chess improvement

Where the New Happens

2012-01-13T15:03:00.000-08:00

Dear Chess Friends, old, current, new, after years of intense activity here, then a slightly unexplained hiatus, I finally am taking the time to let you all know, my blogging has continued, albiet, much more an act of service.

I have been running the West Orange Chess Club blog, linked here.

We are submitting three teams to the 42nd World Team Amateur in Parsippany NJ, in late February, after winning both top, over all honors last year out of some thousand plus contestants, then also won the under 1700.

This year I am again bottom board on a strong team, exactly what I wanted, only this year, my team is 1899, not 1698. I am training every day, several hours a day. For me, a single chess game of about 3.3 hours duration is most taxing, but this promises to be six games in two and one half days. This is like the Ironman, last year, took me six days to get over it. No exaggeration. Beer is not always bad, but does have its limits. Smiles. Technical instrumentation. The rest is silence.

Blessings, more latter, dk

Hit Sixteen Hundred at ICC Blitz Last Night

2011-11-27T07:56:00.000-08:00

Hit 1600 at ICC blitz last night. Just ask expected, only wanted to go for it when it was not so much 'on a flier' but as a sure thing, woosh, and it was. My ICC profile, dk-transform is here.

My real goal always was and still is, 1500 bullet, both figures (1600 blitz) more or less equivalent to a 1900 standard rating. This cannot be objected to. I hit 1466 at 0 4 (four second increment) two nights ago, and damn, missed it again, getting closer, and man am I DETERMINED.

... Yes, yes, its not a fact, but lets just say that MOST persons who attain those numbers, have that level of skill. MOST players with those figures are at the level of standard chess time controls, but this does not mean that MOST 1900 players at standard time controls can play Blitz or Bullet that fast.

The 1600 figure puts me at about the 37.8% (2,844th out of 10,653 players at that time control at ICC). It took me longer than wormwood, ala Burning Castles, but still did it).

I am finally settled with the USCF, and after 35 rated games, 1666. I had to start from 1452, and pretty much thought that I would go STRAIGHT up t0 1750/1800, but its not that easy. I had to retool my brain to slower play, and now know how to sit and think, and think, and think, not so easy to do after five or six slow games after 30,000 internet blitz games (the real number, or more). I have refused a lot of draw offers then lost, had won to flat positions against several 1900, 1910, 2200's etc, but well, there is a reason they are where they are, one bad move, one single error, and its over. Plain and simple. Near instant.

Well, I plan to write more, but I have said that before. I wish like Blue Devil Knight I could write more peripateticly, but its not natural for me, much as I respect how he can do that.

Best, dk david_korn at verizon dot net, West Caldwell, NJ

ps, I have been running the blog for my strong regional chess club, The West Orange Chess Club. You will notice the same texture and style, albeit, tone down the idiosyncratic side as much as I can, and now duly persuaded.... A truly great place, that I am most honored to call myself part of. Thank you WOCC.

EVENT: Three Hour Clinic, by GM Joel Benjamin, Branchburg NJ, Sat 24 Sept 2011

2011-09-14T11:57:00.000-07:00

"BREAKING NEWS from the Dean of Chess Academy and NJ Knockout Dean Ippolito..."

[A. Rob Bernard, father of our new member Jaron USCF 1041 ELO age ten, asked us if we could kindly post the announcement below.

B. GM Joel Benjamin, ranked 12th in The United States, USCF 2660, wrote American Grandmaster: Four Decades of Chess Adventures. For review and details at Amazon, click red here.]

"We here at Dean of Chess Academy (www.deanofchess.com click red at L to access site) have an exciting event planned! On Saturday September 24th from 5pm until 8pm, Grandmaster Joel Benjamin will be offering a three-hour clinic, where he will analyze games submitted by participants. GM Joel has won the US Championship three times, and he hosts a weekly chess radio show, "Game of the Week" on the Internet Chess Club.

"This event will be a fundraiser for the New Jersey Knockouts, New Jersey's only professional chess team. Both Dean Ippolito and Joel Benjamin have been members of the Knockouts since its inception. DOCA is proud to host this unique instructional seminar, given by one of the leading chess teachers in the USA.

"There will be a maximum of only 10 participants in the clinic, so Joel will have time to analyze each game thoroughly. Anyone age 14 and older is eligible to participate. If you are between 11 and 13 years old, you must be an experienced tournament player and must contact Dean directly for special permission to take part in this event.

"The cost of GM Joel's clinic is only $75 (in advance) for the three hour session, and $100 space permitting at the door; all funds will go to the Knockouts -- please sign up at DOCA.

"The Dean of Chess Academy is located at 3150 Rt. 22W, Branchburg NJ 08876.

"Additionally, we will have a G/5 tournament immediately after the clinic. The G/5 will be a 6 round swiss and is open to everyone. The entry fee is $20 to members and $30 to non-members. The prizes are 40% of the total entry fees collected minus the TD fee for first place.

"20% minus the TD fee will go to second, 10% minus the TD fee will go to 3rd. 5% minus TD fee will go to top Under 1600 (quick ratings used) and 5% to the top Under 1300. The remaining 20% will go to help fund the NJ Knockouts."

Almost Beat 1971 Debut

2011-06-26T17:48:00.001-07:00

Messed Up ChessBase 11 Embed graphic better than nothing.

Hit 'Full Screen' Button at R. Takes about five to ten seconds to load, that is to say this is not a blank chess board!

... sorry to have to be so finicky, but its the nature of the beast (German software is like saying Italian accounting, Korean passivity, Japanese men gone wild, California valley girls doing linear equations--'Its like, so Laplace, you know!', low carb southern food, desert rain-forest, horrible French Food, frumpy Italian hand bags, trailer park British Royalty, American Industrial Christian values, low fat foie-gras, holistic big allopathic medicine, Michael Jackson sound sleep, Madoffian socially responsible investing, Walt Disney Structural Functionalism, Alien Abduction Bush Secret Service, Smart Phone wood checkering, U.S. Army Gandhi banisters, NBA midget draft, non-alcoholic triple-malt Scotch). You get the idea:

Once you hit full screen mode, move the divider bar between the board to the game score, to expand the latter, so it is not all scrunched in.

The issue is assuredly NOT the over-sized embed, but how this looks as posts accumulate, in due time, so that this view might not conflict with text at side. Subject to review. dk

Charles Galofre

2011-06-19T13:19:00.000-07:00

Miami's chessmen (clockwise from left): Alberto Hernandez, Rodelay Medina, Charles Galofre, and Renier Gonzalez [1]

Dear Chess Friends, I have been on a long hiatus, now for sometime helping structure and organize a new start-up in Cloud Computing. On a good day, I am Executive Vice President, some days the janitor, and on bad days with a contracting voice. Some days helping guide deep and uncanny strategy, others not able to grasp how to win a small account. Its humbling. Endless practice. Never can we be prepared enough, to shape a major endeavor.

If I ever fail to review--then approve any comments, it is not benign neglect but rather a result of too many Google log-ins--my old Polgar Middlegame initiative email, my davidkorn.specialprojects at geee! male dot kom email, The West Orange Chess Club email (I now produce their blog--to help my most wonderful club back and running there), and most recently, my email associated with the start up. That makes four. I have browsers for each, but the one for here sees the least, albeit, I do always get to it, just not as often...

On that note, my dear friend FM Charles Galofre (USCF 2316 ELO) has reached out to me, to draw notice to his web-site, Chess Training School. Charles is the real deal.

It is unclear to me what the significance of the second site he is affiliated with is, but I duly note it here [2]. While he is filled with enthusiasm and its therefore hard to link to it as a main draw when it is woefully inoperative relative to his not insignificant chess imprimatur (no fault there, matter of 'the cobblers shoes'), I nevertheless can wholeheartedly recommend him without any qualifications as a chess teacher. He is far more than a chess master, but a bone-fide candidate International Chess Master.

Charles did not teach me, but mentored me, and so, so very well. It was he who in a big way helped shape the very fundamental major choices of my opening repertoire (Slav and Torre added to my inveterate Caro-Kann), helped me get into chessBase 9 very, very powerfully, and if that were not enough, got me off to a clear and firm start into Chess Tactics Server.

I don't now if or when Charles will make or be an IM. But I do know, that were it not for enormous responsibilities with his family, producing and editing chess videos, and chess teaching, that he would easily be one now. Life costs us all, and he no less than you or me...

He is at ICC, as TheSalesman, handle. He can teach you in the Miami-Dade area, over the phone, help you hold local chess tournaments, and teach you at ICC remotely. He loves chess. And its obvious. He is incredibly gifted [3] and he shares that god-light in his chess.

I truly don't know where my chess would be without him.

Blessings, dk

[1] Article in Miami New Times, called: 'Grandmasters in Guayaberas', where with his team-mates who beat no less than Harvard in the Final Four of Chess.

[2] Chess and Learning Blog, linked here.

[3] He has beaten many Grandmasters--many times--at ICC, including no less than OM, etc. Hardly a laughing matter beating a once world number eleven, US Chess Champion, etc :-).

My god! Warp Speed Vodka

2011-03-13T20:50:00.000-07:00

My brief comment at a most wonderful chess site, ChessVibes on round two of the super strong Amber Tournament at Monaco pretty much says it all about Grishuk. Some wonderful comments back, here.

"Grischuk, such a talent. Manages to be at or near the very top with a reputation for lack of work, is it (not sure) or saying he does not enjoy chess (its just a job, i.e. in money as a comparison to other alternatives), and playing poker?

"In comparison think of Morozevich, who on the other hand, might not feel compelled to do anything save on the one hand either play beautiful, daring chess or says top eight or just the top thirty, his place there is off no consequence as he tells it, except to the extent that he is positioned to win the World Chess Championship".

The way he never smiles somehow makes him seem--from a chess perspective--seem all the more godlike. dk [1] [2]

[1] don't ask me how, but the otherworldly quality of his face, as though his pale blue eyes were somehow carrying the burdens of the entire planet, reminds me of Werner Herzog's account My Best Friend (documentary 1999) of manically crazed Klaus Kinski, in his most amazing story of their twisted collaboration cum friendship, or his other movie, Fitzcarraldo (1982). Cold Russian nights, vodka, deep Dostoyevskian preturnatural infinite yearning for redemption and god.

[2] By the way, lest I forgt to mention, THE game in THIS video is a blinfold game. First god created Spinoza, Descartes, then Hume, but when he got to Plato and Kant, he created gods. Kramnik, Anand, Carlsen. All of them from Olympus.

Chess 960

2010-06-06T01:14:00.000-07:00

If you have not tried Chess960--aka Fischer Random Chess--then you are missing out. Chess960 randomizes the starting piece layout, but otherwise castling and all the normal rules of chess clearly apply. Both ICC and chessCube offer it, the prior in the aforementioned 'pool' (pairs players automatically, disallowing players choosing opposition, that is to say, avoiding upper or lower rated players).

It forces the issue on positional assessment early on, and sharpens tactics, marginalizing the inescapable and ever present rubric of openings and opening tabiya's. Wow. Very strong medicine.

I just spent a night playing, and at 1300 to 1400 960 rated, 80% of my opposition were dudes with 2000 blitz, bullet, and 5 0 ratings alike... its like 'chess dying'. 5 wins, 16 loses 1 draw= 21. Jesus fu_ck. Try it out. Its like a chess final exam.

To Be Really Powerfull

2010-06-02T22:12:00.000-07:00

To be really powerful, love what you have. To know but one good rook ending, or twenty, not 1,000, not buying ten ending books--what a concept! To sit in your own galoshes.

Maybe even read a trashy old endgame book till the binding disintegrates, surpassed by nineteen new slick endgame books by Gambit or Batesford or DVD's by chessBase, or chessCafe's Russell Enterprises. Yes, all fantastic. But I say the search is over. Work with what you have--but I say, 'Please Lord, let me finally do some REAL work'.

Shinryu Suzuki in his classic Zen Mind, Beginners Mind described it well: To paint a bamboo, become a bamboo. It takes great skill to grasp totalities simply; to be really simple, it takes an act of much sophistication cultivated by great reduction.

Let us use what we have, not run and get more. More what? Distraction as Blaise Pascal called it.

Years ago, I set out with great infatuation to collect chess classic games. I did so. First 350, then 932, then compiling 1,500+ of the certifiably agreed upon greatest, most stunning, exemplary chess games EVER played, till I gushed out all over the place at as many as 5,020, my current mushroomed, swelling collection.

When it was carefully firm at 932 games, I had viewed or studied each and every one of them. But after 1.5K, I lost my way. More is less. Become bamboo, don't run and buy ten bamboo photo albums. Be a bamboo. A single bamboo.

Worth a Damn

2010-06-02T01:14:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a poet might wish to be able to write ONE GOOD LINE of poetry before they die. Me? I have figured out chess:

If I could but understand and learn R vs. R & P endings before I die, I might ACTUALLY be potentially decent at chess--able to ALMOST play acceptable chess! It's just that easy.

Letters to a Not So Young Blue Devil Knight: Where to Go Next?

2010-05-04T11:32:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, our most esteemed friend BDK--truly along with wormwood one of the smartest, most practically armed 'guys' around in our chess blogesphere--is about to become a father.

No longer able just to think of his wife and himself alone, he judiciously told us recently that its NOT that he cannot afford the US $70.00 for an ICC annual membership, but rather in comparison to other priorities such as responsibly paying down a VISA [1], ‘triathlon’s, and physical health’, seeks other venues.

I had long felt that I was the one among us who needed to write a narrative comparing all major chess playing venues in the English speaking world or among its friends where English is not the primary language, but well spoken (Netherlands, India, etc), and that time is now. With a few exceptions, I have either played many of them and in real size or viewed them.

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Major Providers:
ICC or The Internet Chess Club is the best, there is no escaping it. But it is also the most expensive, and to the many of you where ‘best’ must be right sized to family and/or individual budgets, myriads of FIDE masters, International Masters, Grandmasters, Experts, and hoards of ‘class C’ to ‘class A’ club level players with such intricately clever finger notes [2] that their marvels bar as high creative literature, despite all that, in comparison to other options and lifestyle choices, it just doesn’t seem worth it. I heartily disagree, but to each his or her own:

You can see the likes of Rabjabov, Nakamura, Aaronian, or Morozevich, and at times even Carlsen, Dreev, Mamedyarov, or Kamsky. FICS or Playchess either don’t have it or if they do, to a much less degree. Some say, ‘what do I care if GM’s play where I play?’ Well, “don’t knock it till you try it”--watching GM blitz at 3/0 or 3/1.

Play: Top ranks also for ease of getting a game. In fact, I venture to say, that ‘the pool’ for 5/0, 15/0, and—for those who like it—1/0 is so deep that this alone justifies the membership. What is so good about it is that you click, for example, 5/0 and you are put in a pool matching you by color and rank with a similarly paired player. It is fast, it is fair, and it doesn’t take long. No-play lists cannot be regarded—it chooses for you. This negates the factor of boosting by avoiding certain types of players—you get the low, you get the high, you get your peers, we all do. It’s fantastic. Who has time to sit and wait for games or, in-turn, inviting ad-infinitum? Who? Problem solved.

Advantages: many titled players; a large and increasingly comprehensive library of trainings and videos, a rich culture of wry comments from a richly woven community of really smart people from countries round the world; good recall of player data, easy to access and use game histories on not only your last twenty games, but your opponents, and their opponents; and a low rate of lag, or connectivity failure. All this makes for a rich virtual learning community or online community of knowledge, with rich and rewarding social intercourse.

Disadvantages: some find $69.95 to be too expensive (or 19.2 cents or about 0.142 Euro’s per day). Tolerance for rudeness, despite avowed implicit if not stated policy against it, is actually quite high.

I have heard Yermolinsky make explicit racist statements about Tiger Woods referencing Magnus Carlsen that I wont repeat here, but suffice to say, not only wrote ICC and printed his words, but positively spoke with Joel Berez, President of ICC, reaching him and talking at length with him on his mobile phone. Nothing done. Celine Rules [6 insert].

I am inclined to stay unsettled by this sort of thing and not forget, but recently, seeing his photo at the site, as one of the commentators for the current WCC between incumbent Anand and challenger Topalov, knew that he was already being well punished. As Gurdjieff once said, ‘people are their own punishment’ and the very hatred and vitriol he puts forth, told to stop it by no less than me directly more than once, shows in his physiology.

You know the type, very Russian and very bitter. Nevertheless, all that said, let me close our first review by noting that I have made many wonderful and lasting friendships there.

FICS or Free Internet Server first and foremost attempts to replicate what ICC set out to do, but to sustain what was once a free service, and was established as a breakaway faction.

Its main advantage, other than being ‘the low cost provider’ (and it naggingly shows), is its apparent similarity to ICC yet it lacks its imprimatur, volume, or capacity. I do admit, it’s the most community oriented social group, and if you play there, you will get to know the names and faces, perhaps much easier than at ICC and certainly Playchess or chessCube--by far the far largest volume providers.

Disadvantage: if you are on the west coast or in Europe, its player volume drops off after 11 PST and obvious very early 7 am CST near the center of Europe in the Netherlands will find yourself light on play.

Playchess is also free and the shear volume leader. While it lacks the volume of titled players and GM’s as ICC, it is the clear volume leader. Having said that, its player volume is very cyclical and is not continuous through the day and your ability to instrumentalize that will depend a lot on where you live or some as to when you can sleep.

This great site has a very great advantage--even without premium membership with ensuing access to videos and broadcast commentary channels and narratives--and that is its putting you half way to chessBase, when chessBase lite and PlayChess coordinate perfectly. They have it set, most favorably, so that you cannot use the one while you use the other [3], chessBase in their infinite wisdom (and perhaps no small marketing savvy) has seen fit, so that when you are off playchess, the games easily are stored in chessBase light [4].

If I wasn’t already a tenured user at ICC, FICS, and now chessCube, I would make it my first choice barring ICC.

Despite its lack of heavy credentialed players does not mean there are not tons of class B's and A's so this is not Yahoo! on steroids. No. But again, despite missing all the IM's of ICC, it does offer a compensating benefit--Fritz8 when viewing match games. When you play, it is fully disabled. But when you are watching, you can select Fritz or Crafty or whatever client you want among an array of choices, and without having a separate window for chessBase or separate application, it is BUILT IN. It's the bomb. So when Dortmund or Linares or Wijk aan Zee is showing, you have built in analytics. A+ to team chessBase! And again, its free. Good god.

[tempoary Insert: I am told this is not true, that to get RATED you need a premium membership at 29.90 Euros, about US $38.47--about 0.10 cents per day]

Disadvantage: Playchess is very light in the wee hours, and its very, very heavily weighted towards European players.

Click to enlarge, photo courtesy of chessBase

But if you like me, view Europeans as superior to many American’s (I am NOT being sarcastic), then this is not all bad! And if like me, you are a night bird, it’s a no go unless you play at work, at lunch in the States, OR emphasize the weekends.

Playchess totally lacks features like finger notes at ICC and FICS, which add no small part to their great color.

