I have seen this brave, hearty man persevere and either pull of draws out of nothing, or go on and on for a long time in a lost position, trying every recourse. Resilience is not the word but bloody guts! He can also put a man in his place right fast!
















Every Year, there is the Worlds Ugliest Dog Competition, and I Just Love these Photos! This is the winner of this year, "Elmwood"

He like me has been through a very large process outside chess that runs in the background and looms under and around his always astute and never trivial comments, and while I leave the details as private (previous and sincere offline correspondence exchanged between he and I), can at least say that emotional and spiritual healing when embraced can not only change a person, but have a lifelong effect. Blunderprone is a lifelong learner and he is a teacher. He is a man of real stature.














He is also a devoted father, and has had to wrestle with the devil to find time or ease or space for chess, making the most of what he has within limitation. As many know who read in our area, he and I did get to meet four weeks ago, here in Seattle. He was here for his daughter and anniversary, and after regaling him with some brief but potent stories of the life touchstones along the way in my life of incessant struggle but bright hue, he kindly told me of his progress as a trained and accomplished engineer. He modestly explained how he had been in embedded technologies, with a major chip (semiconductor’s, not Frito-Lay, Kettle, or Keebler!) company, was ready for a shift, and didn’t want to participate in the odd part ‘spun off’ by a behemoth chip juggernaut. In the most impressive way, he explained that he didn’t want to be in defense, and with—to my eyes!--savvy discernment, clearly explained how he had determined what industry to be in, and therewith put himself there. Very, very smart. Very smart. Smart!










Everyone says how smart I am. No. Balony! I have endured so much stupidity, and my tenacity can work against a man, for I ALLOW MYSELF TO endure where most would never allow themselves to stay, but my personality doesn’t allow lots of change. Not where I live, work, what I do, or who I am with, or where I go. I am a fixed person in many ways. This of course can be good, but it can also be bad. What I saw with Blunderprone, and hope that I am not over idealizing, is that he was able to not only see the writing on the wall, but position himself thoughtfully, having seen the lay of the land. I very greatly admire that.


















George plays in a band. Is anyone surprised??

I knew that he was a full sized guy, and surely didn’t think he would be obese, just a beefy guy, but, as I also said in notes to our meeting in comments, when I saw him, the first thing that I said was, “You must be a power lifter”. I mean, his shoulders are as wide as a Boeing 747 set of wings, and those broad shoulders are not to be underestimated.



He is perhaps our most funny Knight, which betrays a not insignificant intellect...




... and not to be underestimated, since he tends not to promote himself, unlike some of us here… *cough*, but none the less, very, very sensible, with vast life experience.
















I wrote a post, saying that my coworker Mohamed-Ali, was one man that I’d go to war with, and that is one way of placing a person (he isn’t mean but just doesn’t play any games in work and relationships!). But another way I think of persons, along with who I’d be willing to go to dinner with, or take a long trip with, is WHO I’D WANT FOR A NEIGHBOR, IF I HAD TO CHOOSE A PERSON TO BUY A HOUSE NEXT TO… and Blunderprone, I suspect, is the guy who would be best to live next to, but, god forbid, no adult material in view, or drugs, or booze, but the guy with all the right tools, good sense about marital relations, a good smile, not least, if I had kids, doubtlessly consummately sensible advise as to what to do with my teens—if I had them, or how to handle ‘the boss’.














America is a Friendly Democratic Country, Always Ready to Assist other Countries (with Pain)

Without further ado, may I please reintroduce Blunderprone, aka Sir Belly Jeans [he has another blog, linked here] and have great respect for him, and hope that you do, too.

Ressembler, The Epicure: Essay Eleven
Types of Struggle and Effort in Emprovement: Wildcard, Essay Twelve
Loomis: ...
ChessPawnOgraphy: Essay Thirteen
SamuraiChess: ...
Like Forests: Essay Fourteen
ookwelbekendalsemc: Essay Fifteen
XYZ Wildcard Essay Sixteen.

To Anyone Who Thinks That Bullet is Not Chess:

The game clipped below is not a subject for critical analysis, with my opponent using only 3:13 and similarly my using only 3:15. These are moves that are whipped out, and it is shoot from the hip. The game concluded with he having 0:29 sec, and me 0:31 sec.

