Fifteen, Seventeen, Nineteen and Counting, Part One

I am proud.

Well, we all know that, some would say vain, a braggart someone once said.  That's OK to say, too.

Its true that I am self promoting.  We all adapt to our environment, genetics, family, work history, and social milieu.  Since this is a list, why not add diet, sleep, and housing, as well as top down larger regional, cultural, ethnic, and social-economic constructs?  And why stop there, what species are you, geological era, climate, historic epoch, IQ, personality type, engram, Meyers-Briggs personality type, Braverman Assessment according to the major four neurotransmitters [1].  Oh, one last thing--cosmic rays, and angelic diffusion.  The picture can always be made bigger.

What does this have to do with my recent major attainment or benchmark accomplished yesterday, at chess.com?  Well, I am getting to that.  This is not a straitlaced chess blog, and if you didn't like this sort of thing, you wouldn't be here.  Well OK then.  Lets continue:

If you had my life, you might be like me too... Basically I grew up with a mother who lived by attack and condemnation, nested with an absent father.  Renowned Gestalt Psychologist Fritz Perls once said 'The neurotic lacks the means of self support'.  Well, that's me alright.  I compensate by at once being highly independent, I create all my own things, my own food, my own concepts, my own CRM, my balance sheets, my own tax returns, my own cognitive maps of Japanese Kanji (Chinese Characters [2]), my own methodologies.  I do it all from scratch.  I live to create, and I do.  Someone once called what I do, Korns cornucopia.  The same guy called me a disjunctive genius.  Well, that's true too.  Don't get me started.

Double Click Image to Enlarge. Sorry, half the rest of the content that makes this table sing, is hidden in the black. Shown as legible half tone thus.

So with no one to guide me or support me, I developed an exaggerated sense of self, and have, now that I have completely embarassed myself by being too honest, too real, and called myself out with this doubly exaggerated impersonation of myself, can just simply say, got this way by learning to be my own cheering squad.  I hate that.  I have had to and am still learning not to do that.

But I cannot escape, that in the world, I move with a lot of confidence, always the one to walk in off the street and ask to talk to a CEO of a $300M corporation and do so (I did this in Seattle, took me about 75 seconds, they put him on the phone.  All true).  I called Warrren Buffet's partner, Charlie Munger and he called me back.  True.

Once I did call George Soros, and what a shock, did not manage to get through, but did get to hear the voice of his, *ahem* very upper class London accent receptionist, how erotic.  The one to ask to talk to corporate HR about an issue of mistreatment, an ethical matter of benign neglect by management (I did this last night, asked to see the visiting Regional HR visiting heavyweight, if I did not succeed, I did surely entertain him, smiles).

So there we are.  My confession.   I always like to say, I am the most insecure confident person you will ever know.  Now chess.

Last night I hit =>1700 at chess.com at blitz.  Big deal you say?  No.  But if you look around you, or what is the saying, look closely, as I have, ask yourself if you ever noticed how many 1800's at standard chess you know who have a hard time topping 1600 at blitz?  It is common.  Same with 1900's.  I know a 2200 USCF ELO who is a real chess player, Juan Tica, is about 1895at chess.com at blitz--dude is a freaking Doctor in Peru and has to work as a physicians assistant in NJ, there is a reason the USA--much as I hate to say it--is so strong.  Is it our morals?   Probably not.  Our landscape, we venture to guess, might have a little bit to do with it.  Well, you might be onto something!

My friend Bryan Cohan flirted 1920 USCF, and similarly finds 1600 difficult, maybe 1590.  Damon T. Garrett USCF 1826 similarly.

So there it is.  Now that I did 1500 bullet, and 1700 blitz, I plan to shift to standard online, which I have never done.  And I do mean never.  I don't want to sit for an hour or forty five minutes, so plan to play 15 0 or 15 10 at chess.com.  We shall see.  Surely a lot higher.  Time to play a new game.  I am proud of my 17 handle[3].

In our next post or shortly thereafter, I will discuss the blood and glory of blitz on line specifically, straight chess talk. Sudden death, speed, pre-move, psychology, stages of unfoldment.

 
[1] Highly recommended:  This is so cool.  Helped me a lot.  The Braverman Assessment Document,  this works.

[2] 'Kanji (漢字; Japanese pronunciation: kandʑi) are the adopted logographic Chinese characters (hanzi) that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana (ひらがな, 平仮名), katakana (カタカナ, 片仮名), Hindu numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet. The Japanese term kanji (漢字) for the Chinese characters literally means "Han characters" and is the same written term in the Chinese language to refer to the character writing system hanzi (simplified Chinese: 汉字; traditional Chinese: 漢字).'  Elaborated citation, as often the case, from Wikipedia.

 
[3] Handle is a nice Wall Street term: "I really am glad to see Microsoft at a 30 handle"--moved from 29.65 to 30.06. Or think Apple goes from 586 to 577, then breaks through to 601. This is called resistance and support, aka breakouts. I am simplifying the idea, but you get it. Other terms are accumulation and distribution, or in integrative systems, chaos theory, complex adaptive systems: dissipation and accumulation may be other terms.  Chemical systems can buffer, social systems form hierarchies.