ChessCube also has great volume. The apsx/java GAME BOARD interface is very, very slick which is a GREAT positive, but the game room and reporting interface sucks a big weenie. Such beta between greatness and paltriness!

Disadvantage: integrity is the lowest [5]. The shear volume of disconnects and take backs is mindblowing. I say, no way. The reporting is a dinosaur. PGN’s are available, but only if you touch the top of you head, spin three times, and get a PMP Certification or are a Certified Dell technician. You also need fifteen fingers. Need I say more. How unfortunate—they didn’t get it all wrong, and yes, its free.

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The Zoo:
Yahoo chess: the volume of strong players CAN be very good, if you know WHERE or when to go, but it can still be hard to get a game. Nevertheless, most of you would be shocked HOW strong the intermediate room is, Challenging Café—a tough, tough place as distinct from Yahoo! Social, a real zoo if ever there was one! Rudeness is maximal, its the McDonalds of chess or as they say, 'what do you want, its the internet?' Degraded is another word.

Disadvantage: pgn reporting via email has, despite showing availability that I know of, has been disabled. Terrible.

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Odds and ends:
chess.com
I don't pretend knowledge or experience of chess.com's PLAYING venues, but certainly have been a member there for a long time. I respect them greatly, but just like I am a veterate ICC person and never concerted bypassed playchess, so here: I have done all my posting at blogger, and used it as my source of chess contacts and conversations.
I had no idea chess.com had such volume, but I cannot but be skeptical of the quality of the interface and ability to access, retain, and view games, or get player data. That is to say, as much as the some 1,000 games that I could see being played today, its not to ask WHY NOT play here, as why play there when those same sort of volumes are available playchess or chessCube for free also.
On the fly, the board like chessCube's is very sweet, with a nice replay feature (unlike chessCube). But its also very, very hard to see the whole room. If I am playing, I want to see who is who, and what is what. It has some of chessCube's volume, if you want a simple web hosted player, but without the ability to see the whole venue on one page. Very critical.

GameKnot
Good environment but weighted for correspondence chess, usually three days per move. I suspect they MIGHT have internet chess, but can hardly be expected to have volume.
If I were both a professional writer with duty to verify all data, I would join JUST to get this data, but enough, I have too much already, AND if my life afforded the leisure of disciplined rewriting and polish, I would gladly do so, but I have not had income for 1.5 years.
Sorry. If gameKnot or its affiliates wish to notice me about this, I will gladly insert this here.

RedHotPawn
Same as gameKnot except I know that no internet (blitz or standard, etc) chess is played there, save correspondence. Very, very smart community. Very active message board. I suspect a lot more programs and chess engines are used than is acknowledged, but that is not our matter today. Smart record keeping, smart interface and heck, wormwood loves it--'works for me'. I left, but respect it--I can play or do deep analysis on computers here at home without involving others. Forgive me if I am wrong.
I will gladly paste clarification here also. Please advise. Write David underscore _ Korn at cable speed dot com; cablespeed is one word.

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Stats and comparisons:
1:30 am PST, 4:30 am EST, 9:30 am CST:
Times are obviously late but A. I am wide awake and can measure it calmly, and B. proportions are larger in the day but similar.

ICC: ‘403 players displayed of 891’, assume means 488 not counted, so 244 games. ICC has a Spanish speaking set of options in play and training that they purchased.

FICS: ‘305 players displayed of 831’, assume means 528 not counted or 264 games.

Playchess: ‘1375 main playing hall, 2,444 online’.

ChessCube: ‘2,237 online, 557 live games.

Yahoo, Social: 1,460 in top seven room, and next set several hundred et al.
Yahoo, Intermediate: 167 in Challenging Café
Yahoo, Advanced: two room about 200, sum: 2300 with odds and ends (often more like 4,000 in day time, i.e. EST, latter in day from India/Philippines, Europe, Japan.

9:45 am PST today, 12:45 pm EST, 8:45 pm CST in Amsterdam:
These second set of measure were taken was during the peak of the Anand-Topalov game 8 (Topy win!), and was an excellent way to measure peak users among the aficionado or chess cognoscenti crowd:

ICC: '500 players displayed of 3,901'; WCC game 7 had 1,606 viewers when these measures were taken, so 894 games were being played:
(3,901-1,606= 2294-500=1794/2= 894)

FICS: '793 players displayed of 1,733'; WCC game had 427 viewers, so 257 games (players are those shown NO playing, i.e. list of those available for invites, ostensibly)

Playchess: '7,446 online, 2506 main playing hall; Broadcast showed 3,004, so assuming most were viewing match, that’s about 1253 games, but hard to say.

chessCube: '2,675 players, 982 games' (no WCC broadcast)

chess.com: '3,547 players online'.

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I cannot say who, but spoke with an executive from one of these companies who told me, he ‘wouldn’t let his kids play at this site’, that’s how bad it is, as far as nasty language and behavior goes—and is looked upon with truly blind eyes, or benign neglect.

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To conclude, what you want to be able to do is play chess, not be disconnected too often, be able to complete or avoid disconnected games, be part of a social fabric or dimension, however large or small, be able to save or record your games, then be able to access them, and view them, and be able to obtain and sustain play at the time of day or days of week which suite your work, lifestyle, and economic budget preferences.

If all you want is a place for straight chess—for fun—with no regard for post-mortem or reporting, chessCube has the volume and a great playing board. Its allows premove and is sweet to look at, in all senses.

If you want to be a serious student, my vote is you go straight for playchess and skip FICS. It has real player volume and puts you immediately within easy reach of the foothills of chessBase through its baby version, chessBase light (same software, but disabling of some key features in file management! [5]) and is also free.

Click to enlarge image!!!!

And lastly, if you can spend not so much spend $70 per year as drink one beer less per week or forgo eating lunch out, at work, say twice per month, then there it is, the bar none, top choice but some of you, I know, think $150 for a sport for three years is too much yet the hours you spend on it says otherwise!

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Kant rules [6].

Love dk

[1] The leading credit card provider VISA is a provider of 'revolving credit', known for increasingly pernicious annual fees and/or penalties, easy 'get in terms' with limited conditions, but hard to get out of without belt tightening, due to not only higher rates, but very high rates relative to FED [7] Fund Rates. Those rates are near zero and the banks are having a pig fest.

[2] Finger notes are personal notes giving reign to free speech, self expression, settling grievances, or giving thanks!

[3] Total inability to view the one during the other is not quite true, but believe me, I have been using chessBase daily for over four years, and cannot tell you all I know at once, but its MOSTLY TRUEAgain, its not quite that simple but it is...more or less how it is: You need chessBase lite, another highly recommended free application, to READ those games from playchess. Suffice to say, if you do both, they make it easy and painless.

[4] Top marks here.As always, I can get you past that, but alas, a story for another day.

[5] Chess is not played by grabbing a piece, putting it down, then moving it, and saying 'I didn't mean that. Its not chess if it is. Chess is heavy and tense and irrevocable. Attracting a mass of persons who ask for TB's is not flattering to chessCube, no fucking way! They do laps around all other sites therein, its a fact. Why? The TB button is built in the screen. Bad, bad, bad design. Its like providing a brothel at a methodist isolated offshore drilling site. Flames. Light the match.

[6] Just kidding. Fritz Perls, and the Upanishads rule, take your pick.

[7] The FED does NOT set interest rates in the market [8]; rather, their charter purpose is price stability, one of the major tools of which is monetary policy, that is to say, setting rates that they charge to major money center banks in overnight loans. The trickle down affect is that banks loan THOSE funds, AKA 'injecting liquidity into the market. The FED can apply brakes or add fuel to this flow, by selling bonds or in turn buying bonds by taking money out of the system or re-injecting it.

[8] In the long run, the FED cannot control rates, but market forces do. The FED sets and communicates policy, meeting every six weeks and three weeks latter, making the minutes of the preceding meeting available, also every six weeks. The FED sets policy; buyers and sellers, that is to say, market forces set rates. And guess who or what is the market? It’s the currency market, enormous tranches of Euro’s, Yen, Yuan [9], Reals, Pounds, Wan, Peso’s sloshing around the planet, between buying and selling by major central banks such as the ECB, BOJ, European Central Bank or Bank of Japan. These markets dwarf even the most gargantuan USA stock markets, in global financial super novae.

[9] The currency of China, AKA Rimbi.

1800

2010-03-09T01:14:00.000-08:00

Short and sweet: Well, about nine years back to chess, 99.99% of it on the internet, mainly ICC, Yahoo! before that, FICS at times, a tab bit of playchess, and even some 950 games at chessCube, after all that time, I am finally reached what is, by any measure, a real milestone.

In internet chess, what with all the addicts, geeks, and crazies, 'they don't give it away for free'. Its a bloody dog-fight, thats for sure!

I could say tons about the relative advantages, disadvantages, compensating elements of each of these, or regarding what actually function as--in essence--virtual or on-line communities, but that, alas, is for another day.

I did attain 1800+ at chessCube tonight. Hard to say, but its probably like 1600 in 5-minute chess at ICC. For sure it is inflated, but not WAY inflated. But if any of you have played 5 0 at ICC, you know that even 1500 is no laughing matter, which no less a blogger than wormwood, I am quite certain of, could safely attest to.

5-minute was a game that I used to be afraid of, for sure, but in due time, I had begun to see my advantage. My openings are all mapped out; I can pre-move; and faster than most (but not all), often whipping out tabaya's in 20 seconds or less. Whereas before beating 1700's was not common and 1800's most rare, now I am routinely beating 1800's.

Compare to ICC? Why yes, you will have that. But not today. I did so much work in chessBase9 on my prep, in virtually ALL lines, that I had to take a break there, with, what, chessCube as a low ego stakes game, or venue. Reporting there is worse than dying, whereas ICC is a svelte pipeline straight into chessbase, so I can play late, or tired at chessCube, and not get all hopped up inside, feeling like I need to chart the heavens after, like Laplace charting hyperspace or Euler explicating complex analysis. No, 'just chess, nothing else', like in the beer commercial.

The board there is slick; the interface truly sucks [1]. How they fail to learn or see, is beyond me, and I am speechless. Again, long story. Best summed up another day so other chess players can compare...

Me? I have a serious illness. My body is not dying. No guesses, please. If you read between the lines in the photo, age 52 and all, with my lovely and dear girlfriend Courtney, still 39 bless her heart, what a thing to still be '30!' I tell her, if you read between the lines with all my beets, cabbage, organic meat, carrots, string beans, black bean, rice, gluten and dairy free, you will witness an usual specimen for his age, running and stretching, a nutrition advertisement but things DO happen in life and in my own way, I am fighting for my life.

Love to all beings, dk

[1] Any of you who know me, know that I NEVER say 'suck' but it sucks. Believe me.

Fifteen Thousand

2010-01-31T11:48:00.000-08:00

Bullet Craze on a Sunday [1].

Fifteen thousand. Yes. Fifteen thousand is how many chess games saved that I have played to my chessBase9.

Its not that that's all of em. No. I had about three thousand as text files, in my old notebook PC in Outlook, I had honestly always planned to migrate over to pgn four or five years ago, but no worries.

With odds and ends, I am sure it is more like 20,000 since 2001. Remember, I had two, three years on Yahoo! before first ICC, then FICS, and even now, chessCube for low ego, low stakes warm up games. Its not that I play so much, as when I do play, its very, very hard to stop. Celexa also rev's me up. Not that an adjustment cannot be made, but believe you me, I have tried all the major anti-depressants, and its the ONLY one that works for me, 98% impotence aside :)... I know, I know, I am so shy and private to a fault. Elevated serotonin and sleep don't mix well but it sure beats the 'end of a gun' (gassing myself).

Seriously now with a quite a bit of truth there, the main message is, 15K games does one main thing, among a great many things (primer on endings, primer on blunders, a few brilliancy's, a few scalps against experts aside, etc), but one thing in particular:

If you are systematic, as I am--not with all things but many things, particularly in my areas of obsession--it will give you every major variation of every major line you play.

For example, if you play 1.d4, for sure you will get many Slav's, QGD, QGA, many chances to refine your anti-Indian strategies, many Semi-Slavs'. But you will also learn how to face the Chigorin Defense, many Albin Counter Gambits, many 1.d6, 1.e6, 1.c6...

For the last 18 months, I had more or less done, independent of his findings, exactly as wormwood did, as shown at Building A Repertoire, And Mastering It. Without intended criticism to our good friend Secrets of Grandpatzer Chess, he does a far better job of being systematic about it, or extracting the value from the value chain. I did as much.

Its great to have and use chessBase or similar--but its what you do with it. It reminds me of the folks who get a Masters or even undergraduate degree in English. They read, and they read, and they read, until they are sick. But try reading ten books, really reading them!

I mined all my openings, and found 84 tabiyas [2]. And out of--to start-- some 7,000 or so games, found that 24 key positions made up a full 80% of ALL my games. I took those, in turn, and narrowed them down so that I could find what I needed to do more of, find what I needed to do less of. Its a lot of work, but it pays.

Kant rules [3]. Warmest, dk

[1]. To all you men out there, try to not only finding a woman who not only encourages you to play chess but allows you to, when she is in the SAME room, to play as I do here, bullet chess for three hours+ AND doesn't complain, well neigh encourages you AND, then gleefully takes photographs of you doing so [4]?? Jesus guys. Melancholy Meadow Willows, my beloved Courtney is--or has been--a poet, dreamer, healer, and entertainer.

[2] A few random links on Tabiyas, here, and here, and here. And finally, the inimitable Dan Heisman at ChessCafe.com here and here, hopefully not without profit.

[3] Did any of you notice how in Federer vs. Murray, that the prior didn't seem to sweat? Or how sweaty in comparison Murray was? Jim Courier said as much, here: 'Federer Makes It Murray’s Turn to Cry With 16th Grand Slam Win':

“Federer plays with no stress on his body and seemingly no stress in his mind,” four-time major champion Jim Courier said on Australia’s Seven Network. “As long as he stays healthy, we’ll see him challenging for another three to four years."

[4]. While as a rule I--mostly--consider 1-minute to be a real waste of time, I do have a rule, and that is NEVER to finish a set without a peak rating. Problem was, I had inadvertently hit 'Play 1-Minute' at ICC (intending the next 'Play 5-minute game'), in the pool of random, stacked players, a fabulous feature at ICC [6] and not only lost, but lost again, and again, and again, only to wind up spending an ENTIRE Sunday afternoon doing so, with my girlfriend JUST feet away, and never once complaining.

Yes, I got my peak back AND found, in the next day, I could WHIP out 5-Minute openings and entire games, to my profit, so not a total waste. It has its place [5].

[5]. No laughing. I am not, I repeat, I am not OCD. I kid you not, I played a 9.5 minute bullet game days ago, beating a 1750. No laughing matter. 91 moves, 181 ply. I play 0 4, which begins with twelve seconds, avoiding Armageddon utter non-sense.

[6]. A great feature. At times, while a 1500 can play a 1450 or 1550, pairing as closely as possibly, you will see your fair share of 1700's and 1300's alike. It means you can scalp a few senior players, maybe even an IM, now and again, but allows otherwise unwanted juniors to scalp YOU. The coolest thing. As BDK [7] and wormwood can attest, if you are willing to spend one, two, or three hundred dollars on chess books, CD's, videos, tournament money, beer, wine, Frito-Lay chips but are unwilling to invest in a year's paid membership at ICC, well, there is just no hope for you, plain and simple. Please. If you cannot get chessBase and play at ICC, better to give up chess and open a pawn shop, sell your chess books. OK?

[7] Wonderful post. Highly recommended: 'Katar on the social dimension of chess improvement'.

The Taming Squadron

2010-01-27T12:17:00.000-08:00

I have not worked or had regular income since the day before Thanksgiving in 2008 [1]. Needless to say, its been hard. Do I have time to blog? Probably. Extra mental energy? Maybe, maybe not.

But those of you who know me, are aware that I have been playing chess all along. Hiatus from the bloggesphere? Yes. Absence from chess? Not hardly. But far be it for me to say that I have been luxuriating in endless and sweet reverie in chess, I have not.

I have played plenty, just not at all times. One needs piece of mind to give chess ones all, and I do NOT play for fun. I play for sport, to win, to kill and destroy. Chess is war the way I do it--its all business.

Where I am currently making a big breakthrough is:

Playing regularly in scale, instead of as I did before--marathon sessions for weeks, only to thereafter HAVE TO stop due to stress and exhaustion--and sequestering back in study. Now I try to play every day, or nearly every day, but take more time to review losses, opening prep, CTS, all that. Proportionality and balance.

I am finally 1500 at ICC at 5 0. A rippedly bloody harsh game. My blitz is at 1531, and soon to be 1600 (its out of date now), which ranks 6,732 out of 14,442, but the 5-Minute ranks only 2306 out of 4,153 yet is far more competitive. I also plan to finally hit 1500 at bullet--and I do not mean 1 0--but 0 4, which starts with 12 seconds at ICC and ten at FICS, and can easily have 4 minute games with long endings, avoiding silly Armageddon.

Love to all, dk

[1] But as is plain to see for the eyes, am not doing badly in ALL areas: my beloved Courtney, whom I met on twitter--been to visit in Seattle twice. 23 day second date. Two folks not totally familiar in one tiny house for 3+ weeks without ever going to total war is a good sign. She is the best woman ever! Needless to say, she is very type B to my type A, and so it works....

The Flaming Cauldron

2009-09-01T13:36:00.000-07:00

Where There is Smoke, Their is Fire!

2009-07-15T21:58:00.000-07:00

Might I recommend that you try watching this game between Bologan and Bacrot by paning your browser, with the video on one side, then actual game in your chess viewer on the other?

The way I did it, I moved the curser in chessBase move for move at exactly the same speed of the game.

It is from the first the ACP World Rapid Chess Cup in Odessa, Ukraine [1]. That these guys can really play chess--like other similarly endowed Super Grandmasters--with nerves of steel cannot be doubted. Enjoy!

Impatient viewers can move to the 5:40 mark with Bologan's very tense 31.e6, when things really heat up. No one disagrees that that is Korchnoi's unique voice in the background?