A really brilliant game? No way. But trying to 'figure out' a quick plan on the spot, or an endgame puzzle in thirty or fifty seconds? Time to think? for sure. But at this speed, you have to cherry pick WHERE they occur, and fast otherwise. It is a game of attrition, tesing instinct, and intuition. At these speeds, feel and sense rule the day, and the one making the least mistakes often wins.

[Event "FICS rated lightning game"]
[Site "FICS, San Jose, California USA"]
[Date "2007.09.14"]
[Time "00:26:24"]
[Round "-"]
[White "_____"]
[Black "dk"]
[TimeControl "0+4"]
[Mode "ICS"]
[Result "0-1"]

1. e4 c6 2. Nf3 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. d4 Nf6 5. Be2 Bf5 6. O-O e6 7. c3 Bd6 8. h3 O-O 9. Nbd2 Nbd7 10. Nb3 Ne4 11. Bd3 Ndf6 12. Nh4 Bg6 13. Nxg6 hxg6 14. Re1 Qc7 15. Bxe4 Nxe4 16. Nd2 Bh2+ 17. Kf1 Nxd2+ 18. Qxd2 Bd6 19. Qg5 Qe7 20. Qxe7 Bxe7 21. Bf4 Rac8 22. f3 Rc6 23. a3 Rfc8 24. g4 Rb6 25. Re2 Rcc6 26. Kg2 Rb3 27. Kg3 Rcb6 28. Bc1 g5 29. f4 Bd6 30. Kf3 Bxf4 31. Bxf4 gxf4 32. Kxf4 Rxb2 33. Rxb2 Rxb2 34. a4 Rc2 35. Ra3 b6 36. Rb3 Ra2 37. Rb4 Ra3 38. c4 dxc4 39. Rxc4 g6 40. h4 Kg7 41. h5 Rb3 42. Rc7 Rb4 43. h6+ Kxh6 44. Rxf7 Rxd4+ 45. Kg3 Rxa4 46. Re7 Kg5 47. Rxe6 Rxg4+ 48. Kf3 Ra4 49. Re5+ Kf6 50. Rd5 g5 51. Rd6+ Ke5 52. Rd3 b5 53. Rb3 b4 54. Ke3 Ra3 {White resigns} 0-1

Floundering Blogger Helped By Top Knight!

Tags II: abridged version:

1. Find candidate females with beautiful hair eager for breeding with bald, obscessive-compulsive chess bloggers that generate freedom from threats.

2. Play the obviously Teutonic woman with the best eyes and cheakbones with the best consequence for late night piece activity.

Kudo's to BDK, who kindly helped guide me through the thorny thickets of 'format of a new partition in' html, where my bulging sidebar needed (and still does), a very good prunning! Thank you BDK! More soon.

One more day of vacation. But CT-Art 3.0 is in full bloom again!

Warmest, dk

My Chick Mating Thought Process

[Revised 9/13/07]

After I see her, here's what I do.

1. Availability scan. Check for wedding bands or other evidence of signs of unavailability from my perspective and her perspective. This involves checking for forcing current boyfriends and other tactics.

2. Planning. If it is in a grocery store, be ready with personal business card, or position produce so you go through checkout when she does. Use provisions to generate or constrain interference from candidate males.

3. Calculate Variations. Use Kotov tree of analysis, modified by Tom Cruise or Jack Nicholson methods as needed. Dialogue: "If she has a boyfriend, I can say, 'Oh, I just want to be friends', so as to maximize proximity to target area". Or, "chess resassembler can cook, so I aught to say something about shallots or truffle oil." If she smiles, put the current move at the top of the list by mentioning David Glickman.

4. Blundercheck. Ask, do I have spinich in my teeth?

5. Move. Get her phone number, or impress her with references to Maxim Blohk's Combinative Motifs; if she has lived in North Carolina, try to menton that you know Loomis. If she sings in the choir, mention temposchlucker.

Why start analysing threats? See this post and this post. How deeply should you pursue her? Depends on her response... I am finding this new thought process extremely helpful in aksing out chess chicks of Teutonic and Slavic origins. My original thought process was a bit too far out in the DK-Meter (tm BDK) to be helpful.

Semi-Annual State of the Divination Report, Part II

The commonality of everything I wrote in Part I was for chess units that are ONGOING. That is to say, I described all that I am doing without regard to their PENDING size or scale or frequency.