Bologan,V (2658) - Bacrot,E (2705)
1st ACP World Rapid Cup, Odessa UKR (1.4), 06.01.2007 [C88]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0–0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 0–0 8.h3 Bb7 9.d3 d6 10.a3 Na5 11.Ba2 c5 12.Nc3 Nc6 13.Bg5 Nd7 14.Bd2 Nb6 15.Nd5 Nxd5 16.Bxd5 Qc7 17.c3 Nb8 18.b4 Nd7 19.c4 Bxd5 20.cxd5 Nb6 21.Rc1 Na4 22.bxc5 dxc5 23.d4 exd4 24.Nxd4 c4 25.e5 Bxa3 26.Rc2 Qd7 27.Qf3 c3 28.Bxc3 Nxc3 29.Qxc3 Qxd5 30.Nc6 Rfc8 31.e6 fxe6 32.Re5 Qd1+ 33.Re1 Qd5 34.Qxa3 Rxc6 35.Rce2 Rac8 36.Re5 Qd7 37.Qe3 b4 38.h4 Rb8 39.Qf4 Rf8 40.Qxb4 Qc7 41.Qe4 Rc1 42.Rxe6 Rxe1+ 43.Qxe1 a5 44.Re4 Qc5 45.g3 Qb5 46.Qa1 Qf5 47.Qa2+ Qf7 48.Qe2 Qf5 49.Ra4 Rc8 50.Qa2+ Qf7 51.Qd2 Qf5 52.Rxa5 Qf7 53.Ra1 Re8 54.Rd1 Qe6 55.Rf1 Qe4 56.Qa2+ Kh8 57.Qb2 Ra8 58.Rc1 Re8 59.Rc7 Qg6 60.Qd2 Qb1+ 61.Kh2 Qf5 62.Qd4 Qg6 63.Rd7 Rf8 64.Rd8 Qf7 65.Rxf8+ Qxf8 66.g4 h6 67.Kg3 Qf7 68.Qe4 Qc7+ 69.Qf4 Qc3+ 70.Kg2 Qc6+ 71.Qf3 Qd6 72.Qe4 Kg8 73.Kh3 Qa3+ 74.Qe3 Qd6 75.Qb3+ Kh8 76.Qf3 Qe5 77.Kg2 Qd6 78.Qe4 Qc5 79.Qf4 Qc6+ 80.Qf3 Qd6 81.g5 hxg5 82.hxg5 Kg8 83.Qe4 Kf7 84.Kf3 Qh2 85.Qf4+ Qxf4+ 86.Kxf4 Ke6 87.Ke4 g6 88.f4 Kd6 89.f5 gxf5+ 90.Kxf5 Ke7 91.Kg6 1–0

On one short personal note, I am currently spending several hours each day in job hunting. As French anthropologist Rene Dubos once said:

"In many ways, modern man is like an animal kept in a zoo, protected from the inclemencies, confined and depriving him of many of the natural stimulae essential for the well being of his mind and body".

That about says what it is like--home alone all week, cyber knocking on doors and occassionally on the telephone in an equally arcane and impersonal, dissociated world. Man.

Warmest, dk

[1] Source, the weekly video at chessCafe.com.

Chess: What it Really Takes

2008-12-09T20:12:00.000-08:00

Just as I was preparing to reproduce the article in full linked here from chessVibes, under 'What do we think of chess skill?', as I was typing this, first trying to find the source link to the referenced article below, found another similar but distinctly seperate article that chessBase JUST published, so must reproduce only the summary from chessVibes here, so that I can instead follow up with more content from the second article [1]:

'What are the effects of amount of practice, coaching and age of starting chess on chess skill? And how do we chess players view such notions as skill and talent? Dr Robert Howard of the University of New South Wales in Australia carried out a survey and its preliminary results answer a few of these questions.

'On June 15 we invited you to take part in a survey on chess skill by Dr Robert Howard of the University of New South Wales in Australia. Howard’s study of chess skill looks at effects of amount of practice, coaching and age of starting chess on chess skill and at chess players’ views about chess skill. The study involves a short online survey and is for anyone who has, or who ever has had, a FIDE rating. (Participating is still possible; if you’re interested and you have an FIDE rating, please click here.)

Double Click Image to Enlarge

'We have now received the preliminary results:

'Preliminary Results of FIDE Chess Survey

'Thanks to everyone who took part in this survey. Here are the preliminary results. The sample consist of 581 players to date, with five grandmasters, 25 international masters, 67 FIDE masters, two woman’s grandmasters, two woman’s international masters, and two woman’s FIDE masters. The results are only preliminary, however.
Some highlights:

'Players learned the moves at a median age of eight years old (masters about two years younger). The median age of starting serious play and taking part in the first rated tournament is 14, 12 for masters. Most players have had coaching. Players average around five or six hours of chess study a week, but the range is huge (0 to 60 hours). Number of hours of study of chess material is a factor in expertise level but only a relatively minor one.

'Most players firmly believe in natural talent for chess and most believe that top ten players have some special traits, that few really can reach that level. However, many believe that a lot of study and practice can take a player a long way. Some believe that almost everyone can get to FIDE master with enough practice and study.

'Views on what natural talent for chess consists of vary, but some common ideas are good spatial ability, high IQ, good memory, creativity, high motivation, a strong will to win, control over emotions, and psychological hardiness.

Le-Mont St-Michel

'Eventual grandmasters take a median 390 FIDE-rated games from rating list entry to gain the title. Most players do not play anywhere near enough rated games in their careers to have a realistic chance of becoming a grandmaster. About two thirds of those who do play over 900games actually succeed in becoming a grandmaster. However, those who play over 740 games without becoming a grandmaster on average seem to strike an impassable barrier at around 2400 level.

'Analysis of rating data of players who played over 900 FIDE-rated games show that eventual top ten players indeed are identifiable from list entry. They get on the rating list much younger on average, get the grandmaster title much younger and much faster, and rise in theratings much faster than other grandmasters.

'Most believe that playing rated games and studying are equally important in developing skill.

'Read the full article here [highly recommended, dk].

'For any queries, please contact Dr Robert Howard, University of New South Wales.

'Not very surprising results, although I’d like to mention a few that struck me.1) “Number of hours of study of chess material is a factor in expertise level but only a relatively minor one.” This sort of confirms my impression that playing many (tournament) games is the best way to improve your chess. But not everybody agrees: “Most believe that playing rated games and studying are equally important in developing skill.”2) “Some believe that almost everyone can get to FIDE master with enough practice and study.” I was one of those, and I was speaking of a purely theoretical situation where you pick a random person in the street and put him in some kind of villa where he receives 8 hours of excellent training every day for a few years, and plays against many strong players. As long as this person likes chess, I think he(/she!) should be able to reach about 2200, 2300 FIDE'.

Were these riches not enough, chessBase just published a monster article every bit as good:

'Mind Games: Who is Doing the Playing? [link, title left, dk]

10.12.2008 – Discoveries on consciousness have inspired Norwegian philosopher Rune Vik-Hansen to forge a new view on development of chess skills. Challenging the current pedagogical climate, which claims that talent is insignificant and exposure to material a magic formula, he clarifies why blunders in chess are caused by a lack of interplay between consciousness and mind. Treatise with summary.

'Summary/Abstract

'Born out of recent findings from the field of consciousness and mind, the article explains that chess playing is based upon a fine interplay between a mind subconsciously triggering moves, and a well disciplined consciousness knowing what to keep and what to discard. The highly popular opinion that chess playing is done solely by a conscious self is challenged.

'Disputing the concept of “conscious memory”, it is shown that that one cannot remember material by acts of volition, and that development of chess skills cannot be explained by concepts revolving around consciousness.The article takes to task the current pedagogical claims that talent is of no significance and that exposure to chess material will bring the aspiring player equally far, and also the prevalent understanding that passion for, taking an interest in and believing in what you do are important components in improvement, chess or otherwise. On the contrary, the text demonstrates the significance of innate ability, and that passion and interest merely can direct our attention towards certain fields of study, but that acquiring skills involves different mental processes than these.Avoiding blunders being a major component in development of chess skills, they are here explained as caused by a flawed interplay between consciousness and mind, based upon the distinction between seeing and perceiving. A possible solution to the problem is suggested.

'A closer look is taken at the highly popular concept in chess lingua, “pattern recognition”. By pinpointing functional as well as conceptual problems, it is shown that the concept does not meaningfully lend itself to explain chess playing. Specific idiosyncrasies between patterns and structures are scrutinized to show that the conceptual problems run deeper than mere semantics. The fundamental difference is argued by looking at how these two relate to each other, and how they are expressed in chess discourse and chess literature. Since no formal definition of “pattern” in chess exists, it is impossible effectively to meaningfully communicate “pattern recognition” as a workable concept to explain the development of chess skills. To then explain chess playing and support the claim that the idea of “pattern recognition” is highly problematic, “exformation” is introduced as a new concept to chess discourse, thinking and communication.

'Upon closure, chess playing is compared with judgment in the field of morality, trying to explain that just as in morality, chess players constantly encounter and have to deal with situations (positions) never before encountered.Finally, it is offered why many present methods of study will not seriously improve or develop chess skills. In context of the undertaken analysis, Kotov’s method is suggested for chess improvement, and it is explained why it works.
Note: you can use the "Print" function on the left to get a printer-friendly version of this article'.

Hope you all enjoy! Warmest, dk

[1] I sent this to BDK and, to his great credit, already was aware of the article. Nice going!

Alzheimer ELO

2008-12-05T17:33:00.000-08:00

The bad news is I honestly remembered it that way, but heck, its been 37 years since 1973 when I last played! If I intended to misrepresent this to you guys and gals, the last three years, I would NEVER publish this. LOL on dk. Fire at me guys!

The good news is, I am serious about this, that way friends and foe alike will be able to find me online:

Dear Walter:

Charles Galore (FM) of Florida told me you were very responsive, and this is greatly appreciated. He also said you were very nice.

What a delight to not only get positive confirmation from the USCF, but at that to receive it from one of the well known Sanctus Sanctus of enterprising chess from the same era that I also played, albeit at my MUCH lower level back in the day. How poetic!

Question, but correct me if I am wrong, but will the variability of future wins/loses for my next 14 games (I assume this makes the 25 required to no longer be provisional) still be tied to calculations using the old rated 11 players, from before? That is to say, is it true those are used, and not that you start me at 1452, and only calculate 14 games? I don’t know how this works, but need a little reassurance there is a solid method from grandfathered ratings.

I will be sure to send good words back to the good GM Yaz.

Thank you again!

Warmest, dk

When Help Comes: Even Bobby Fischer to Wade...

-----Original Message-----

From: Walter Brown wbrown@_________.com
Sent: Friday, December 05, 2008 1:12 PM
To: transformation@_________.com
Subject: Re: USCF 8323: Ratings Question or Problem
U.S. Chess Web Inquiry wrote:

SUBMITTED TO WEB CONTACT PAGE
From: David Korn, Seattle
Date: Wed 3 Dec 2008 6:49:29 pm CST
Agent: Mozilla/4.0
Subject: USCF 8323: Ratings Question or Problem

Dear USCF:

I plan on re-joining the USCF, but have been away for 34 years! I was 1667 or 1671 or 1668 elo, provisional, at age 14, for 12/14 or 16 games, cannot recall, maybe 8 games but think more. It was published in the back of the old Chess Life & Review for the next three years. I lived in New Jersey. Born October __, 1958. Member, Montclair Chess Club, tournament director Al Gruter (sp?).

I am told that the USCF always wants to know if you have ever played in a rated tournament before, so wish to be prepared and know the procedure.

The condition of my joining is the suitable resolution of this. Thank you.

David Korn
close friend of GM Seirawan's.

David Korn: I found your record in the 1975 annual list and you were 1452 for 11 games.
Walter Brown, USCF [1]

Please, if any of you suffer from Sadness or Depression,
do not play this Johnny Cash video. Warning.

That said, it is among his best ever songs. It might rip your heart in two to hear it [2].

On a more serious note, I heard from the State today. Leave it to likeForest to be one step ahead of everyone else, ALWAYS. For on Thanksgiving day, he simply asks me: 'Are they going to pursue terminate with cause?' ... guy even knows the exact term.

I just spent the entire day writing my side of the story, and now I need to go run for a whole hour to work off the shakes and trembles and tension. Sleep on the deadly contaminated waste, and FAX them the letter tomorrow after revision founded on rest. Bastards in corporate will do all they can to save a dime. Really.

I told it like it is. My boss, and my old boss copied me their two letters tdoay, and both are, to say the least, not at all accurate (which is putting it nicely) as to the facts, obligating me all the more so to set it the record straight as I don't want to be in any way associated with this story that they tell. Damn.

Warmest, dk [3]

...
..
.

[1] Polly aka Castling Queenside, bless her kindest beautiful heart is also mailing me a photocopy of the same GM Brown referenced. LikeForest also so kindly and generously offered to make a special trip to the library to furninsh the same. All great friends! Thank you!

[2] I am particularly indebted to my very dear friend and now colleague, Phaedrus, for sending me this vdieo. He only sends me fine jewels because he himself is one also.

[3] In college, the hardest professor called me Korn's Cornucopia on a good day.
'The cornucopia (Latin: Cornu Copiae) is a symbol of food and abundance'.

Retrieving My Old USCF Rating

2008-12-03T20:19:00.000-08:00

Attention bloggers over age fifty and inveterate collectors of, *well*, stuff, does anyone out there have old issues of 'Chess, Life, & Review', between 1973-76? I know this must come as a real shock to most of you, but I was once forteen years old.

If the USCF cannot respond appropriately, I need to furnish proof, I assume, of my old 1667 provisional rating. This puts me one step closer to joining the USCF and so, play some over the board chess. I am preparing. And, why yes, I have the time now!

The Caro-Kann, Slav, QGA&D, anti-Indian variations from 1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5, Endings, and CT-Art 3.0. Yes, there is enough to do! Any help in finding old issues (ratings lists) much appreciated.

Major Life Changes

2008-12-02T15:06:00.000-08:00

Grinding Halt Takes Eons

After six years working for the second largest building materials company worldwide, it’s over. That they performed their shameless deed the day before Thanksgiving, is now but a small minor detail illustrating the real lack of human regard of the prototypical, modern major, business enterprise.

Was it not Jesus who said: "By their fruits you will know them"?

And if that were not enough, when I got home, I made the appropriately immediate phone call to my now aged--but still very alert mother--who before I could tell her MY news asked me: 'Did you hear?' Since she was the one who informated me about the 9-11 attack in September 2002, with her again serious tone of voice, I suddenly had good reason to feel morbidly anxious.

What terrorist now, I thought? "In India, they were shooting hundreds, asking, 'where are the American's and British?' ... Steven was there, just last week in the same hotel".

My older brother, who travels the world at a Director level doing large scale enterprise consulting (aka 'System Integration) in travel and finance for one of the many large India computor services companies, had indeed been there at the exact same hotel in Mumbai just days before. The thoughts that go through our head. So that's when I got to tell her. This was all within the hour of getting uncerimoniously fired. Not the best of days!

Let’s face it, if an employer needs a reason to fire four people all at once, they can always find a way to do it. It's never pretty, but to me its all just economics, as I am not bitter, and have appreciated the last six years—truly. I have met hundreds of thousands of persons, and some real portion of them were the best encountered ever anywhere, I kid you not.

I have had much to say about the economy, and now my similarity to many persons in dire straights has only increased. While right now my overall health is very good [1] and my emotional state good, the system is oversupplied with job applicants—at every conceivable level. For example, JP-Morgan Chase, who bought failed Seattle based Thrift WAMU, just last night announced layoffs of 3,400 persons, and this clogs the State Unemployment system, and on the margin, vastly increased the already swelled ranks for job seekers.

Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Areas [1.1]

On principle, I had and have every intention of staying here, but in this economy MUST allow myself to entertain any reasonable job offer in any place, since my best shot of technical [2] sales clearly now take me anywhere, to any enterprise, doing anything. Yikes. I don’t want to leave this place; I want my mountains; I want my moderate climate; I want my diversity. But I want to sustain my economic viability even more.

This is first and foremost a chess blog, even if I roam current affairs, society, the planets, the soul, the edge of things. For the last seven weeks, I have been playing on line chess ‘every single day’ [3]. This has been my stress release. I was already looking for a new job, and for the last year, at work, I was already all but fired anyway, and kept around like a pig ready for slaughter. See the post called Hopeless at my other blog devoted to Inner Work.

I said I wasn’t bitter. That’s true. But it's also more than true to say that as the single highest paid person who was not a manager--AND paid more than most of the main managers--it was a testament to my work ethic that I was able to survive the last year under brutal top management's unrelenting pressure, ceaseless scrutiny, compulsive criticism, micro-inspection seeking blame and 'make wrong' at all costs, limitless demands, and implied threat [4] in a boundless parade of the divine comedy which in and of itself perfectly exemplified the full spectacle of ignorance, arrogance, and stupidity. Where is Rabelas and Cervantes now?

Along with that, I have been processing and viewing reams, hoards of high level GM games in chessBase daily. I hate to say it again, but more on that latter [7] as if to say that if I was already way too preoccupied with ‘the job situation’ the last three months since the financial crisis emerged [8], then that much more now. That hit the emergency break on blogging as you know it from me.

Thirdly, I have yet again resumed working at CT-Art 3/0, and as before, take a lot of time on each position. I set up a small travel set, and keep two boards for two positions open at a time. With the first open, I try to solve it; the second one is for pondering. Once the first is attempted in the program and have gone as far as I can absolutley go no further, the second assumes the fore, when I attempt the first problem formally and directly at the computor here, and open a new, second position.

Who are these rash fools who think that they have done CT-Art 3.0 in two months or two weeks? Did they ever calculate all the lines? Did they see the board or just 'click, click', and eat the virtual Fast Food of McTactics? No. Two years or more if you really spend real time on it. Not possibly any less than a year if they really concentrated.

If you do one CTA3 in less than a day, well *ahem* , then you never really saw the fucking board. Don't kid yourself with more dilusion. CTA3 is not about sustaining your dilusion but annihilating it and this, pal, is not fast. Remember, 'takes you to Master Level'. Master level is about rarety from 1500 to 1700 elo and rarety is not, sorry to say, fast.

Often, I take them to my bed early each evening for my beloved daily nap. By the time I have moved the curser ONCE, to attempt the position, I have calculated every variation that I can. Artificial a measure though it may be, 2200 elo is still not attainable by someone who does not know something about chess, and who has studied a lot of tactics, and learned to calculate. Half way through Level Five, you really need to be able to first conceive an irrational move then see the best reply, THEN be able to envision an another counter-intuitive chess move, then a best reply, and THEN more of the same for many a ply. Its very hard, the way I do it. No moving pieces, just a deep brain stare!

After that, my enchantment with CTS continues. While I can no longer spend hours there, and at 50,000+ tries I have spared no effort, I manage after long breaks totally away from there, to make my way back. My motive now is to get to 96.5001% as dogWaste finally, and to get to 50,000 tries at 90.0501% as dkTransform. Its diminishing returns now, and the prize far and away lays elsewhere, such as CT-Art or Secrets of Pawn Endings, or Shereshevsky’s Endgame Strategy.

Finally I am working on repertoire. If any of you are on ICC, and not using wimpB to refine your openings, by playing a set sequence of moves 1450-1650 for blitz [9] which at the main departure point of the tabaya will vary its responses, forcing you to really learn your ‘lines’, then shame, shame on you!

Also, at FICS, I took what was gained from that concenrated burst at ICC and now only play a set repertoire. As a consequence of that, when I get to a place where I don’t have a set response to a new fundamental position, then endeavor to find or develop one. It might be very simple and need not be elaborate, such as always using g3 against the Dutch Defense. The main idea is--good or bad—to take a position, explore it, and not deviate until you reach a dead end and fail, then reassess, and so on [10].

The best for last. I while I must focus on my job search, yes, I do work at my chess daily. I have printed a list of all USCF events in the Northwest in the next few months, and it is my definite intent to see if I can get my old 1670 USCF back and if they wont let me start from there, well, start over!