In this next essay, we now turn to INTENDED study units. That is to say, however much I carefully plan or great my resolve to do them, for the most part, they have yet to begun. They are pending. This does not mean that they are speculative, but just to say that there is a real line between day to day and week to week activity versus things like, "in the next year, I WILL go through Secrets of Pawn Endings by hand, with a board".













[link to comments above photo of woman with her hair up, at bottom, at post, Idiosyncratic Tags:]

NEXT FOCUS
Pending Units of Planned Study

SEQUENCE
Really, Red Hot Pawn (which I will discuss in a moment) almost goes at the end of Part I, since I have already been playing correspondence. But this component of the discussion really needs to be at the start of Part II for the following reasons:

This entire next chess unit is about two distinct qualities: studying with a board in slow--deliberate--study, and comprehending pawn structure and pawn play. To play correspondence chess is to evaluate lots of positions in depth, and slowly. And to study Middlegames, strategy, plans, and endgames is to coordinate major piece play and to plan pawn structure. It seems to me, that these two go together, so I have a distinct bifurcation between my current unit of tactics and GM games (using software!), and my next unit of endings and pawn structure (study 'by hand'!).

What I describe here is not a new conception by me; rather, it has been my plan all along, and surely for the last year. And now as this next unit approaches me, hopefully is worth describing to the community here, in some detail. I hope that some of you benefit by both seeing my failings (what I emphasize that you would not), and what I have organized and why (what I emphasize that your might consider:














RHP
I have already played nine Red Hot Pawn or Correspondence chess games, and while I have established a reasonable performance datum, this rating is still only provisional. Nor have I yet demonstrated that the laser like focus concentrated at great cost in the last three completed games is sustainable by me across either two concurrent games to start out, or even three games.

I have spent massive hours on each game, and while they were very accurate, they are also horribly inefficient from a time expended perspective. Nor have I demonstrated being able to 'hum along' at RHP WHILE furthering my efforts in GM game review, Reinfeld, OBP, and CTS--not to mention the 'small matter' of CTA! Nor have I even yet written of endgame study, or middlegame analysis and planning... then the also 'small matter' of working a job, eating, sleeping, household.... Don’t get me started!












My point is, is that correspondence chess is all well and good, I dare say, fantastic in all ways for pure chess, but the cost is real: I find it difficult if not impossible to maintain my standards there without nearly terribly disrupting, if not abandoning all other chess efforts (1). Hence RHP goes comfortably in Part II here, since the real effort there is in the pending rather than actual category, as far as incorporating it day to day goes.

To date, my approach has been to only play there intermittently, just not play any RHP except by exception as it were, but I won't get better without practice, and now we are back to the same quandary of OBP, 'over the board play', and the ego needs for triumph--read perfection 'kills' activity.














ENDINGS
I have definite, serious plans there. Before elaborating those, let me remind the reader that I already spent several years there, perhaps not to the depth of LikeForest or Montse, so this does not represent initiated effort, but instead continued or resumed effort.

I had spent almost two years READING Chernev's Practical Chess Endings, without a board, trying slowly to process each position, and that was after similarly reading Pandolfini (2), and Soltis: Endings, Grandmaster Secrets.

My principle plan for endgame study is to go, as a reshesher to start, first through Seirawan's Winning Chess Endings--surely not the final word in endings, but famously clear--then through Secrets of Pawn Endings by Mueller, then shortly thereafter Endgame Strategy by Shereshevsky. The prior, as I have said in the past is less for pawn endgames only, and far more for practice of raw, pure calculation. My coach (3) told me that this is how to best practice calculation in its purest form, since objective or algebraic mathematical truth is in its most unforgiving form there, and affords the best practice.










Secondly, my coach raved about Endgame Strategy, saying that "this is where it all happens". Tempo has said as much in his ardor for Secrets of Chess Endgame Strategy by Lars Bo Hansen [direct links to two wonderful, seperate posts by tempo at left and, at right, the actual book SCES], and while in the ideal I would add this latter book to this second endgame unit, or Silman's Complete Endgame Course: From Beginner To Master to this first unit, at a certain point you just know you have enough. This is one of those efforts that I yearn for.

In the best of all possible worlds--yes!--I would make a deep study of those four (not those two only!), but so much more work needs to be done, in middlegames, GM game analysis, autofritz, etc, that it is best not to get stuck on truth but to progress on accuracy (4). I of course have further plans for Dvoretsky and Fundamental Chess Endings (5), but this must wait for Part III, and is a further stage down the road of chess improvement for me.