Warmest, dk

The Low Point of the Last Seventy Years

[ 1] The blood pressure with the adrenal supplement program is now again excellent, and this is one more instance of integrative or holistic health bypassing the mere masking of symptoms by allopathic medicine, which only tries to suppress or inhibit them instead of getting at root cause. I do admit, while my current program has assuaged the prior (pre-hypertension), its still very, very hard for me to sleep normally. I am running daily again, and as I quickly re-establish the ability to run for an hour or more, this aught to help the sleep mightily (I hope)!

[1.1] A very nice list of MSA's or Metropolitan Statical Areas, is shown here. You want to know America? Then you must know this!

[2] The essence of my resume is my being the rare person who can communicate well, talk, write, do presentations all while being very comfortable with Contact, Project, and Knowledge Management alike. This is my calling card. A spreadsheet, technical, financial or visual data person who can negotiate and lead who it just so happens, is highly creative. Try explaining that one to blind server agents only capable of reading blind ASCE *.txt data!

[3] Ok, ok. Not every single day, but 42 of the last 46 days, where I maintain perfect cumulative records of history both at FICS, ICC, and now Chess Cube [5] (my warm up place).

[4] The fact that I challenged senior and middle management on a regular basis only made it more so—my lasting there, proving that I gave them real dollar value, despite their repeatedly reminding me how much I was paid :) . In computing, this relates to what is called ‘the deadly embrace’ [6].

[5] Despite its lack of full features such as access to automated pgn reports, or performance history, this lack of professional polish gives it some appeal. I don’t need to invest much in my feelings about it. Almost, just, just almost 1700 in blitz yesterday, but not quite… At the same time, the game board interface is very pleasant, baring a clock too small for me since I play tight, increment games at 3/3 there, which is five minutes for 40 moves but avoids some stupid Armageddon.

[6] Information about the deadly embrace, can be found here, The Apollo Syndrome. Definition of The Deadly Embrace: This is a term used in computing some years ago to signify a problem between two computer programs - where each prevents the other from making progress.

"What happens is that Program A takes exclusive control of record 1, and program B takes record 2. Program A then tries to get exclusive access to record 2, but as this is under exclusive control of the other program, it can't. The program then waits until record 2 is released. Meanwhile, program B tries to get exclusive control of record 1, but can't, as it is under the exclusive control of program A. Program B waits until record 1 is released. Therefore, neither program can make any progress because it is waiting for the other program to give way. A similar situation can occur in discussions if each person is trying to get the other to concede the flaws in his/her argument, without conceding the flaws in his own. The way out of this situation is to look for the points of agreement, rather than trying to spot flaws."

[7] I plan to write two major essays: the first is to be called ‘Letters to a Not So Young BDK’ (only meant in the chess sense, of course), of course referring to my previously written Letters to a Young Blue Devil Knight) from 2005; the second takes on advanced issues of organizing high level data at chessBase, with Polly, Castling Queenside as the Proxy.

[8] I have had a mark on my head made more prominent since the Housing and Financial Crisis erupted.

[9] WimpB always and only plays 2/8, or 7:20 for forty moves. Very reasonable rate of play for compressing lots and lots of chess knowledge. Let me suggest wimpC or WimpD for others, to same affect.

[10 ] After I wrote this, I today found at Greg's Chess Progress a very similar sensible comment made by Jon Burgess (not The GM John Burgess cum Nunn, Graham NCO kind. Jon has a new blog appropriately named similarly to Ivan Getting to 2000 blog interestingly called: ' Getting Back to 2300'.

Visit with Polly, Castling Queenside Tonight

2008-11-28T23:21:00.000-08:00

Dear friends: a lot has been going on behind the scenes, and as is my nature, its very hard to talk about in fragments, or partial efforts, so I wait, and wait to talk about it here. Physically, blogging takes a lot of energy--the way I do it. But I will be back soon. It's been hard.

I have actually been studying an ENORMOUS amount of GM games, and playing a LOT of blitz, and now, actually also, play slower time controls finally.

Within near hours or within one day of the final event that will change my life for quite some time to come, who emails me out of the blue, but Polly Wright of Castling Queenside! What a lovely, wonderful woman. A few emails and calls latter, and we are taking a good walk around Redmond Washington, then meet for tea, and wonderful chatting.

I am not in a mind frame to talk much today, maybe for a week. But, believe you me, I will. Much, very, very much to say. But, for now, let me say I fear to let a single day elapse, and fail to acknowledge her, so do so now, but cannot write enough to honor her. She is out here for a tournament. Funny--I 'never' drive more than three miles and she who travels the globe meets me! I drive all the way to outside the Microsoft Campus, and volla, she is there.

She is very kind, loves her chess, loves the social aspect of playing, and I respect her. She is a good soul and a good heart. It's more accurate to say that she has a heart of gold. You really can learn a lot about a person sitting across from them.

Everyone has their own fixations, and mine is authenticity and honestly. Let me tell you: you are gonna have to meet a lot of people before you find someone more honest and real than Polly. How refreshing! No BS. Just as it is. Wow.

And visting the playing hall, after she got her camera at the hotel to get some shots off of us, we visited the chess playing hall and the obviously well appointed chess bookseller.

Meet the Newest Knight Errant: Pigeon Linus [1]

And this found to be a bit crazed guy is selling not only books, but has some big sign of selling copies of NEW eBooks he has scanned. I am not some copyright Nazi. But I asked him before I knew this: 'Do you have Lev Alburt's new book, the Pocket Chess Training Book, Volume II?' 'No, but I can sell you a scanned copy....' Then his speech, his pitch about all that he could do for a price. A chess book hooker. A chess book prostitute.

Much combustion and I had to tell him: 'I am not with the police or IRS or a copywrite Nazi, but I don't think that this is very fair to Mr. Alburt!' I told him that I felt sorry for him, and that he was not a very nice person [2].

All said by me with a smile, and, of course, much else said before, by him about, government spy's, snipers, having his tires slashed, and much that was probably true but on the edge about the government after him... I meant what I said at a very, very deep level, and to fire a pellet of conscience into his now shrived soul. Sad man.

Then I saw his state, and told him that his body was breaking, and that he 'was on a collision course with disaster'. Told him that he 'could gather all this knowledge, but if' his 'physical form could not hold it, his container [3], that it would all go to waste'. Lord Jesus, my first time in a chess hall since the US Chess Championship in 2003 as a visitor. Ho hum! Mellow dk lacking in any intensity. :)

Polly got to witness all this, a dk no holds bared zen shout of awakening. So it was a perfect evening.

Love dk

[1] Article here, A Stroke of Pigeon Genius

[2] His entire modus operendae seemed to be: 'I have been fucked 4,321 times, so now I get to fuck someone else!' I told him that he was a genius sociopath. He had directed all his brilliance into a negative, manipulative, paranoid state of opportunistic entrepreneurship.

[3] Remember the group suicide by the Hale-Bopp folks? Their leader said they were going to shed their containers. I always liked that. You remember it, the Heavens Gate Folks, ref here: INSIDE THE CULT OF HEAVEN'S GATE.

Compare the Champions

2008-10-14T01:22:00.000-07:00

Right here on the eave of Game One of the long awaited World Chess Championship in Bonn, between WCC Vishy Anand Vladimir Kramnic, seems as good a place as any to highlite an excellent study by Charles Sullivan. Before my quoting much, but not all of the major parts of the article referenced at left, a small word on atribution:

Whether by my own failure to get new updates or simply that Mig Greengard had greatly updated his 'Daily Dirt Chess Blog' significantly is unclear, but all I know is that now Mig has a great site. I used to read it now and again, and find now that it always contains great riches--and with it, probably the smartest chess comments on all the web--never fail to miss it.

In fact, often reading his already excellent blog is but an excuse to then read the comments of his readers, often pointing out things from the side not easily found at chessBase, TWIC, or even chessVibes.com.

And it was there recently at his post, 'Awesome Augury Action' that a reader provided a link )Oct 8, 2008 7:59 AM) to this excellent study. The net result is that it compares the complexity of the games, with the raw error of the moves, and I reproduce the main body of the article here, as it is all said better than I can by it's originator:

'Truechess.com Compares the Champions:

'Who was the greatest chess player of all time? from Truechess.com home.

'The Project:

' For 24 hours a day for 15 months (from February 2007 through May 2008), 12 computing threads (on three Intel quad-core Q6600 computers running at 3.0 GHz) analyzed the games of the World Champions. Entire playing careers were analyzed -- for example, 69,084 positions from 2318 games were analyzed for just one player (Smyslov). In all, 617,446 positions from 18,785 games were processed. (For comparison, a previous analysis of the World Champions by Matej Guid and Ivan Bratko [1]-- that you can read about here -- examined about 37,000 positions.)

'The commercially-available program Rybka [version 2.3.2a], the strongest chess program available at the time, and a modified version of Bob Hyatt's open-source Crafty program [version 20.14] were used in the project.

'Calculating "Raw Error" and "Complexity"

'The first 8 moves in each game were ignored, but each subsequent position was searched three separate times. First, a search for a full six minutes (the average search was 17.4 iterations) by Crafty to determine a score for the best move available. A second search, to the same depth as was reached in the first search, assigned a score to the move played in the game. The difference between the move made and the best move in the position is the "raw error" score. Finally, a third search calculates the "complexity" score for the position.'

'Who Was "The Greatest"?

Here is the short case for -- and against -- each champion:

Paul Morphy (born 1837, died 1884)Although not usually recognized as World Champion, Morphy belongs on this list.
Pro: Morphy was clearly way ahead of his time: the numbers indicate he would easily have beaten Steinitz. Had he kept playing, Morphy surely would have been the strongest player in the world from 1857 until his death at age 47 -- a span of 27 years. Had he lived, he might have been the best player until the beginning of the 20th century!
Con: Judged by today's standards, Morphy's accuracy was just average. Also, his career in top-flight chess lasted only 3 years.

Wilhelm Steinitz (born 1836, died 1900)Steinitz was universally acknowledged to be the first World Champion after defeating Zukertort in 1886.
Pro: Steinitz had a complex style, won a high percentage of games, was successful as a match player, and was probably the best active player for about 20 years (although he was "official" Champion for only 8 years).
Con: Most of Steinitz's numbers place him at the bottom -- nobody else is even close!

Emanuel Lasker (born 1868, died 1941)Lasker was World Champion for a record 27 years.
Pro: Although Lasker played in an era which had relatively few great players, it is still remarkable that he was one of the very top competitors for more than 40 years (he won the strong New York tournament of 1924 by 1½ points over World Champion Capablanca)! According to the numbers, Lasker is the first chessplayer who could have held his own against the great champions of history.
Con: Lasker was absent for years at a time from competition, so it is difficult to get a fully reliable fix on his ability.

José Raúl Capablanca (born 1888, died 1942)Capablanca awed all those who saw him because of his extremely rapid comprehension of the position on the board. Lasker famously said, "I have known many chess players, but only one chess genius, Capablanca."
Pro: Capablanca's numbers are universally excellent. He played with great accuracy, committed relatively few blunders, and won a high proportion of games.
Con: He suffered an unexpected loss to Alekhine in 1927.

Alexander Alekhine (born 1892, died 1946)Alekhine was not born with the Capablanca's natural talent, but he showed what an unparalleled love of chess and a fanatical will to win can do. He played several of the most-admired games of all time.
Pro: He defeated the "invincible" Capablanca in 1927 and decisively defeated the underappreciated Euwe in a match in 1937.
Con: The numbers suggest that Alekhine was not quite as good as his reputation. He also suffered a most surprising defeat to Euwe in 1935.

Max Euwe (born 1901, died 1981)Euwe had a successful life away from the chessboard, which cannot be said for most World Champions.
Pro: He convincingly defeated Alekhine in one of the biggest upsets in chess history. The numbers say that Euwe was better than his reputation.
Con: Euwe's reputation as a player who blundered often is, sadly, richly deserved.

Mikhail Botvinnik (born 1911, died 1995)Botvinnik was so strong that he could have become World Champion as early as 1935. He finally become champion in 1948 and held the title for most of the next 15 years.
Pro: According to the numbers, Botvinnik was probably one of the five best players of all time. In addition, his fighting spirit must have been very resilient -- after losing matches to Smyslov and Tal, he won return matches a year later.
Con: After winning the title in 1948, Botvinnik became simply the first among equals and lost matches to Smyslov, Tal, and Petrosian.

Vasily Smyslov (born 1921)One of those rare players who played almost as well in his sixties as he did in his thirties.
Pro: A player with impressive numbers -- he ranks 2nd behind Capablanca in the 15-Year Rankings (above). In 1984, he reached the Final of the Candidates' Matches in his 63rd year!
Con: There always seemed to be at least one player better (or luckier) than Smyslov: Bronstein, Botvinnik, Tal, Fischer, Kasparov.

Mikhail Tal (born 1936, died 1992)Beloved by most everybody, Tal deserved a better fate: he was plagued by health problems throughout his life.
Pro: He had a sensational rise to the top in the late 1950's and early 1960's. He probably was an objectively better player in the 1970's.
Con: Although he was always among the handful of great players, he could never quite match his achievement of beating Botvinnik in 1960.

Tigran Petrosian (born 1929, died 1984)In many ways, the anti-Tal: solid, possessor of a puzzling style, and widely unappreciated.
Pro: He won the Candidates in 1962 (over such great players as Keres, Geller, Fischer, Korchnoi, and Tal), handily defeated Botvinnik in 1963, and beat the great Spassky in 1966.
Con: His tournament results were usually mediocre and the numbers say he is not one of the greatest Champions.

Boris Spassky (born 1937)World-famous because of his two matches with Fischer, Spassky was probably the best player for most of the 1960's.
Pro: Spassky proved his strength by winning the Candidates' Matches in both 1965 and 1968. He also proved his superiority in the 1966 Piatigorsky Cup where Fischer finished second. The numbers show that Spassky was an impressive player into his mid-forties.
Con: Spassky was not able to sustain the high level of brilliance he evidenced in the 1960's.

Bobby Fischer (born 1943, died 2008)Like Morphy, "The Pride and Sorrow of Chess." Fischer coupled the precocious talent of Morphy and Capablanca with the obsession of Alekhine.
Pro: The sustained level of his play from 1967 through the 1972 match with Spassky is unmatched, as the numbers show.
Con: He quit too soon.

Anatoly Karpov (born 1951)A steely competitor who, unlike most previous champions, was extremely active and competed successfully against the very best players of his time.
Pro: The numbers and the results show that Karpov was the best of his time.
Con: Karpov was not quite as good as either his predecessor or his successor.

Garry Kasparov (born 1963)Kasparov showed that aggression pays on the chessobard. Also, he demonstrated the importance of the computer as a training aid.
Pro: The numbers confirm that Kasparov was one of the greatest players of all time.
Con: His blunder rate (as defined by this project), is surprisingly high. And, almost unbelievably, he lost a match to Kramnik without managing to win a game.

Vladimir Kramnik (born 1975)Kramnik, at his best, is one of the most difficult players to defeat who ever played. He has had some health problems in the last few years.
Pro: In 2000, he defeated the truly great Kasparov (who was at or near his peak strength) in a match by two points without losing a game.
Con: Although he appears to have the talent to be the dominant player of his generation, he seems content to win by attrition. Also, perhaps because of his health issues, his form has been inconsistent.

Vishy Anand (born 1969)As a youth, Anand shocked the chess world with his strong moves that were played at blitz speed. After several years of steady improvement (and learning to curtail his impulsiveness), he became Champion in 2007.
Pro: Anand's numbers have been outstanding in recent years -- his performance in 2006-2007 was almost flawless.
Con: Anand is at the top now, but he needs to sustain his current form for a few more years before he can be mentioned in the same breath with Capablanca, Fischer, and Kasparov.

The Greatest Was ...I think you can reach your own conclusion! And of course, it depends -- what are the necessary qualifications for the world's greatest chess player?'

With a match about to begin, with two of these mighty fifteen chess greats having a showdown, and one of them who wrested the crown from a third among them (Kramnik from Kasparov), this makes the match about to begin in Bonn of potentially great historic importance, not to mention enormous potential chess pleasure, creativity, imagination, and of course beauty.

Warmest, dk

[1] Attentive readers know that I also referenced that study here, a little more than a year ago.

The Kramnik of the Far East: Wang Yue

2008-10-08T22:06:00.000-07:00

Needless to say, right before the Anand-Kramnik match in Bonn is as good a time as any to broach the subject of the highest ranking Chinese Chess Grandmaster, Wang Yue [0].

I have wanted to write this for weeks since his recent top result at the second FIDE Grand Prix in Sochi. You see, it all started with a snide viewer remark at ICC, while watching the last FIDE World Cup in Khanty-Mansiysk, in December 2007 where some ‘mere’ Grandmaster asked “WHO is Wang Yue?”, wishing to disparage him, dismissively saying that he was lost, and that he “couldn’t play’ My antenna went right up that moment! And you know what, he won the game!

After that tournament, where he scored very high into the double elimination, it seemed like his time had come. Adding to his obvious imprimatur, he then went on to share first place with Gashimov, Carlsen at the First FIDE Grand Prix in Baku in May, and clear second place with Gata Kamsky at the Second FIDE Grand Prix in Sochi early this August.

His rank today, at Live Ratings, at 2740.5 ELO puts him fair and square at number ten in the world, just below what Mark Crowther of TWIC recently called nine who ‘clearly form the current elite’ (excellent table, enhancing the FIDE ratings).

And now for our simple and clear major point: he did not loose ONE single game, among those two sets of 13 game tournaments (26 games) among many of the world best chess players at their best preparedness [1].

In fact, I have just created a chessBase file, and compiled all the data, and he only lost NINE times among 222 games in the last two years [2]. More to the point, the bulk of those were among seven losses in 2007 across 148 games (1 with White and 6 with Black), and even more remarkably, only two of those occurred in 2008 across 74 games (both with black)! His last loss that I can detect was on March 3rd, at the Reykjavik Island 23rd Open [3]. One loss with white in all those games back in 2007. Man.

Hence our title of his starting to be recognized as ‘the Kramnik of the Far East’. He is plays very super solid. Like Vladimir Kramnik, he proves very, very difficult to win against. You don’t think he gets major support from the Chinese leadership now? Think again.

Much like Carlsen, he is often seen winning seemed drawn endings, and converts to win with unrelenting if not manically calm pressure, not unlike the patent boa constrictor squash Nakamura applies when he is in form and refuses NOT to not win or just as Fischer did in the early 70’s. This guy is tough! Just look at him. We could also call him the Clint Eastwood of Chess. Just look at this guy:

Look at this game, which he won when no one could see any real large advantage:

'Our surprised and respectful attitude to the Chinese grandmaster slowly turns to sincere admiration. [Source, you guessed it: ChessVibes, here! Very convenient viewable java applet. dk] He demonstrates not only typically Chinese composure, tenacity and good calculation skill, but also shows good chess education. His endgame technique is very high.

'Today Wang Yue won another complex bishop ending, against Radjabov, after going through the storm of complications and obtaining a slight advantage against a dangerous opponent…. Radjabov showed his ambition by not looking for equal positions. He was determined to play for a win, and missed the moment when he had to secure the equality.