OPENINGS
I am a great believer that opening study below 1800 elo if not 2000 elo is much misapplied energy. Nevertheless, perhaps the natural curiosity if not thirst many--but not all--my fellow bloggers have at this level have is understandable.

At the same time, I was playing in chess tournaments in 1974 when I got as far as 1641, was it, on my way to 1800 (after massive and intense study, I am sure, but was forced to give up the game due to obsession at the price of flagging high school grades (5)), and went through the entire opening cannon, both in the at the time cutting edge MCO-11 by Walter Korn and the capacious Chess Openings: Theory and Practice by I.A. Horowitz.

Thus, I already went through my wild opening search phase, and while things have changed, they have not entirely changed, and so am widely anecdotally familiar with general opening theory already.

My plan now, is simply to study classic Ideas Behind the Chess Openings by Reuben Fine, and in so doing, prepare the way for my next segment of this unit, on pawn structure:






















MIDDLEGAME
I plan to read Euwe-Kramer's The Middlegame, Part One, and The Middlegame, Part Two. This is simply to brush up behind my tactical and endgame study, and fill my RAM with widening context.

Silman, who by the way I do not rate high (or low) in his main efforts outside the recent epochal endgame book, says regarding Euwe's book: 'get it, beg, it, GET this book!' At the same time, In Raymond Keene's Aron Nimzowitsch: A Reappraisal, Larsen in his interview, to the point of now giving me pause, said that 'Everything Euwe said there was a lie'. Whether he was just indulging in hyperbolae, or meant it, in any case, this is a book to read NOW, not latter... as evidently it is not so advanced or correct as to be a book to read more deeply latter such as the far more rigorous Dvoretsky's School of Excellence: Tactics, as planned (see Part III)





















PAWN STRUCTURE
Pawn Structure Chess by Soltis and Pawn Power in Chess by Hans Kmoch, both classics, are to me the sort of study otherwise devoted to openings that I feel that I need. Again, these are two books that I yearn for.

They easily follow from the two endgame books, that is to say, Mueller and Shereshevsky, and form a couplet. The only difference is that the these two latter are to gone through carefully, whereas Soltis and Kmoch need to be gone through like a sprint, and not dwell on them--in comparison to other areas to probe or mine, at least.

STRATEGY & PLANNING
Silman also raves about the more solid Art of the Middlegame, and no one casts aspersions upon that book, which is the opposite of superficial, and was written before the era of paragraph after paragraph of fritz variations, sometimes to the point of commentary devoid of understanding. Who needs a book to tell us what Fritz or Rybka already would think, in a big tangle or jumble when we can do that at our desktop ourselves? No, we want to be guided and instructed. :)









CONCLUSION
So much of my work has been in depth this last year or two, and they all fit together as an organized construct, as elaborated in Part One. But the depth of CT-Art and the scope of my effort on Chess Tactical Server are both entities NOT subject to error or approximation. Think of those as convergent systems. They are unforgiving if not relatively absolute (ex-notable finds of error by Loomis and Takchess et. al.).

But here in Part Two, all these parts (with the exception of Secrets of Pawn Endings) which also fit together are far looser, the art of chess as against the science of chess, and as such are far more amorphous, looser, or non-linear if you will. They are divergent systems. They forgive error, in the wide maze of middlegame options and afford choices and discovery and creativity.

















Part III, which will address the advanced part of my plan, is the work of another day, and will continue to next week. Warmly, dk

NOTES

(1) I am very weary of Correspondence chess, as how and where can we know who is using a program? At the same time, Steve Lopez in his wonderful series on using ChessBase [link to first article, but is a multiple essay series, to those so inclined] to organize our correspondence play, goes so far as to say that he knows of correspondence masters and grandmasters WHO hope their opponents are using chess engine--that is to say, 'Go ahead, I will think beyond them!'

My plan is, when I start back, to put out invites and reject any accepts by anyone with a win/loss record far lopsided to wins. I want to play folks with win/loss parity, sufficient enough, I feel, to validate the level playing field well enough.