'His last chance was 19...Rxd3! (instead of 19...Rdc8) 20.Rxd3 Bg5 21.h4! (21.Rd7? Bc6 22.Rc7 Be8) 21...Bxe7 (21...Bf6 22.Rd7 Bc6? 23.Rd6!) 22.Rd7 Bc5 23.Rxb7 Rxa2 24.Rd7 Rxb2 25.Rd2 Rb1+ 26.Rd1 Rb2 with a move repetition.

'After that Black desperately fought for a draw, but Wang Yue's technique was superior to Radjabov's. The Chinese player calculated a bit deeper and maneuvered a bit finer. I (Shipov) think, Teimour could and should have taken White's dangerous central pawn.'

'He played 24...Bxa2, but I failed to fins any danger after 24...Bxe4. For example, 25.Bc4+ Kh8 26.Re1 (26.Rff7 g5!) 26...Bf5 27. Rxe8+ Rxe8 28.Kf2 Bb1!, and Black will not lose in this sharp ending. However, this was not the critical moment of the game!'

'In my opinion, the game was decided in the bishop ending. Radjabov's passive strategy proved wrong. He could transfer the king to c5 by

31...Kd7! (instead of 31...Ke7) 32.Kf2 Kc6! 33.Bg8 h6 34.Bf7 (34.Ke3 Kc5!) 34...Kc5! 35.Kg3 (35.Bxg6 Kd5; 35.Ke3 g5) 35... Be4 36.Kf4 Bb1, creating an unbreakable fortress. After the move in the game, the Chinese grandmaster prepared a zugzwang position (46.Bf5!) and took the b4-pawn. Then the b6-pawn fell as well. I was impressed by 55.Ba6! (intending 55...Ke7 56.b5!). Compared to that, 58.Bd7! looks really simple. White created an adjacent passed pawn, and secured a win. Wang Yue is now one of the leaders!'

1-0

I expect that we will be hearing a lot more from him in the future and certainly this is one more facet of major evidence of the rising supremacy of China.

Warmest, dk

[0] Did you know that China is now third among all chess nations, for having the near highest average chess rating of it's top level grandmasters? See FIDE Country chart, at this link. They now surpass even Israel, Azerbaijan, USA, Hungary, India, Armenia, and Bulgaria in the top ten. Of course, Russia and the Ukraine occupy the strastophere for ELO density and elevation.

[1] Needless to say, I have objectively aggregated the data in xls of the two tournaments, but this is a matter for another day. Yasser kindly sent it to the editor of chessBase for me and I also sent it to TWIC, also Peter Dodgers at ChessVibes, but the feeling was that its still early yet. At the third tournament, I will be ready to resubmit! Remember, there are six tournament, you play in four, and get to pick your best three results, dropping your fourth worst. Wang Yue wont be dropping any of these two [4]!

[2] Please email me at the email provided at my Classic GM Game Collection file, and I will gladly send the cbv file (no pgn’s please for this file. I am not a web service in this case please).

[3] That I have found. Not perfection, but probably very, very close to accurate. {addendae: I did exact checking today, and had to revise these figures, and THESE are now perfectly accurate. cf. FIDE player data, directly. Thur 09 Oct 08 dk}

[4] Again, much to his credit, I much prefer Peters format at the now, in my eyes, preeminent chess site ChessVibes, shown here (Baku), and here (Sochi) for the two Grand Prix to date.

The Eyes! Asiatic Dreaming, for some deep far off place like chess Jupiter! That GM look of many troubles and cares that is uncanny greatness!

Belles Lettres or Beautiful Hearts

2008-10-07T22:54:00.000-07:00

St. Peters, Vast!

We all had the equivalent of our first love in 'real chess' and mine was named Ibrahim. He was the first giant I had met along the path of getting started back in real chess. And before he went back to Bahrain, eloping in secret with the very lovely sister of our mutual best friend Benjamin, but in the end leaving me out of their circle, when they coldly made sure not to invite me back with them for Thanksgiving dinner, before he left, he made many, many astute recommendations about how to study chess that I use to this day. I did much if not nearly not all that he said and his sporting a 2,000 FIDE elo seemed ample evidence enough. That is another story.

But like our first mentors or guides who have strong opinions, not all of them can be judiciously correct. For example, he had a very low opinion of Bruce Pandolfini. Now, lets be clear: after a life time of scholarship, I have found it most important to draw a distinction between the man and his work. Early on, I discovered in copious checking that mythographer Joseph Campbell never mentioned Romanian French expatriate Mircea Eliade, nor the latter the prior. I always preferred Campbell's views, but somehow, despite my inability to ever read Eliade with satisfaction or utility, nevertheless also always found the man fascinating [1]. Similarly, I loved Nietzsche's books in my younger days, but the man could be a real ass, not to mention Thoreau or Veblen assuredly as well. And so I found that this young man had really confused the work of Pandolphini with the man, and if not the work, then the production.

Years latter, after using 'Pandolphini's Endgame Course: Basic Endgame Concepts Explained' with great benefit, upon AJ Goldsy's glowing recommendation at Amazon [2], I had to agree that despite the well known innocuous typo's, that his book was even more useful than Chernev's already very, very useful Practical Chess Endings [3].

I have lived a lot of years by now. I have learned not to judge. Some of Pandolphini's books had well known production problems, but are we to blame him concretely? Were we there? Did we know the publishers or editors or printers? Did we know the circumstances? No. But mark my words, I have been reading his monthly column 'The Q & A Way', at chessCafe, for as long as I can remember, and always enjoy it, and never fail to read him.

He is both affably and warmly kind and unpretendingly eruditely sophisticated without grandstanding or pretense if not on occasion acerbic [4], in a way well beyond most chess scholars and teachers. He gives ample evidence bespeaking of wide awareness, well beyond the narrow specisim of the our beloved chess venues. His humanity [5] at times reminds me of Znosko-Borovsky, who not only managed to beat quite a few of the truly great world chess champions, but starving as he was between the two great wars, demonstrated a enormous familiarity with belles lettres in what must have been a beautiful heart.

Warmest, dk

Mr Pandolphini, who wrote me back promptly and without any complications, very kindly approved my copying the first part of his most recent column below. There have been many Q & A's over the years, but this one simply struck me as if not among his best then surely most representative. Without further ado:

Beware of Regimens

Question:

After five to ten years of practice, chess players usually reach a plateau. This supposes the chess player has over this long period of time: participated in a number of chess tournaments, played in over 100 classical games (40 moves in 2 hours, 20 moves per hour, etc); gone through classic books on openings, tactics, middlegames, and endings; analyzed his own games, as well as having gone through classic games (World Chess Champions, current top GM games, etc.); and played many blitz games in a chess club or on the Internet. Let’s assume, for sake of argument, that all this brings the player to a level of a seasoned club player, corresponding to a USCF 2150 player (FIDE 2100). How do you suggest improving your own level of play (obviously not as strong as the FM/IM level), without repeating the basic stuff? How do you separate what you already know (rook endings, typical tactics, such as pins, skewers, and double attacks) from what you should learn to make progress? What should you pay attention to when you replay grandmasters games? Frank Fortune (USA)

Josh Waitzkin and his first chess coach, Bruce Pandolfini

Answer:

Chess players don’t have to wait five or ten years before reaching a plateau. It can happen much sooner than that, and typically does. Nor need there be just one plateau. Periods of stasis occur all the time. They can last a few weeks or go on for years. All along the way are potential obstacles halting improvement, putting our playing ability in a virtual freeze. Regressions are even possible, where our method of addressing troublesome stages can retard progress, if not detract from overall skill. Clearly, how we cope with such troubling circumstances plays a role in shortening those episodes. It also is a key determinant in how far we can ultimately go.

Moreover, there’s no single path that guarantees advance. Some players achieve success naturally, absorbing ideas in the context of regular play, with aptitude developing over time, without specific effort. Others do it by dint of hard work, studying this and that, until all major areas are reviewed systematically and everything seems to fall into place. Still others, taking definite steps or not, never get beyond a point. Either they accept who they are or give up altogether.

I’m going to take slight issue with another one of your implications, which is that it’s wasteful to study things you’ve already gone over. Indeed, constant review of the same or similar techniques and concepts, viewed for a variety of situations, reinforces what you know. And it gives you a range of conditions under which you can adapt that knowledge to efficient use. This modus operandi is a chief weapon in the chess player’s arsenal. That is, players are always looking for analogies. You can’t employ analogous reasoning so effectively, however, if you haven’t a proficient grasp of what you’ve already experienced. The way you acquire such facility is by constant reconsideration and repeated immersion. To that end, the argument that learning some things well, rather than lots of things on the surface, may have greater impact here. I’m not suggesting that tangential treatment of many different notions doesn’t have value, too. But if you don’t constantly review your past experiences, you’re bound to make the same mistakes, fall into the same snares, miss the same shots, and form the wrong plans, again and again.

Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart

So, even though you’ve laid out your question hypothetically, I’m going to take exception with the nature of your basic premise anyway. It implies that one has to do certain things in order to succeed (play at least one hundred serious tournament and match games, study particular tactics and strategies, examine the games of great players, and so on). Yet, there’s no accepted evidence whatsoever that one has to follow a definite regimen of any kind before attaining specific playing levels. To be sure, such an approach is antithetical to the idea that each of us is an individual. Put simply, an activity is more rewarding if we’re able to pursue it along a unique pathway, to the Thoreau inspired beat of our own drummer.

Here’s my advice for those who are decent players but seem to have been stymied in their recent attempts at progress. Begin by playing a bunch of serious games at respectable time controls. Take those games and have them assessed by a competent observer. Have the analyst spell out what he or she thinks you need to work on in order to move ahead. It probably won’t be right on the money – it almost never is – but it’s a place to start.

Acquire, borrow, or tap into the recommended materials. Start using them on a regular basis, and in accordance with the laid out program. Play lots of serious games, all of which should then be analyzed by you first, then by a strong player who cares that you exist. The strong player could be named Fritz, even though Fritz is likely to be indifferent. Modify your original program as it reflects your recent experience. Over time this constant testing of challenging opposition, intense review, from within and without, should direct you to relevant areas worthy of attention. It’s typically the best way to break the stalemate in your progress and move you along. It’s tough to say what may be the best thing to study to push improvement along. But probably it should be pertinent to your needs, rather than satisfying some abstract ideal. If you want to get more out of you, study you [6].

[1] Such as his systematically reducing his sleep, so that he could study study Sanskrit for twelve hours a day, ultimately settling for only four hours sleep in the end. See his wonderful Autobiography: Ordeal by Labyrinth: Conversations With Claude-Henri Rocquet.

[2] As well as his colorful and wonderful, if not idiosyncratic website. His site reads like the Arabian Knights on Acid for chess denizens. Enjoy!

[3] At the same time, to be clear, I cannot praise Chernev's book too highly: READ and STUDY both, might I suggest: first PEC/BECE, then move onto PCE. In this order, the latter will mean more.

[4] Bertrand Russell, AKA Lord Russell, who if anyone ever could write the English language, was said to be acerbic. He relates in his wonderful Autobiography that he had learned to write the English language with precision by taking the advise of his brother in law, to take the already very, very clear a and concise writings of John Stewart Mill, and TRY to summarize each of his paragraphs with one sentence. Can you imagine?

[5] My definition of humanist, quoted from my 1989 letter of application to teach architecture, at UNC Charlotte: "As a humanist, I believe in the betterment of man through self knowledge".

[6] His original ChessCafe article in full, directly here.

Economic Koans or Just Bad Behavior?

2008-10-06T14:41:00.000-07:00

The Planet and It's People are All Crying,
And I am Crying With It. Get a cleanex.

My very dear friend BDK, who is one of the smartest guys around, has been gently pushing me, but without let up all the same, to write about the meltdown. Now, this is a chess blog, and chess besides being a form of mental combat if not 'mental torture' [1], is a form of consumption. We consume free time, and emotional energy in pursuit of our craft. And if we are forcibly disturbed daily, neh, not disturbed, but unrelentingly attacked by the media, by financial markets, by national instability, by sinking and towering debt to fight two wars offshore when we cannot even mobilize our society to put shoes on children or fix the many potholes in our roads then, well *God Damn It* , it seems to me that this is chess too. You know the drill: we have to send probes to Mars but cannot regulate the ten largest banks in the country, we cannot face the issues.

KEATING ECONOMICS: John McCain & The Making of a Financial Crisis [2]

So yes all right. Its chess. Fuck yea it's chess. I was on a roll. I was blogging several times a week, I was in flow and all the rest is in my brain. But I can't write. No I cannot. Not today. Am I to write about chessBase intervening files when we are reeling with staggering upset? I have a lot more to say in chess, but not today:

When someone closer to a Fulbright Scholarship to Japan than not, when someone is a Registered Architect, when someone is a deft knowledge manager, and nimble in sales and customer service is asked three times, in eight days, to unload tractor trailer trucks, when such a person protests the third time constructively to his HR Department that this is bad business, leaving his Tool World Empty for theft or lost and helpless customers, to what? unload a tractor trailer truck AND hurts his lower back, AND then works sick the next two days because it is pre-inventory, yes, America, we are fucked. When at the end of the second day, I am approached by my bosses boss, told that big boss 'WILL DEFININETLY BE WANTING TO SEE' ME 'TOMORROW', said in an intimidating fashion, this is a problem. So I call District HR Manger, who asks me to stay home today and rest my back, and that it is very wrong for me to have to work in an intimidating work environment. Let me say more:

This is not an economic crisis. Yes, yes, I know.... 'we didn't land on the moon, but Disney did it in hidden areas in Yemen' and 'Nixon had it done with off the books money...'

It is not an economic crisis! Got your attention?

Global Warming is NOT Real, and Soylent Green is People

The crisis is that we think it is an economic crisis, that somehow we are going to, 'baby, baby, just one more time baby' re-engineer ourselves, borrow more money, postpone the day of reckoning?

We are immature. We are juvenile. We overconsume. We are fragmented. We allow hatred to rule the day. We are petty. We concentrate wealth among the few, fewer and fewer each day, while cutting taxes to the rich? We abuse our workers, seperate ourselves from our neighbors, we are overstimulated, and overtaxed. Our cars are too big, are wars too far from home, our spending leaves us ill prepared for an unsustainable future. We polute. We cut down. We both allow drugs and punish drugs. We punish guns, and we shoot guns. We talk of conservation, then we reward big Golf with Big Skin Games, we have gigantic Superbowls, we have Emmy's, we have monstrocity sized Indianappolis 500's while preaching air quality, Dupont while talking of water quality, we have glory, but we are a society which rewards hatred, excess, instability, narcisisim, ignoreAnce, and fame. We exploit sexuality. We disrespect our old. We disregard the moans of our planet, which is crying.

No Caption Necessary!

We ALLOW corporations to run our so called democracy, and we remove and punish dissenters, much as Ralph Nadir says, and Noam Chompsky, yes, all of it is true. We are infantile and spiritually bankrupt. We conduct our work places, like gulags, so that those who work the hardest are often treated the worst. And if you are not honest, you get more sick time, more days off from work, and if as me you are the sort who never calls in sick unless you are dying, then, yes, you sir, are off on an adventure.

Upper Deck, Now Making Presidential Predictor Trading Cards...
Yes, Yes, We are all Serious About this! [3], [4]

Me? I have seen it all. The zen monks with shaved heads with the stick that smacks you if you sleep. I have trained with Marine Special forces in martial arts, I have walked with Grandmasters for hours discussing the global world and FIDE's travisty of mismanged irresponsibility. I have bought and sold $150,000,000 worth of stock with these same fingers, I have unloaded trucks with ten intercity kids, I have sat with the ineffable Joe Six Pack and know his hurt. I have sat with his lover, hearing of her hurt, the worry for her children while he watches videos as she cooks and cleans and mends. I have seen it all.

We cannot fix this, and it is too late now, by re-engineering our society. The economy is a major minimal signal, maybe one of the largest most significant signals, but this is not the problem, but the symptom. We, my friends, are in very, very serious trouble, and if the 'virtuous circle' or virtuous cycle accelerates, as it surely will, falling equities, leads to falling dollars, then they are repatriated offshore, leading to lower stocks, leading yet again to lower dollars.

Lets Be Clear. I don't like Ted Nugent or agree with his views, but put it up here apropos of passion. I give him credit for that. And authenticity.

More of the Same. I repeat, I do not agree with him. But he is real man!

It is time to pay guys. And it won't be financial. It will be physical, social, psychological, behavioral, and relational, as in how we are each day with each other, but yes, for sure, someone will really have to pay, and I suspect that both Joe Six Pack and Vanila Ice will all be paying.

God Bless, yes. Now I have said it. Thank you BDK for giving me the initiative to say this, say this now, say this here. May you all carry on and be well in your lives.

Warmly, dk

[1] Attribution, well known to Garry Kasparov, the very essence of masculinity.

[2] Links to Obama web site and video here (I have not planned to vote for Obama but keep thinking about it. I think that he is a truly great man, but cannot do half of what he promises, and this, I feel, perpectuates more dilusional thinking here on our shores).

[3] Makers, for example of 'World of Warcraft'; needless to say, as a young stock broker, I called on the two founders, and had a big two hour meeting with them, but they were, yes, surprise, real bona fide jerks. They asked me to do a bunch of free work, then, at its conclusion, wouldn't return my calls. Oh well.

[4] It took a bit of counter intuitive digging, but the full series can be handsomely viewed here, at Presidential Predictors.

Tools for Structuring Getting Better, Part One: Starting

2008-09-21T12:16:00.000-07:00

In order to get better at chess, you are going to need a structure to work within. I will be having a LOT to say about this structure, in the weeks ahead--so much so, that I will have to take this one in bite sizes. I usually like to dive in head first, in large scale, but this is one (and good for me at that, against my nature as it is!), that necessitates piecemeal discussion. Also, the cap stone post will have to be last, as the 'big chessBase discussion', is one that I need to both build up to, and cover a lot of ground, first.

Today we begin this discussion, but first with miscellaneous subjects to prepare the ground as it were:

To begin with, I am not the foremost example of improvement. In fact, I am fairly typical. Perhaps above average in chess knowledge, significant in some ways, but lacking transfer of that knowledge. It doesn't mean it will be this way forever, but is so now. Added to that, I am an extremely very 'type A' person, and chess IS tension, so the need for more of it is antagonistic to getting better at chess, if not simply antagonistic to PLAY AT ALL. The net result is that I don't enjoy playing chess or rather don't get to play chess much unless I add stress, so that I greatly prefer study, which is more about lifestyle or hobby or activity than chess per se. I don't say this with pride or shame but as a fact about me.

Tama: Nine Year Old Cat Wearing Stationmaster Cap Helps Debt Strapped Japanese Train Company As Thousands come to visit him [3].