(2) Again, as I have written last year but repeat here: while Pandolfini's books have a well deserved reputation for sloppiness (we don’t really know the cause. Maybe the PUBLISHER and or staff were alcoholics--I am serious), his endgame book despite his errors is excellent, and he handles the scope of the subject quite well. Also, if you read him at ChessCafe.com, In The Q & A Way, he is quite affable, with erudite good sense, if not at times acerbic prickliness.













Charles, at right

(3) An aspiring chess master at ICC once shouted: "Are there any brokers here?" to which I of course answered, quickly ascertaining that his questions (and needs!) went far beyond what I could comfortably be expected to type, and asked that he call me at home, latter on. He interviewed me for a school paper on brokers, thirsted for a trading venue or business enterprise, and offered to trade me chess coaching for teaching him investing.

I had been mentoring folks for years, on the side, in personal effectiveness (at no charge, for the pleasure and learning alone: "Want to learn something? Teach it!"), so this was an easy one for me... long story. But he had me right off go to CTS and get CT-Art, and plan to study Secrets of Pawn Endings and Endgame Strategy. He had me playing 1.e4 and gambits only, to force me 'to learn to play with the initiative' (I was and am 1.Nf3, 1.d4, and used to also play 1.c4, decidedly positional in flavor, with a drive for attacking flavor).

He very charitably helped me get started in chessBase9, and the corresponding megabase game collection, and these helped tremendously also. Thank you Charles.

Charles Galofre, of Miami, that coach, was in the college final four (of chess!), as chronicled in the Wall Street Journal, whereby the local community college, Miami-Dade with it's score of Cuban and Hispanic Grandmasters and Masters competing against the likes of the Grandmasters of Duke, Maryland, Dallas two years in a row, leaving the MIT and Harvard guys in the dust...

He scored 6.5/9 at the 2007 World Open, Under 2400 Section at Valley Forge [link, page down to second group], earning his Master Title. Congratulations Charles! This is ninth out of 131. He is a true warrior, sporting a negative win/loss ratio at 5/0 and 3/0 at ICC against many, many GM's and hoards of IM's.














(4) My first true life teacher used to always say: "David, much of western philosophy is based on the confusion between truth and accuracy", and "As we know it, much of western philosophy would not exist without self aggrandizement".

Malcolm Clark was a true genius--the matter of true legend. I went to see him every Friday night, to chat, for half a year or more, when going back home to New Jersey from New York my first year of college at Copper Union (one of the few tuition free PRIVATE schools in the United States).

He was a chess expert and had long since given it up. He was a bridge master, played Rod Laver at Wimbledon, and the Italian Open. He went to the Monterey Language School, and learned Czech in four months ("Because Chinese was not available, due to excess demand" in 1952 was it and "One time they carried a guy outside the barracks, screaming at the top of his lungs in Chinese. He had lost his mind". This is the place where you learn it in total immersion, 24/7, and some folks crack, literally!).

He was president of the American Azalea and Rhododendron society; a gourmet cook, before the era of windows, self taught in programming. He won the township men's singles tennis championship, well into his forties from inactivity, smoking, and heavy drinking. Once all he did was read Sartre's Being and Nothingness for one year: "David, don’t do it. It's not worth it!" He was a gifted high school teacher, and taught me at a key time, the theory of avoiding the language obfuscation so popular at the time--

He had me bypass the slop and dross of Merleau-Ponty, Husserl, Heidegger, Talcott Parsons structuralism, and instead put me onto C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination, an Peter Berger's Invitation to Sociology. He advocated simple, clean and straight definitions of conspiracy theory, debunking, and understanding life games, cum the Stephen Potter's 'Gamesmanship' books, or the classic movie Mr. Hulot's Holiday (1954) starring Georges Adlin and Michèle Brabo. And here I am today to tell of it!

(5) Had I not given up chess, when I ranked not too far from Larry Christiansen at the time, I might not have gotten into a good college, and though my chess ended abruptly (to where even in New York in college, I copiously avoided even watching speed chess or blitz in the famous Washington Square park during my entire five years of college--Bachelors of Architecture takes five year as a professional degree), in her better wisdom my mother and older brother made the RIGHT DECISON in prohibiting me, sternly, from playing ANY chess, so as to maximize my chances of getting not only into college, but on necessary full scholarship, as we were totally poor.

Many years latter, I earned my right to have chess back, and it all comes full circle now, but much the worse for wear... in the intractible vaguarities of mid life and the struggle never ends.