So what I can share with you is how I organize that effort, not what you DO with that effort, or what you extract from that effort. If you want to know more about 'types of correct effort', then go to Phaedrus's wonderful blog, Chess Vision, previously called Chess Training, I think it was. I wrote about chessedelic weeks ago, and he must be a very good coach. But if I were in Europe or had the right circumstance, Phaedrus is another coach that I would have to carefully consider. Might I suggest you go to his blog? He not only talks about it, but has 'done it'. For example, he once took a young man, who was pretty much considered uncoachable, and this man recently made his third IM norm.

Finally, I need not remind anyone that while he neither seeks money nor fame, full with his own successful career outside chess, loving family, and serious chess study, but rather that he not only has 'done it' himself but also knows how to skillfully communicate it, not to mention much else besides?

* * *
And now for the bones of our current essay:

In order to structure your effort, first you will need to be able to access and store your games, so that you can review them. If you are not doing that, you simply won't get better. Many of us do that already, but I have to start, in 'Aristotelian fashion' at square one, and work my way progressively forward by topic. And if you can do that, then you will be able to view high level games, both in classical and contemporary form.

'I am Done Organizing My Books by Color'

There are many viewers and I much prefer chessBase, but not everyone wants to spend that much, so there are alternative. To name but one, SCID is reputed to be the best, when previously ChessPad was recommended to me as recently as last spring-for those who like to research comparisons [4]. Free downloads are available at this link. ChessBase Light is very, very good, but I am going to ask readers to wait on that, for that is a separate post completely (chessBase Light is for great for viewing work in hand but cannot CREATE files, nor access them when too large). For now, I can say that I am going to recommend both but again, lets discuss this latter.

With your viewer, you will need a large database, and again, a completely free 4M game database is available for download at: ICOfY [1]. Now, there is a LOT to say about this. It is not a perfect database, but we are talking free, yes? The key is to get started, and you can make substitutions latter. What this database lacks it makes up for in shear size. What is really good about it, is that few record games are NOT in it [2].

This database will not stand still. And each week, you go to chessCenter.com, and download the full games form the last week here or at The Week in Chess here, also free. There are few if any serious chess players who do not do this each Monday night (EST) or Tuesday morning (CST).

Florence: Old World Effort at Control

Finally, a small detail but might be news to many here, for I myself only discovered it by accident: chesscenter.com had a Silverlight Chessboard application enabled embedded at the news site for months, before I realized that I had to both download and enable the Microsoft Application. I am not going to get into Macromedia, and Flash, and all that, only that I avoided doing so, for a long time, then one day I did and boy am I glad! Now I have viewable java applets at Mark Crowther's wonderful, World Number One chess site, and get immediate updates on live game's. I suggest you try it. If you are not going to chesscenter.com daily or weekly, then you, kind sir, are missing out big time.

Much, much more to follow. Stay posted!
Warmly, dk

Jim Bishop Castle Builder. If you like this guy, then here is an even better one of him here. Gotta love the guy. Damn, some cool shit. Here is a full expose of him.

[1] You will need to download a free tool, to unzip it, and for this, download another free application, 7-Zip.

[2] For someone as scholarly minded as me, its lack of detailed game data bothers me, but I use it daily for when I cannot find a game in my $Megabase$, sold by chessBase. For example, it lacks round numbers and venue information such as the name of the tournament, using only city name.

[3] Alert males will notice the carefully calculated complete absence of inclusion of any eroticized females at this blog when previously widespread if not frequent. Yes. Believe you me, every week I consider the matter, so that WHEN I do restore that feature, you all will REALLY have something to see, and duly note it as such. For now, we must suffice with fractal, heuristical, urbanistic, geopolitical, iterative, natural, mechanical, global, and feline scenes but not permanently as you can appreciate.

[4] Thanks to Phaedrus, who just wrote me back, from my inquiry earlier today, to tell me that SCID was the best.

Thantos or Chess Urge?

2008-09-18T03:43:00.000-07:00

After Aristotle, came Plato, and in the mysterious groves of Ancient Greece before them, the Pre-Socratics. Much latter, in a carbon based world, nano-technology followed the semi-conductor and biotech revolutions, and excess food allowed the division of labor to elaborate detailed gaming structures and heuristical methodolgies, and chess cannot be excluded in the deepest urge to escape persistent thantic urges, or thoughts of ultimate mortality. Such an anger [1]!:

[1] If any of you find him at all amusing, here is another one that definitely portrays something!

Marry The Bosses Daughter

2008-09-16T18:37:00.000-07:00

Allow me a brief digression but, yes, yes, we will get to the harsh combat of chess tactics in a second... Despite having boundless energy, my mother was a slight woman, all 86 pounds of her when she had me, so that my reasonable 5'-10" stature and decidedly endurance type build is a work of gratitude. When she gave birth to me, she was told not to expect to live, for her frame could not take another cesarian section, her third. She did live, and the very old world jewish Doctor Pearlman (we are not Jewish but were surrounded at my birthplace) had tears in his eyes when he delivered me.

It was this same Doctor Pearlman, who upon telling my mother in reply to her certainty that she 'could NOT be pregnant' (my dad had a vasectomy, and my mom for sure only 'knew my father') in heavy Yiddish accent: 'Vhat do you vmean to tellm me, hez Jesus Christ??' But so it was, and here I stand today, four weeks from my fiftieth birthday.

Much latter, as he was in his last days, this dear man, who was so tough that he REPEATED MEDICAL school here (for they wouldn't recognize his credentials from Europe), summoned me to his home right before my freshman year of college. He told me a few things, none of which I remember except one in particular: "Always David. Always Marry the Bosses Daughter".

Now what the heck does that mean? Is it a spiritual thing, or is it concrete?? One thing is for sure, I never did marry her (in either sense of it), and have suffered for it ever since. How prescient of him! Fast forward.

Every Karateka gets a new white belt, and one of the first things you notice is not only are there few black belts, but the really senior students have them in tatters. Just threadbare from battle, sweat, and arduous training. At my Dojo with Sensei Vic Coffin, the former Special Forces guy, there was a guy named Mr. Dempsey. Every dojo always has somebody who not only has all the teaching, but from long ago, a fixture, but Dempsey-San was young, so he had been there from the start! His Gi or Karate Uniform was tattered and falling to pieces. His belt was worn to threads from all his tumbles and scrapes.

Today, kind readers, I am almost done with Reinfeld's 1001 Winning Sacrifices and Combinations. The binding is wrecked, and it is beyond taping. I have taped, and retaped. I yearn for completion, so that when I go to the beach, as I am want to do, studying tactics, always, I need not fear for half the loose pages blowing away, as happened to a few pages in the front, so that I must put an apple on top!

I met a man once, who was an aspiring chess master. He told me, in 2002 that I needed 'to sleep with that book;, and that, I have done, literally for more than two years--not in a mad rush, not like some classic novel you rush through, but like the book you never rush at, taking in every word like a gold button.

I did this with Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji in 1982 [1] and I did this with E.M. Cioran's Temptation to Exist in 1978 particularly. If he mentioned Tacitus or Montaigne, I would look it up, every single citation. Now you, have any of you taken a chess book and so used it, that you would destroy it, pulverize it? I cannot recommend it enough, as GM Seirawan calls it, 'burning it into the circuitry of your brain'.

warmest, dk

[1] Reputed to be among the world oldest novels. It might be suggested that it almost makes either Tolstoy's War and Peace or Prousts Remembrance of Things Past but short vignettes or of limited complexity, in comparison. I would read only a paragraph and then sometimes have to stop, so beautiful was its artistry of thought or touching the emotion. And--yes--it was writen by a woman.

High Level Preparation

2008-09-14T23:58:00.000-07:00

Dear Kind Readers:

I am starting to get comments far and wide from a lot of new people, which is a sure sign that I am on the right track in my primary motivation to 'share' in its higher, formal sense as against incipient attention seeking in its lower, baser kinds. This is emboldening. All your visits and each of your comments--however small, all of them truly mean a lot to me. They provide additional energy. Thank you.

I Love this Audio. I listen to it three times per day. Might I suggest you listen to it, while reading?

I still plan to write both regularly and a LOT more in the near term, as there is just too much to share to allow much pause, for otherwise I would get buried under 'to-do lists' and 'wish lists' as distinct from the habit of concrete action. Nevertheless this means that at times I must put up smaller posts--in no way lesser, but among those subjects affording more laconic or concise explication and thus more ruled by simplicity, even if it is simplicity concerning very large things.

Take, for instance World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand and former World Chess Champion Vladimir Kramnik. Now that is big. My good friend GM Seirawan wrote me two weeks ago, before his 'simul' trip to Malaysia, and upon my asking what he thought about this big match, said that 'this is the match that' he 'always wanted too see'. Heady stuff from the originator of the Prague Accord!

Now things should be so simple and clear, but they are not: and so we begin the first post spotlighting some super GM's:

Clearly if the tally were taken any time in the last year, few among us would ever have any reason to grant anything other than higher odds in favor of Anand. Not big odds, but greater odds we might say?

He has the fate of it being perhaps his turn at the page of history after all these years, the ceaseless brilliance of his high speed mind, and good manners. He even has the kind thoughts of hundreds of thousands of chess fans, which can hardly be underestimated as an outside subtle factor [1]. My goodness, he even has a pleasant, beautiful, and affable wife [2].

But after taking dead last upon yesterdays now concluded FIDE Grand Slam Final in Bilbao, we have to wonder how good a form he is in? I am not predicting a loss or collapse, but a note of concern. It is even rumored that he has Wunderkund Magnus Carlsen among his seconds [3], which cannot hurt at all!

Now for Kramnik: despite his irregularity in tournament play, where he can be as good as Kasparov one month, and in the lower half in another, not to mention his health problems previously impairing him, no one has beaten him in a match for a long, long, long time. This is a big factor. It is one thing to play scores of high level round robbins and wholly an altogether vastly different thing to prepare for match play.

It is true that Kramnik beat Kasparov, or rather the latter could not win a SINGLE GAME in his match in 2000, but he came back and successfully defended against Leko, then yet again against Topolov with the usual and also well known controversy, also winning.

Being Ready

Finally, we can talk extensively all about openings, and psychology, and all sorts of chess things but let us not forget knowing how to prepare and peak at the right moment is an art distinct from the technical side of chess. Just look at Michael Phelps effort in winning eight Olympic gold medals. When asked how he felt, he kept saying 'how tired' he was.

Think about that. Swimming two miles or 2.3 km at world record pace in most instances, not to mention time trials. But he knew how to be fully ready at each key event. Kramnik must have the edge there [9], as he has been there three times already and Anand, while world champion by contract agreements in place has not defeated Kramnik in a match yet, as Kramnik wryly points out. Here is one of many excellent interviews, Kramnik: “I think my level is quite all right.”

What does Maxwell Maltz say in his book, Psycho Cybernetics?
: "Confidence is the repeated experience of success". So Kramnik.

Very, very lastly, it is often said that Kramnik has the deepest understanding of chess. In a world with even still Kasparov in one form or another still demonstrating preternatural genius (breakneck instant speed comments at playchess.com, accurate at 15 to 20 ply, given while sitting at the beach, blindfold as it is said) and Ivanchuk in remarkably great form, to say that he is the deepest is a profound admittance. This will prove to be a great match, and with Anand now only 5th in the world and Kramnik 6th in the Live Top Ratings table [4], sufficient motivation exists, not to mention the likely super motivation to face Topolov [5], [8].

Warmest, dk

Joy Division: Penetration To the Depth of Our Very Souls

-----------
[1] It has been proven that group thinking can, as it were, in a biomorphogenic field sense, affect individual performance, negatively or positively.

[2] Often seen in photos sitting, for example, Leko's wife Sophie, talking as women do in whispers and furtive private smiles (the latter with GM Arshak Petrosian, his trainer and father in law!) Can you imagine that one? Chessbase article with photos, here: 'Picture gallery'.

[3] Anand, when hearing how Magnus answered probing questions as to whether he was on the team (Magnus: "No comment"), was heard as saying: "The BOY gave a good answer". This was widely discussed in the last ten days, and here is but one of the articles mentioning this: 'Will Carlsen be Anand’s second?' from India's Daily New Analysis.

[4] Real time chess ratings, reflective of the must current results, day by day, as distinct from FIDE's glaciatic quarterly calculation!

[5] Who would say that Kamsky can win? A subject of another post. Let us note for now, despite Kamsky's well known dogged tenacity [6], it is hard for us to see him beating Topolov, in his current form [7]

[6] Who has not seen Kamsky win lost games, and drawn lost positions, not unlike Aaronian (7th in World today)?

[7] Topolov is number one in the world, in today's table. Kamsky is 'only' sixteen, a big difference from the world top six.

[8] Wikipedia:
"Viswanathan Anand and Vladimir Kramnik have played 51 classical chess games, of which Kramnik won six, Anand took four wins, and 41 games were drawn.
"In rapid games, the score is 10–2 in favor of Anand with 34 draws. In blitz the score is 2–2 with four draws.
In the blindfold games the score is 4–3 if favor of Kramnik with six draws.
In Advanced Chess Kramnik leads 1–0 with seven draws".

[9] See this fantastically informative interview, from the Russian Online Newspaper, The Sports Express Train, conveniently translated here: 'Kramnik vs. The Rest of the World'. Hat tip Dennis Monokroussos, linked here, at The Chess Mind.

Chessedelic Makes it Clear

2008-09-10T00:43:00.000-07:00

Chess Friends, I have resolved to post more often--not for the sake of ‘often’ or ‘frequency’ but as I have intimated in the last two posts, I have found that there is so much that I see, think, or know of that I greatly wish to share and not forego. And as I also said, my attachment to larger, more elaborated posts was stopping me and I was thirsting to surrender it, ‘give it up’ as they say. Tonight I thus begin the first of far many more, with the proviso that they will all be shorter, as best as I can given my overarching tendency towards the catholic and synoptic, or universal and maximally inclusive approach to all that I do.

In chess study, we all benefit greatly from routines. And, if you like me have many of them, in time they can become so utterly comprehensive, that willy-nilly we can find ourselves in our own massive prison of tasks, our own Boolean flow chart of ‘I must do A, B, C’. and thinking futher such as ‘then after P, D, Q, if S, T, or V occur, I must go back and to B…’ and so on. My goodness.

So in time, I have evolved my own routines that are sustainable, and this means not only downloading ALL the current games to my Megabase each week from chesscenter.com's pricelessly invaluable TWIC but also adding all the major games in high level tournaments each week to a separate, ‘stand alone file’.

In so doing, I always assign colored chessBase medals to exemplary games such as ‘Best Game’, ‘Ending’, ‘Tactical Blunder’ and much else to discussed at posts in the not too distant future [1]. This also includes viewing weekly both Benjamin’s ‘Game of the Week’ (each Friday), and ‘Attack with Larry Christiansen’ (each Wednesday) at ICC Chess FM.com [2]. And finally perhaps my favorite of all, this means viewing also in its entirety Chessedelic’s Videos of current high level games.

Korchnoi's Scoresheet from the recent Rising Stars Tournament [2.2]

To elaborate, I had wished to ‘be the one to tell you all about this’ but his work while not as yet widely known is, by now, not unheard of [3]. What I love about his videos is that unlike the exhausting myriads of variations presented by the two great ICC Grandmasters (so very well done, but a bit of an overload [4]), unlike those, chess trainer Waldemar Moes manages to keep a very high level while streamlining his smooth, warm, and approachable delivery into comprehensible nuggets.

To elaborate on this must mean to compare them to GOTW and AWLC at ICC mentioned above, but this is the subject of another day. He also often begins from a key diagram and if like me you use chessBase, you can tile the view with the web video on the left, and the cbv game on the right, adding variations if not noting the commentary as notes, in making the game more memorable. After all, what else do we strive for if not to absorb so much great chess?

Lets let his fine work speak for itself, and let me heartily encourage all of you to visit his blog, add his RSS feed, or if you have seen his work, then to reinforce the value of repeated visits. There are so many instructional videos today, in chess and blogging, some good, some bad, some indifferent, that it’s nice to know where more of the gems are [5].

Warmest, dk

Some Facets of Traditional Higher Culture Make the Space Shuttle Seem like the Work of Children, such Rich Archaic depth, like something from the Gods!

[1] I have an entire list of new things to write of, and two or three times a week intend to address them one by one, and knock them off in a workman like way, without making a chore out of it. One major highlight is a rich process to share, in how I manage my truly massive effort, in creating and accessing multiple if not vast chessBase files. This is two years now for me, non-stop effort and it is still building. Every day I find something new.

[2] In the future, I will compare these two, and only note for now, that those of you inclined to subscribe to ICC but not members have the further inducement of not only having access to high level chess, but a rich library of videos and interviews. ICC password necessary to access. This site is now truly rich gold to me.

[2.2] Can you imagine what his love making must have been like, 'back in the day?' :) Such a distinct exuberance, that even well into his 70's the Eros still shines through, like an elemental force of nature like wind, rain, or oceans!

[3] The excellent blog Greg’s Chess Progress, to his great credit, mentioned this weeks ago. Greg is not yet a ranking chess player, but A++ for his sincere effort and I read all his posts. I suggest you visit him. I love his blog.

[4] Along with note 2. above, I need to write about suggested ways to better use those ICC Videos, and how this relates to chessBase Knowledge Management mentioned at [1] immediately above.

[5] Please be advised that my video selections are in no way inadvertent. I have recently viewed about three hundred youTube videos and try to select the one that I think is best, choosing from a large short list, much as I have done the last two years here, in selecting from a now capacious library of images. So here too now.

Another Chess Board that the USA is Getting Crushed On!

Magnus Now Number One in the World

2008-09-05T13:53:00.000-07:00

As many of you probably know by now, Morozevich was world number one for ONE DAY about two weeks ago, through the now increasingly popular Live Ratings Website. This same table is conveniently viewed through the ChessVibes.com website. Experienced or news current readers among you already are aware of this, and this is only to inform those of you who love chess who might not have time or inclination to view these sites.

So many times in the past--hundreds, in fact--I have wanted to post some smaller factoid, but stopped myself for needing to be more extensive in blogging, as was my practice, but herein I am allowing myself to include shorter items. My goal is not to regurgitate news but rather, to spread the word in help further broaden horizons more quickly where appropriate.

More than news, when I post here outside my own chess about the world of chess at large, hopefully it won't be like the commonplace Susan Polgaresque inane creation of news about news, but rather to share some of the tools, resources, and discoveries I have found or realized.

Also, I will now have shorter subjects about chess and, as usual, still have bits and pieces about me. In the weeks ahead, I will be writing about the ascension of the Kramnik of Asia--Wang Yue of China, notes about the benefit of using ChessBase Lite for newer serious students, how to organize and structure ChessBase files as work in progress, sources for some notable chess blog videos that I have found and enjoyed, and much else. Stay tuned!

Without further ado, in beating Radjabov today in the FIDE Grand Slam Final at Biblao in the Basque Region of Spain, Magnus Carlsen is now provisionally rated Top in the world in this real time calculation, that is to say, if it were today, he would occupy that role [1].

Carlsen-Radjabov, Grand Slam Final 2008

Both Magnus and Radjabov have been resusitating the Sicilian Dragon of late, and needless to say with extensive preparation. But today, Carlsen was ready on the White side when the two highest ranking proponents of this resurgence meet in a topical line.