Idiosyncratic Tags!

Hair is always the first thing that I look at in a woman

1. How often are you asked out by gay men?

I am not making fun of gay persons, and have had several friends in my life who were, including one close friend. But given my build, I attract a lot of the wrong sort of attention (given my legs, and solid housing area above from years of running, cycling martial arts, and climbing), and get approached all the time at work. I am considered a real catch. It gets to where I have to promptly drop hints, such as: "Interesting you should say that. My ex-girl friend and I always used to..." Never unkindly. It is almost flattering, but the wrong kind! I can spot it a mile away, as male couples cruise around with their own wandering eye. In New York also (and to this day) I COULD NOT WEAR A MUSTACHE, as it confused men.

2. What sort of women approach you?

Again, the wrong kind! I get approached by obese women. Often large, Afro-American women. I cannot be interested in any large women of any kind, never, but I am find myself attracted psychically to strong willed black women, often to the point of ALMOST subverting or overcoming physical characteristics. But, in the end, I am a thin build male, and if a woman is ten pounds overweight, to me she is fat. Sorry, but every one has his or her preferences, and this is mine by DNA programming.









3. If ever, under what circumstances has a parent of your been arrested by the FBI or been institutionalized to a mental institution?

My father was arrested by the FBI for "Forgery and Embezzlement" when I was only several months old. It was traumatic. My mother didn’t want to show her face outside the house for a year. The judge had pity on my mother, with a six year old, a two year old, and me, so put him on parole, saying to my dad: "Mr. K, shame, shame, shame. I am putting you on parole. But Mr. K., if you so much as step one inch to the left, or one inch to the right, I am going to 'put you away'".

The result was that he became a very honest man, forcibly by my mother, who raised us all first and foremost to be honest. She taught me two things: ALWAYS SPEAK THE TRUTH; and IT IS WHEN YOU ARE MOST AFRAID THAT YOU NEED TO MOVE FORWARD. The combination of these two has shaped my life. To this day, he is a unusually honest man, and it was his big mistake in his perception of himself as financially desperate.

He always taught me "IT IS WHEN YOU HAVE THE INCLINATION TO HELP OTHER PERSONS, YOU SHOULD ALWAYS DO IT".


















Then my mother. In 1988 or so, was it, after much long suffering, she finanally had a complete breakdown, and was institionalized for several weeks. Of course, I was already on a spiritual path--had long since--but so then began my real inner work, therapy, the works, the 'whole nine yards'. And from a distance of some 700 miles, in North Carolina, at the time [and I am NOT subject to PANIC], the evening that it happened, I found myself in a strange experience, and was very upset, very anxious, and won't get into the details, but then the phone rang, my brother, etc. Just as the Tibetan's have their detailed instructions for the soul, to or around the body, after death, so I knew that I had to get to her, and guide her back, and I did. We are spiritually close to this day.

She didn't teach me much but did teach me two things that she always repeated and stay with me to this day, and again, are at my core: 'always speak the truth, even if it hurts'; and 'it is when you are most affraid, that is when you must go forward'. Try living and combining those two. This David has stood, thereof, in front of many a Golaith.














We all, in the end, face life alone

4. What books have been in your bathroom in the last three years?

That one is easy: The Gaelic War by Julius Caesar (look at often); The Art of War by Sun Tsu, The Yoga of Herbs by Frawley and Lad, Healing With Whole Foods by Pitchford (I NEVER LOOK AT THIS BOOK but it belongs there), The Time Trap by Mackenzie, The Odyssey by Homer, Fitzgerald translation (keeps leaving the room but keeps coming back), The Voices of Silence by Malraux, No
Short Cuts to the Top by Viesturs (his 14 climbs up 8,000 meter peaks without supplemental oxygen), All Fourteen 8,000 by Reinhold Messner, The I-Ching, Wilhelm-Baynes translation, and of course Reinfeld, Blokh's Combinative Motifs.

5. What sort of things are inside the spline of any academic books you have laying around on psychoanalysis?

As it is said, the following is 'Classic DK' (trade marked by BDK)':

A friend who new me well once visited me from North Carolina and opened up Schwartz-Salant's treatise: "Narcissism and Character Transformation: The Psychology of Narcissistic Character Disorders", and inside were all the cat whiskers that I had found on the carpet in the last five or six years (only the longer ones).

He asks me, incredulous: "David, what is THIS?" "Jamie, I wouldn't THINK of throwing those out". This is the real me.












One last image from Burning Man

6. How many cats have you had with Sanskrit names?

Two. The first was named Bhagwan, after the infamous Bhagwan-Shree Rajneesh, who was interred at Charlotte North Carolina, as he landed for jet fuel, seeking to escape the FEDS, and a coworked said to me, in a discussion as to how to name my kiteen: "Whatever you do, DON’T NAME HIM BHAGWAN", to which I said: "Why that is a good name!"

My current cat, of many years, who is a big hunter and loves to be outside, is named Shruti, Sanskrit for the Vedas, or 'the most ancient religious promptings of human kind' as I like to say, and is a line from the Puja, which I learned and was initiated in by my guru of many years, Joy.



















More manly than any football player or military soldier: Nadal at U.S. Open

7. What is the most amount of money you have ever lost in an investment?

About $100,000. Ouch. Once I took $2,700 and bought three options for $900 each, not in a speculation, but as the final cap stone to five years of careful observation in Incyte Genomics, the at the time major genomic software company, which I had made MILLIONS in for my customers, or was about to...

The options went to 100k, but, not a total shame, I was SO FOCUSED ON MY CUSTOMER MONEY, I failed to focus on my own money, and failed to sell them, riding them all the way up and all the way down. FYI, I was an early investor also in E-Trade Financial, and Affymetrics, the Gene-Chip company. Talk about perspicacity!

Oh, the pain of gains come and gone! Mid-life! What then took only weeks to realize cannot now be replaced with ten years of income from work and incapacity to save were the income adequate, in my current circumstance.

Latter on, the exact same thing happened AFTER I left Wall Street. I was massively leveraged 'short' the market, before 9-11, and could have made enough money to last for SEVERAL years, and traveled around the world. I had to take a 'survival job' instead. Why? Despite months of steadfast fixity before that sad day, inexplicably, I changed course, and went 'long' the market. Or, as Nietzsche says, in 'Beyond Good an Evil': "The Sirens flew over my table".














Varanasi, in India, one of the planets great sacred places

8. What is the happiest you have ever been?

I once dated a woman named Monika, whom I truly loved. She was half German, and half French, a former run way model with a smart mind, and a sense for business. We were ardent lovers, but we also had some great chats. In the end, despite my claims of being off and on 'psychic', she had me fooled. She was a compulsive liar, and until you've ever worked for one of those or had one as a lover (I have had it twice, in work and love), you've never seen this one!

But there were times of great joy, and a part of me knew my youth then.

Other times, were in the time of living in the Temple in Korea, when I finally got to Japan, some of the stunning old relics and sacred places. Again, in my youth.

Mountaineering. At the summits of some peaks, Mt. Pugh here in Seattle, at the top of Glacier Peak with my guide. Or leaving the office to train in the mountains wearing a full, artificially loaded pack, in silence, in the forest...

Getting hired as a rookie broker. Passing the architects exam in New York State, finally (I didn’t take it seriously starting out, focused instead on Japanology, Fulbrights, etc).





















God gave me legs

9. What is your favorite food?

Lasagna. I do love potato chips, but try not to eat them. I love pizza, too. I am the sort that is very athletic, who has high cholesterol and must eat low fat. Do you all know, this can occur with my build, yet someone who is seriously obese can have zero cholesterol?

10. What athletic accomplishments do you have, or in physical prowess?

Running a marathon at age 15; resting heart rate of 33 beats per minute back then, 'only 58' or so now... after too much pizza, and hamburgers in the late architect and early Wall Street years.

1000 sit ups in 90 minutes, also in my youth.

Climbing Mount Si twice a week at age 42, for several weeks, wearing 50 pounds, a gain of 3700' feet in 1:42, or 37 feet per minute (that is smoking!). The requirement for The Mountaineers, in qualifying to climb Mt. Rainier, is that someone must be able to do it in two hours with the same weight.

Running Green Lake, in Seattle, three 2.7 mile laps, at age 43, in 1:12 in a very heavy head wind, on a very, very windy day, wearing heavy sweats.
