Here are the ratings. What an accomplishment for this once boy wonder, and now young man [2]:

'Live rating list - updated September 5, 2008
Rank Name Rating Change Games
01 Carlsen 2791,3 +16,3 25
02 Anand 2790,9 -7,1 4
03 Morozevich 2787,0 -1 9
04 Topalov 2786,2 +9,2 4
05 Ivanchuk 2781,8 +0,8 44
06 Kramnik 2771,9 -16,1 16
07 Aronian 2754,1 +17,1 17
08 Radjabov 2749,5 +5,5 17
09 Leko 2746,6 +5,6 16
10 Wang Yue 2735,5 +31,5 23

Daily updates of top 10 ratings provided by Hans Arild Runde
See chess.liverating.org for details and complete list'

[1] Change does not occur in a vacume or in isolation. Change occurs always in relation to something else. Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason outlined four categories: Quantity, Quality, mode, and Relation. For Carlsen went up while Anand went down. Helping Carlsen for sure, mighty Topolov today obliterated Anand in twenty five moves, as indicated here. As discussed at the link in the ChessBase article, this is a relatively rare phenomenon [3]

[2] Finally, here is a very nice article with more about him, mentioning for example, his dinner with Anand and his wife Aruna, where they did the Monty Python skit. :)

[3] Here in Microsoft country in Seattle, it is well known that not only was Bill Gates ruthless, brilliant, had good parents including a lawyer for a father, but in addition to great timing in seizing a new idea, he had GOOD STARS. In short, he had preturnatural good fortune, aka good luck. So here, Carlsen had to have good luck on top of hard work, boundless talent, enjoyment of the game, and the strongest connection to the royal game.

My check now, of my megabase, indicates that this has happened only four times in his career, since 1995, twice by Kasparov and once, of course, by nemesis Kramnik. Just think about that.

No takebacks

2008-08-09T04:37:00.000-07:00

You know the saying: never mind 'no take backs' but tonight, at FICS, a rigorous if not very, very advanced and most severely underated opponent asked for a takeback in an already demonstrably lost position after an honest and long fight, and without further ado, took me all of twelve or fifteen seconds, went into BabaChess and entered him into 'no-play'. Somehow you are advanced but when you slip you wish to deny it? NO. What I am suppost to do, somehow give up my struggle and give YOU a chance to win when you are trying to kill me?? NO.

When I slip badly, more often that not, I just simply resign. This is not a chess problem but a real overall lack of integrity problem. At ICC and FICS I have not asked for single takeback in 4,000 games in 2.5 years. Why is this so hard for some?

I for mine am inordinately proud of my 35.5% win to total game ratio. When I can add another loss, and quickly, I know that I am getting the appropriate punishement and surely becoming a better chess player. If only I could enter the Noosphere and have an even more respetible ratio of 29.99% I would only be so happy, so glad!

As we used to say in Zen and/or Martial Arts: "Thank you for teaching me"

Tactic from History

2008-07-08T18:30:00.000-07:00

White to move: [1.h4 h5 2.Kh2 g6 g3 resigns]. Black is in Zugzwang (think about it before highlighting the moves between the bracket) .

Is this really a terribly difficult or profound position? Not really. But at the beach today (after two days of work on our global middlegame collaborative effort, the reason for my relative blogger hiatus), I recognized the game instantly, and knew the game was based on the inevitable b5 push, and was a Nimzowitsch game.

I admit, my instant thought was Nimzowitsch-Johner, which of course it is not: it is the classic Alekhine-Nimzowitsch 1930 game. But having looked at thousands of GM games, I knew in about two seconds that it was Nimzowitsch. It does sink in. How many of you recognized this, or recognized the position at a glance?

Geartness: A Triumphant Nadal. The end of an era, doubtless painful for Roger Federer recently at Wimbleton

Lots going on behind the scenes. More latter. Warmest congratulations to blunderprone, likeForests, Getting to 2000, and chessLoser simply for making it to the World Open. Man. Also double kudos to likeForests, 5th in the unrated at the recent World Open in Philadelphia. Outstanding.

Why am I blogging less? It is the intensity of our gmC effort (only 4,158 positions, rendered by six persons, link above), and deep immersion on chessBase GM games (extensively) when not otherwise occupied. My passion and interest is not less, just am full, full, full and full.

American Swimmer: Michael Phelps chasing phenomenon and legend Mark Spitz in Olympic Glory: in pursuit of more gold metals, a body made for the pool!

Polly! [1].

Warmest, dk]

[1] If I keep posting decent pictures, sooner rather than latter I will perhaps re-earn my right to post more femaile, erotic pictures guys!

Prolegomena To any Future Blogger Community, or ReAssembler, The Nimble Epicure: Essay Eleven

2008-06-21T00:01:00.000-07:00

What exactly does applying to become a 9-1-1 Dispatcher for a large city Police Department have to do with being an epicure, a chess expert, an editor of a security magazine, and a parser of unusual English words? What does this have to do with phenomenology, or French Deconstructionism or Structuralism, German anthropology, fencing, demi glace, or vinology? Kind readers are invited to read on:

I think of myself significantly eclectic, but our subject for today wins the blogger Ne Plus Ultra Award for catholic breadth and scope, reaching far corners of learning, culture, and taste and--yes--this includes chess too. Without further ado: we now bring you Derek Slater to our series, otherwise known as what I myself like to express as reAssembler.

Before we embark on our essay, let us visit for a moment recent essays along these lines and, in so doing, reintroduce or recapitulate the Prolegomena Series dating from the summer at our blog here.

I commenced an essay series, of course, starting with the mighty Temposchlucker, the omnipresent and nearly unstoppable Blue Devil Knight, continuing through the superior in all ways Wormwood, then introducing the wildcard feature, including topics or guests such as Peter Norvig--Director of Research at none other than Google; the essays continued with ventures to Grandpatzer and Robert Pearson or Wahrheit, and some others too many to mention or elaborate here. Readers can find these in my archives at right (Chess Relearner, WFMU, and the once infamous but now good friend chessDog).

Since we left off last with Blunderprone as Essay Ten, and he hales from Boston, it is perhaps not at all inappropriate we continue our connnect to the Boston Brahmin's by picking up on Derek here.

I am very proud of having found Derek here before, I think, most of the regular bloggers seemed to have found him, sporting him high up in my blogroll from the very inception of my efforts to give the broadest inclusiveness to the list.

Early readers who are alert will recall that he used to call his blog Chess Cooking (housed at the svelt and savy and semantical Wordpress), of all things. What strikes us as apparent and still remains is how evenhanded and wide ranging his blog is. His blog is funny and engaging in the same way Liquid Egg Product's is--a not wholy unrelated associated alternate wordpress blog--but perhaps without the degree of Saturyday Nightlivesque Jocularity of the latter.

Derek is marvelous in his use of language, explicating the lattest etymologies for us less prolix or polymorphic or euphoneous writers, commentating on the lattest episode of Top Chef (yum, Padma Lakshmi's features and charms), or as the case may be bringing our attention to a new classic chess game of Nakamura against Krashenkow involving bombardement of heavy artilary such as not seen since the days of Morphy or Tal, writing about modern safecracking,

He exhibits his urbane, no fuss, no muss--use of English in a way that hardly gives surprise when discovered that he is a professional editor for CSO, a publication about security. That such a man entrusted me with his direct email was endearing to me, and while we do not correspond regularly, when we do it is never without profit or succinct charm. He is one of the rare chess bloggers to engage me on the stock market, humble in these ways, and never ever unappreciative.

If I were to come back to earth again as one of the other bloggers, creation would indeed tempt me to perhaps come back as temposchlucker, or BDK, or even Blundcerprone. I might even wish to be Grandpatzer, or Phaedrus. What could that be like?

Well, if I were temposchlucker, I might get to focus on myself free of distraction, like a vast combine in some vast Ukranian estate run by serfs relatively free of rebelion.

And if I were BDK, would get to experience keen inteligence unfettered by neurotic complication with an academic position, a wife, a dog, a triathlon training regimine, and the ability NOT to save (never mind all my books) all my papers and emails from as far dating as the paleolithic era. Why stop here?

If I were Blunderprone, I would get to be the head of a family, with a solid job, music, food, drug memories of the 70's, and a now a solid recovery and the bonus of great practical inteligence keeled by a giantly good heart; or if I were likeForests, I would get to see what it is also like to never express resentment or blame, with a daughter that I love, and, again, undistracted chess study??

And if I were Grandpatzer, I could see what it would be like to live without an emotional merry go round going on inside my head like a Carnival bar no other.

And the best for last, if I were Phaedrus, I would get to see what it would be like to be a chess expert, with a decent position in society, the sort of beautiful wife who never leaves me bored without fiery emotions and spice, and two adorable children that I truly love, and limitless tolerance. How can you not like all these possibilities?

But if I really had to come back to earth as another blogger, much as I would enjoy being tempo or BDK for a week or a month, I would first choose to be reAssembler. Why allow such a thing?

ReAssember, for me, affords the possibility of hard work while always appearing to have fun, a life always free of blame or vindictiveness, and subtle taste embracing food, current affairs and popular culture, words, sport, chess, and the lattest in technology.

How can we not admire others and respect them greatly without revealing so much about ourselves, but Derek seems to swim in life with much better shock absorbers than me, doubtlessly making for a smoother ride, and I truly admire than, all done without a hint of possible narrowness, and a good kind heart. I do greatly appreciate him, and hope that you will too!

More Equals Less

2008-06-04T11:50:00.000-07:00

The Trojan Horse

Here I am feeling the need to think out loud ala temposchluckeresque.

Last night I attained a big milestone. For it was only last July that I resumed my close study of Grandmaster Chessgames. And after ten months of sustained effort, I have completed the second major tranch of game viewing. Because not only did I actually view or visit at least four hundred games since then [1]--by itself alone this is actually quite a sizable accomplishment--but in so doing incorporated another 3,496 Classic GM Chess games to my collection. This often meant going back and comparing among game versions--using the chessBase reference function [2]--and comparing versions side by side, not analysis for sure, but in so doing learning to recognize on sight many famous games and growing my game knowledge. This also sometimes having to manually enter some of the games. Yes, I am too lazy as you all know. Smiles.

As those of you who in the last year saw the game collection (or one of it's earlier versions) already know, I had elected to preserve duplicates games (while marking them for deletion but NOT deleting them), so the entire collection now amounted to as many as 3,991 Classic GM Games once the file was copied then compressed, of which I have now viewed 1514 of them. More on this at the end of this post, to wrap up this summary.

Trailer Parks in Palm Springs, California USA: Row after row of pitiful sameness

Also with my partner Phaedrus, I helped launch the gmC or Global Middlegame Collaborative, where we have produced much that has remained out of view and will remain so. Suffice to say, much writing and thus planning has already been accomplised since as early as March, and we have now assembled a truly great team, even including someone who was closely connected to GM Ram author Rashid Ziyatdinov. When you remember the wave coming from my post 'Raming GM Ram', this is for me evidence of true cosmic resonance and synergy.

And let me not fail to mention that we still have room for four more of the RIGHT persons. And this whole project takes a lot of time, since we must manage it. Each email takes time such as qualifying each person, answering questions, forwarding key emails, and the scope of the entire endeavor swells with each new person and the cross currents of implication mushroom each month. As Wittgenstein said [3]: "And the rest, is silence".

Corporal Life is one of the most unpredictable things there is

Along with that, we are now talking about my flying to Chicago for two days, to meet the Saxion University department chairman who must be there early this summer for a conference, and so the possibility exists that this could afford our first meeting, get acquaited in real time. This is wonderfull but of course involves more work. I say 'we' because while my application to be a professor at Saxion University of the Netherlands is seperate from gmC, early on it organically grew out of that collaboration, and so eventuated our now extensive communication. In fact, according to temposchlucker, I 'had hijaked Phaedrus'. Can you imagine!
At CTS or chess tactical server, as my friends already know, I have now attained the rank of number thirty two for 'number of tries' out of some 2,742 tacticians. But far more significantly, I have finally surpassed Morkovkin in both 'accuracy' and 'tries' all within a few days at 83rd in rank [4]. Since this might only mean something to those who make effort there (or anyone else active at a 'hosted chess training web site' where comparative results are illustrated), this note must be brief:

Don't Mess With My Shit

First: you all know how you try, try, and try and on matter how much work you do, there is always somebody ahead of you. So that when the day comes that you equal then surpass this person looming over you in a key measure (or two!), it is a most pleasant feeling, even if you know that their real chess strengtt far exceeds yours. So whom I like to call 'The Mighty Morkovkin' is now below me now and will remain so.

Second: I will do another 7,575 tries at =>97.4257% (or one wrong allowed in every 38.8 tries) and be at 90.05% at 49,800 tries. Initially in my future planned effort I will use the last 200 tries to 50k to reach towards 1600 elo =>90.1% thereafter, so that one in ten wrong will be remarkably different than the 98.5% that I am currently sustaining (recently: 31f/1,969 = exactly 2,000 tries @ 98.450%). My target is 90.1% and aught not to be 90.0% because if you get to 90.00% and start to slip, mathematically the real prospect exists that you can fall to a true 89.9501% and not even know it (where 90.0% would still be indicated). So when in the future 90.1% is shown at my user profile I will know that I am => 90.05%, etc. Wew.

Lastly, as far as chess goes, I am almost finished with the first Reinfeld book as planned. Admittedly it goes slow at times (I love the book. So no--not 'that kind of slow') but don't use a board or a game viewer, and can spend days on a problem.

Problem 738 from Reinfeld's:
1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations, Fritz 7 (5 sec.), 05.01.2003 1.Qxh7+ Fritz 7: 1) 1...Kxh7 2.Nxf6+ Kh6 3.Neg4+ Kg5 4.h4+ Kf4 5.g3+ Kf3 6.Be2+ Kg2 7.Rh2+ Kg1 8.0–0–0# #7/7 Line

Now, seeing Qxh7 is not difficult. Nor maybe even seeing Nxf6, but to see it through all the way to the end is not easy. I do NOT wish to rush this in seven circles fashion cum MDLM (and MDLM2), but instead experience the effort, instead of the imaginary realm of 'thinking that I did a chess problem' by memorizing it through seven interations all out of breath and never once 'seeing it', convering one's eyes like a child with one's fingers.

I get the same chills watching this video when I see Fischer, the younger Mohamed-Ali boxing, videos of Kasparov playing against Karpov. Impatient viewers go to the 3:17 mark for an astounding succession of volleys.

I have not been playing much chess, I must admit it. I had tried to play 'off and on' all winter, but gmC, Saxion, and the Classic GM Chess Game database, and finally CTS have all combined to take the best of me. For me, playing chess is all or nothing. I play to win. Of course, there is this same janus faced flip, where I do not play to win, but only to improve, but the tension is there between two distinct factors or feelings.

I continue to update my databases from my now beloved chessVibes, chessbase.com, The Week in Chess, ChessCafe.com, listen to audios such as John Watson's chess talk at ICC Chess FM, as well as of course, stay aware of if not view the major games of high level chess at the major tournement level.

In sales, there is a thing called 'call reluctance', which I never really suffered from, but all sales persons can have it. Well we can have what might in kind be called 'chess reluctance'. Playing live chess--for me--is not enjoyable when mentally spent, or mentally overstimulated. I am very, very, very 'type A' as a personality, and chess study gives me relief from that; chess play does not. I found enormous comfort in the routine of study, comfort in iterative programmed rounds of repetition.

Radjabov,T (2751) - Bu Xiangzhi (2708) [D15]
4th M-Tel Masters Sofia BUL (7), 15.05.2008

"White's next move is a bolt from the blue!" 24.Rf7

"Dennis Monokroussos writes: 'The game has a bit of everything: former prodigies who are now elite GMs facing off in a popular (but positionally grounded) line, a transition to a remarkable tactical moment too deep for many computers to handle, followed by an amusing and instructive endgame. It's a very smooth performance by Radjabov, demonstrating both his skill in positional play and his considerable tactical ingenuity (It also serves to remind us that tactics are generally needed to subserve strategic goals.)."

The game continued: 24...Bxg4 25.Bf6 exf6 26.Rxd7 Bxd7 27.exf6 a4 28.fxg7+ Kxg7 29.Kf2 h6 30.Ke1 Re6 31.Qg3 Be8 32.Kd2 g5 33.Kc3... and the Radjabov runs his white king runs up the board:

...Kf8 34.Kb4 Bf7 35.Ka5 Kg7 36.Kb6 Kf8 37.Kc7 Kg7 38.Kd7 Kf8 39.Qf2 Rg6 40.Qf5 h5 41.g3 1-0.

Alert readers might quickly associate this with the famous Nigel Short game (active link to chessgames.com applet) versus Timman:

'Black Resigns. There is no defense to 35.Kh6 and 36.Qg7#. 1–0'

I finally found time to get an additional two ram added to my dual core Dell XPS Desktop pc, and the first thing I did was to test this position (I plugged this in seconds after the Dell Service tech standing right here told me that the new ram was active!). Fritz8 couldn't find this move in forty minutes, but am sure that once I get a dual processor version of Rybka or the lattest version of Fritz11 will realize better use of all this speed. I went back to work after lunch, and when I got home, Fritz8 had of course finally seen 24.Rf7 but cannot know if this took only an hour, two, or four!

Radjabov is indeed a genius, as many of these guys are. How many billions of positions, at 900k per second, did it take to find what he realized over the board?

Speed and Power

I am now ready for a modern chess engine, but for long have resisted it, as I do not want to get too dependent on these 'critters', yet they do have their place in the search for 'real chess truth'.

And a few odds and ends: I continue to listen to every single IM John Watson 'Chess Talk audio'. The recent one from 05.13.08 where on GM Simen Agdestein discusses his training of 'The Mozart of Chess' was just fantastic. It was wonderful. But last night, I listend to all of his interview on 05.20.08 with GM Fabiano Caruana who currently lives in Hungary, but lived in The United States, Spain, and Italy (he has dual citizen there with the USA) [5].

If you are not an ICC member, then you are missing out. And if you are a member and not hearing the best of these interviews, then you are seriously missing out. I would have to say that this last one was the best of all of them, from Short to Shirov to Nakamura--but of course, all of these are really great. Here you get to walk into the training mind of a truly bright young man, in it's broader, heuristical senses. Please.

Did any of you know that Rybka lost a match in Mexico City, against Zappa (September 20-27, 2007 and concurrent with the epic WCC Chess Match where Kramnik gave up his crown to Anand)? I don't want to have to dredge up all the details now, but do recall something about the time frames not being ideal for it's creator Vasik Rajlich. Not my point. Did any of you know that Zappa was created by a student still in graduate school? You think he gets any job offers for his brain? Notes from Wikipedia:

Zappa (Zap!Chess) is a chess engine written by Anthony Cozzie, a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The program emphasizes sound search and a good use of multiple processors. Zappa scored an upset victory at the World Computer Chess Championship in August, 2005, in Reykjavík, Iceland. Zappa won with a score of 10.5 out of 11, and beat both Junior and Shredder, programs that had won the championship many times. In the speed chess portion of the tournament Zappa placed second, after Shredder. In Mexico in September 2007 Zappa won a match against Rybka by a score of 5.5 - 4.5. Zappa and Rybka are generally considered the two strongest commercially-available chess programs. Some speculate that Zappa's more efficient SMP parallel search could make it stronger on enough processors.
In March 2008 Anthony Cozzie announced that "the Zappa project is 100% finished", which includes both tournaments and future releases.