The terrable menacing depth of Alekhine: a true genius, but--all the same--still disturbed

11. What heavy drugs have you ever taken?

Acid twice, in my twenties. Normal reality is intense enough, without that! I vowed never to do it again, if god would give me back my sanity. I felt very, very paranoid, thinking that 'they were coming to get me!'. The first time, I went to see Apocalypse Now, in Times Square, in New York. The second time, it hit as I was ridding the Subway home to my ghetto apartment, in Brooklyn. Terrable.

12. What are your thoughts on monogamy?

Despite my not insignificant appetite, I am a firm and unwaving believer in it. I never did and never will deviate. I am in all the way, what I am in--Nor would anyone in my family stray or ever has. Quite the contrary, I have been cheated on repeatedly in my 30's, and it stung very, very badly. And, I 'knew'. Sensitive as I am, it was a horror.

I have gotten far better at sorting who is for me, and who is not, and have gotten very selective and hopefully with better discrimination here firmly in the middle of mid age.














13. What are the most number of automobile accidents you have ever had in a two year period? Under what circumstances?

Six in two years, as a rookie broker, on excess caffeine and total craze.

But the last two, happened when a bicycle hit my car, in the dark, and the guy, a Judoka, or judo practitioner did a judo roll down the hill, and avoided a large green mail pick up box, saving his life. AND HE got a ticket, and had to pay for my bumper.

I had reformed my driving, and then stuff still happened. I had to look and say, although I am not at fault, I am the one thing in common all that had! Self Responsibility.

Finally, once I was driving down Fourth Avenue in Seattle, in that same Acura Intrega GS (how fast I drove it!) slowly, as, again, I had cleaned up my act by then, and knew that stuff was all around me, potentially, AND a kid hit my car. He turned right into me illegally. I was driving maybe fifteen, twenty miles per hour. He didn’t have a license. He was driving his pregnant girlfriends MOTHERS CAR. Can you imagine? There I was, back at the auto rebuild place. Six times! I had become a frequent flier.






















All I ever wanted was love, looking in all the wrong places

14. What are your favorite things in this world?

Communication. Naps. I love naps. Short ones are all I need. Coffee. Not all day long, but to start. Order. Clarity. Planning. Integrity. Cleanliness. Being home. To name but a few.

15. Have you ever voted independent?

All the time. Recently, always for Ralph Nadir: "and that government of the Exxon's, by the Mobils, for the Duponts, shall not perish..."

16. What is the hardest thing you have ever faced?

Leaving New York City on short notice, to go to South Korea with Zen Master Dae Soen Sa Nim (or Soen Sa Nim), while working a job, packing, studying Shorinji Kempo (Shao Lin or Buddhist Boxing involving Hapikido, Karate, and Ju Jitsu), having to be at the New York City Temple of the Cho Gye Order, to learn the chants I would be doing, at four a.m. repeatedly on short sleep...

















After getting the better part of the Forty Million Dollars, my best friend within two years stopped talking to me.

Also, both getting into Morgan Stanley, migrating my book of clients from Piper Jaffrey Inc, about six million dollars, one phone call at a time, one client at a time, the Jerry Maguire thing. No amount of alcohol can numb the pain. Mountains of customer forms, and paperwork.

Second, the same in reverse, getting fired from Morgan Stanley, for what were essentially personal reasons, when I was ranked in the top one, two, or five out of TWELVE THOUSAND PERSONS, in iChoice accounts, depending how you measure it. I was really arrogant, and got punished for it, that is the main thing. I told my guru at that time:

"I am willing to pay any price for enlightenment, total self realization" and, I swear by the blood of Jesus Christ, the Lawyers started calling in twelve hours, the next day after I said that, and I was gone in four or five months. Torture.

Then after my termination, I had six hundred people directing their frustration at the enormous decline in the dot.com bust at me, even though I was gone, without choice, and could not help them. It was like being microwaved alive. I could hear them thinking all at once, at times, that autumn of 2000. I ran a lot of miles and drank a lot of beer and wine. Both.

But, in the end, I got what I asked for: if not awakening (not for me to say) then surely a bigger heart--for the aged, the sick, the poor, those in sorrow, those who are mighty but endarkened...

I CONCLUDE WITH A QUOTE, FROM THE EULOGY OF PRINCESS DIANA:

"Time is too slow for those who wait,
too swift for those who fear,
too long for those who grieve,
too short for those who rejoice,
but for those who love,
time is eternity.
















Love to all of you. This is my life. I am not proud. I am not ashamed, but this is the real me. Love dk