Displaced residents at Dujiangyan in Sichuan Province

I will have to continue this post latter, such as about some wholistic health things that have markedly improved, news of my father whom I fly east to see in nine days, and what I derive from all this chess work, and where I plan to go from here and specifically and concretely how I aim to make more out of less hereafter... It is very, very tempting to go on and write on gigantic post, but honestly, who wants to read it all? I must be realistic and split it up, when its banks already swell with gushing water!

[1] Since I took weeks off at a time from viewing classic GM games, this is actually a larger effort than might otherwise appear: when I view these games, it is at the rate of 25 per week (3 per day, and as many as 5 per day on days of--not as might seem only 1.2 games per day!

[2] And on rare occassion necessarily instead refering to chessgames.com (filled with errors! Do not depend on it!)

[3] Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

[4] While 83rd in rank for accuracy sound trivial, let it be gainsaid that only six tacticians of out 2,746 users at CTS defined as 'Active' have accuracy =>than 87.7% AND tries => 27,375 and that I am one of them.

[5] Lev Alburt on 5.27.2008! Rock and roll baby! Silman on 3.04.2008.

The Global eBook Middlegame Collaborative

2008-05-22T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Global eBook Middlegame Collaborative, today announces its inception.

Phaedrus, and Transformation, have organized themselves as a cooperative effort, to create an eBook generated from the lesser known--but perhaps the most comprehensively useful--of Lazlo Polgar's three books often referred to as Bricks. To do so alone would exhaust most mortals, so we purport to accomplish this by combined and shared efforts upon Polgar's comprehensive book: 'Chess Middlegame, 77 Types in 4,158 Positions'.

Ardent students of systematic chess improvement are invited to join. We only ask for your time, and necessarily of course, confidentiality as to our communications such as email and identities.

We do not require that you have any chess pedigree as to knowledge or rating or skill, but only readiness to begin in the next month in your weekly contribution of hours and effort. What you will get in the end is the same 4,000+ chessBase cbv file that we all will share and the interpersonal discoveries realized in collaboration in it's best sense.

In the first phase, ten of us will collaborate in creating a powerful chess middlegame study and teaching tool, in each rendering some 320 positions into pgn files, from Polgar's book. Sir Pino has generously offered to join our efforts, which means that we still have room for seven more persons.

The reward will be your possession of a powerful tool suitable for almost a lifetime of chess study. You will be able to do advanced thematic training with all the advantages which eBooks provide such as 'Annotations and Variations', 'Search', and 'Evaluation and testing lines' by chess engines. The printed book offers several disadvantages such as its being out of print and thus extremely costly to furnish; it is also not very easy to handle in being very thick and heavy. Moreover, our eBook will be an improvement upon the original, as it is already well known that the book can either be incomplete or have faulty solutions.

Of course, more needs to be discussed about phase two and phase three, and specifics about what is involved concerning agreements as to confidentiality and use since this is not a commercial venture and is for private use. For more information you can email us at globalmiddlegame@gmail.com.

The Age of Chinese Chess is Coming

2008-05-13T01:08:00.000-07:00

Those of you who are already well dialed into the current chess scene, may not need to read this short post.

But for those of you who don't manage to get all the major chess news, it should get our attention that recently the third ranking Chinese GM Wang Yue placed second in a three way tie for first place at the recent first round of the FIDE Grand Prix in Baku.

He did so by beating out the likes of world number seventh, eight, and nineth Mamedyarov, Radjabov, and Svidler, as well as Karjakin at thirteenth, Adams fourteenth, Kamsky fifteenth, Grischuk eighteenth, and Bacrot twenty-third.

He shared the podium with first tie-breaker Gashimov at forty-two and third tie-breaker Magnus Carlsen at fifth in the world. You can be sure that those dudes gave him no breaks.

Back in the qualifier in Elista, in November, at ICC someone fingered a comment, saying: "Who is Wang Yue?" Well, I think that they all know now.

Sorry folks: hard as I try, I cannot get the embed to go directly to the specific video from round four. Instead, go directly to the video either at The Week in Chess or Europe-Echeces.com. Then select the first of the forth round videos: 'ROUND FOUR MUSIC, GAMES AND INTERVIEW' (blue tone to background image). Therein is found the discussion about the Chinese press by the Spanish Grand Master hired by the Chinese who is fluent in Chinese.

Secondly, this week at Sofia, Chinese first Bu Xiangzhi is rubbing elbows with the pedigree of Topolov, Ivanchuk, and Aaronian. This part is not big news. But what is big is that the Chinese press are there, this time, in droves as only the Chinese can. There is an army of reports and photographers, and this is big news in China. China is big and with the Peking Olympics in August, peak oil, and now the sorrowfull earthquake in Sichuan province, it is time we all recognize the Chinese effort in chess. Whether it is too big now, is not for any of us to say.

Did any of you know that the average ranking of the Chinese top ten is now third in the world at FIDE, behind of course Russia and the Ukraine (Israel fourth, with USA sixth)?

Now Ultra

2008-05-04T23:52:00.000-07:00

Life going by at the speed of light

Today I finished my letter of application to Saxion University in the Netherlands. Such an event in and of itself might not be too significant, but in context represents--for me--an enormous accomplishment. Let me please elaborate:

Since February I have been one busy beaver. I have: added another 3,496 or so games to my classic GM game database, often in exhaustive detail or entering games by hand. This necessarily included much checking, since the 1,350 games from AngelFire.com honestly had great benefit while also unfortunately contained many errors (and I do not mean in analysis, but outright wrong or incomprehensible game scores). On Wall Street, we call this a big beta.

I have also been back to CTS, not in huge volume, but always trying to attain 100% each and every session. I am finally in the top 100 their for accuracy at #98 @ 88.33, which is significant seeing how I did my first 10,000 tries at 80.0%. I am pushing to get to 50,000 at 90.00% which is well within my grasp by October or December at the latest. I just had a run of 223 in a row correct, and have now done thousands at 97.0%, often between 1480 and 1520 elo.

February was significant in far more ways than one: I had the good fortune to make a great friend in Phaedrus. We now have over 2,000 emails between us. No, not all of them were long, but believe you me, some went on for pages. We will be announcing our project probably within a week to ten days, and have only to first finish our effort to see if we can get me to the Netherlands in a teaching capacity. It has been writing, and writing and rewriting.

In our chess project, I wrote a ten page project document to outline our agreements and procedures, and this is in parallel to the GM chess game database, the Academic efforts, and my medical stuff. Phaedrus and I finally got to chat, and we talked for over an hour last night, with his mediating his two sons in Dutch time to time in the background, as Mrs. Phaedrus was getting some much needed rest. This man is a real gem of a man is all I can say for now. Man.

Bold Imagination, 2001 A Space Odyessy

Unfortunately (please, no one worry, I am in great hands) while having the constitution of a real athlete, my life time of elevated blood pressure has seen a recent jump. Himmm you say? Yes, a new store manager. Let me leave it at that, the sweet man! We of course watch it, but need to make sure that I don't go over THAT edge.

My holistic doc, who is fantastic, had my adrenals checked, and this explains partly why I never tire. I mean the tachometer is up ALL day. I only go to sleep as a decision. He has designed a program for me to go on natural supplements, and aught to ameliorate the prior issue. The neighsayers will all come to roost on this subject, but can only note that my impeccable diet 'doesn't help here', and only reduces the need for sleep or to stop. I prepare all my own food and do it like a Dharma or fine art.

Amazona vittata, Puertorican parrot fledgling

Also, for depression, I have to stay on track with the diet, too, since he is greatly against antidepresents, saying they only mask symptoms. He also has requested a full blood panel, which we are waiting on, from the mainstream medical or preferred provider loop. I paid out of pocket for the adrenal test, and the gluten intolerance test, and the dairy intolerance test. Damn. I am totally surprised. I have the intolerance to the two latter, and his statement that it was a 30% chance I had the intolerance since I am half German was met with skepticism by me... All my life I could eat anything, but we aren't talking what you can eat but what you should not eat for optimal health as you age and alergies build up...

Long story, I had a horrid rash, and wanted to tear my skin off... and this has been addressed, you get the idea, this is just one part of my life... If only my diet were total crap, this could be a tool, but I am already in the top 99.5% in my diet for white males (married Asian males throw all these stats off). And people who meditate and do yoga, etc, often but not always see this same drop off in sleep, as they live with less screens, and screens rob energy. You take them away, and all you have is what the Dhamapada says: 'long is the night to he who is awake', if you follow.

No Comment

I have resumed to trade financial markets analytically and quantitatively and of course have built an analytic model of domestic equity markets measuring the standard deviation of sentiment, consolidated with the second derivative of the stock market. The problem has never been the accuracy of my model, but sustaining my use of it, sticking to the discipline of what it says rather than trying to get it to express predictions correctly. It's like instrument flying in clouds.

Daily again I am working my way through the last of Reinfeld's 1001 Sacrifices and Combinations, and if any of you have never been to the torture chamber, I can recommend it unconditionally.

Lastly, if any of you have made it this far, I am committed by myself to write on post daily at my integrative blog, The System of the System. Yes, I do have some ego here at chess improvement, but there comments are not critical. I write for myself [1]. I try hard to conceive these in no particular order, but, believe you me, I have a 'plan' [2].

Daily I write a short post, such as on Risk, Grace, Exploration, Results, Cost, Acceptance, Learning, Energy, and Feeling. Tonight after this post, and checking in on the start of the tension filled final round of the FIDE Grand Prix in Baku in a few minutes, I must finish my post on Distribution, and in the days ahead will write: Completion, Sexuality, and Information.

I know that I need to really work on being less superficial and I ask for everyone's forgiveness. :)
May god bless you all. Love to all beings, Love dk
...
..
.
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1. Now I know how Wormwood must feel ( *wait a second, no one knows how he feels, but I can *caugh* just imagine what he must... ).

2. Yes, yes, it is Polly's turn indeed. Previously I was able to pester Samurai Pawn, Robert Pearson (aka Wahrheit), and even finally got to chessLoser (aka hardcore pawnography), and never without controversy.

Polly, what is your plan and if you have one, are you serious about it, or is it just the desire to wish to have a plan? Plans are nice, but it is the implementation of them where the rubber meets the road. A plan must be challenging enough to galvinize our actions into concrete daily steps, but not so large as to inhibit the flow of enjoyment and discovery.

Phaedrus (aka Chess Vision) has also been asked, but he has so much chess rank, that my rub is more in getting him to concretize and formalize his plan than to improve his chess. He has welcomed my penchant for planning with great aplomb.

According to a very recent email from Temposchlucker (cf. comment today on spacejunk), I have hijacked Phaedrus, which is probably true, but then again, Phaedrus I know for a fact holds him in the highest regards. Soon I can give him back! Our plan is to... 'wait, wait, we must do one last little thing, then....' (DK).

Superheros

2008-05-02T03:05:00.000-07:00

If Grandmasters are the big heros of chess to the denesins of chess, then surely supergrandmasters are the superheros of chess. Did any of you see Rabjabov in his chessvibes video, in his powerfull win against Kamsky at the end of round nine at the FIDE Grand Prix?

It is hard not to see him as having great affectation, but really, this is the way he is. All these guys are smart, but this guy is a fucking genius. What, is English like his third language, but listen to him go! Links here. Sixth video down from the top. Of course, there are many many videos round by round, but THIS is the round to see.

You folks ever try holding your breath for 3 minutes and 4 seconds? Try 17:04 minutes. Insane.

You also really get to see the folks as they are. For example, Adams chess rank is beyond question, but again and again you get to see him shirk from the camera. This is not a big man, as a man, I mean only. And, quite the contrary, just listen to Svidler (forth video from the top). This guy is a man's man. No wimp at all. Perfect English. Just imagine that. All those cricket scores do sink in. Sardonic but authentic enough.

Hear his response at the end. OMG. As they say in the (USA) south: "not dumb'. This guy is speaking in a second language and uses words I don't use, such as 'far fetched'. Brain cells multiplicity. Or is that, rather, superabundance??

BTW: tonight, two hundred in a row correct at CTS. The key, to borrow a question from temposchlucker, intra email communication, pm PST tonight: 'Relaxation while calculating all posibilities', even if I somehow 'imagine that it is obvious" Trust me, the stuff you think is obvious is NOT and the the surety that what is obvious is, in fact, NOT obvious allows you to score 100% in lieu of 97 or 94%.

More latter. Lots more about job prosect, finally the announcement about the 'project with leading chess blogger' next week likely, and finish of 5.231 Classic GM Game Database. Gave my email to an African American woman tonight, in 'the store": Opening line: "You are beautiful from the inside out". Man oh man.

Grab Not Grob

2008-04-15T03:11:00.000-07:00

Serious chess study is almost an absolute impossibility amidst the shifting sands of life or the churning seas of the ocean.

After years of integration, the miraculous is almost ready to happen: while assisting a customer, two weeks ago, with a routine question easily dismissed as 'not in my area' when the plumbers were otherwise occupied (read mischeduled or 'out to lunch'), I dove in with both feet and insisted on getting his question answered. I called our store in Bellevue. Imagine, you cannot call down the hall but must call another more trusted location: Bellevue in lieu of Seattle, which is, incidentally, not far from Microsoft in Redmond or Medina where no less than Bill Gates Lives.

Long story, fast forward: in the course of quickly giving him outstanding service, just for sport, not for money or honor, as I am want to do, he realized that he knew me. Ken, who I will mention in a second, recalled having invited me to his house four years ago for a New Years Party, all from a deep conversation in my former haunt in flooring which, again at our store, annoyingly included wire shelving: read cut myriads of wire shelving with irritatingly loud and dull phenumatic shears.

I decided upon a second encounter with Ken, not to attend, very deliberately not to attend with a courteous email to count me out. He seemed rambunctious, and I had quit drinking in September of that year, and was in protection mode from all possible or elective disturbance.

So we finally recognize each other, and have a connection which is vivid four years latter again, only he has changed and I have changed. He is present in the moment, as I am... "Gosh, how are you at computing? I am CFO of a start up, and we sure could use a person like you..."

I check the website. Oh my god.... this is it. I email him within 24 hours, and the die is cast. Four rapid emails at 1 am in realtime, and I decide to go for broke and test the waters, and send him a dk-esque email as you can all imagine, with ONE OF MY CRAZY PHOTOS, THINKING 'if this doesn't stop them, then this will be ok and I can be accepted'.

As I drove home, this is the first thing I heard on the Radio!

You know how he responds? "To work at L., you have to be a little bit crazy, and you will fit in perfectly"...

I read the Mezzanene B financing PDF and all kinds of alarm bells are going off in my head... interview set up, hours of preparation, read a 54 page doc, and watch four YouTube promotional videos. This stuff is cool, I am thinking, I cannot sell what I do not believe in. They need a Customer Service Guru and Ken saw me, all while taking care of him at the store, take care of swarms of persons calmly...

Today I had a several hour interview. He hugged me at the door. I used an example of the leasons learned in three marriages (not me = 0) off the top of my head, and he reaches behind him, shows me a photo of his wife, and it is his 'third marriage', yes, I tell him, 'I AM AN INTUITIVE'.

So this ties together architect, financial sales, CRM or customer resource management, buildings, and knowledge managment, project management , and contact management...

First interview with G: "Yes, you were in charge of OEM licensing at Microsoft and program management?" "Yes, HOW did you know that?" "Well, I read the whole report and it is all here", pointing at my head, "I had a photographic memory when I was 18..."

I raise issues about distribution, sub-prime crisis, intellectual property, the works.

I get the tour of the office, I hear Russian. From my job, I can recognize about fifty or more accents, including distinguishing Somali from Eritrian or Etheopian, Persia from Arabic.... we round the corner, and there is a chess position set up at a board, 'to capture the win for everyone'. Bunch of Russian Engineers! Here I am.

I take Ken down the hall, from the stair landing: pointing to the street directional arrows: "Did you ever notice that those match the company logo???!!!" "David, this is why I love creative people"...

I of course memorized the names of all their markets, no mention of Dubai... "Have you guys thougth about Dubai?" "You saw that?" "No, it just came to me now with Japan and Switzerland, Germany..."

The Entropic Break Point of our Planet: Aerial View of Burj Dubai and the Mall underneath

He said that had had other offers to sell and could go public, but prefer to build the company first. I mention Honeywell, Siemens, Motorolla, General Electric, then he says 'those are all obvious ones" but 'what about Microsoft or google?'. They are in wireless home automation...

These guys are grabbing me. Love is like that, business is like that, friendship is like that, the pets that somehow find us are like that, books are like that, spiritual teachers are like that, and even blogs can be like that. :)

I'd be surprised if I didn't get the job, but they must raise another million or two to get to six. Life is amazing. And, guess what? Out of 'the retail environment' I can join the USCF with more weekends free, a lot more in fact, and meet some more of you here, or on the road goodness sake!

News

2008-04-11T13:45:00.000-07:00

My father died three days ago [link to youTube, Johnny Cash song, Hurt , ebedding disabled by request]. He had gone very far down, and as can happen, treatment for cancer of the tongue destorys the cancer, then kills you. His suffering is over. Well into his mid seventies, he could do things physically I cannot do today.

As many of you know, I lost my job the day before Thanksgiving. What a year it has been. While replenishing my income is a real need, more to the point, I never really recovered both spiritually, emotionally, and practically from when I left Wall Street in 2000 [1].

I turned fifty in October, and my job was gone within four weaks. The housing crisis hit building materials retail NOT in September of 2008, but had already arrived in October of 2007, when we saw all the signs. As I said many times, it signified how much value I gave Lowes for being able to keep my job in the next 13 months, under enormous pressure from senior management. But in the end, at my highest pay rate, a red bullseye sat on my forehead, and I challenged management often, go figure. Even if you are supposed to be the best, that has its limits. :) I say this with humor, I hope you all understand.

My oldest friend died of altzheimers two months ago. He was a bridge master, a chess expert, and even played tennis great Rod Laver in rounds at both Wimbelton and The Italian Open, such a talent. He hustled pool, took BASIC programming to its limits early in the day, read Wittgenstein, and was a gourment. He was a spy in Eastern Europe, learning fluent Czech in just three months at the Montery Language School. He had read all of Being and Nothingness as a lad and became president of the American Azalia and Rhodendion Society in his latter years, with the back of his left foot, learning the names of many of the plants in Japanese. It goes without saying, he was among the one or two most brilliant persons I have had the priviledge of ever knowing. He was my first real teacher, and what a teacher he was.

Three days ago, I signed up--after ten years of ardent resistence--for a clinical study in severe depression, with medication provided. All the visits are covered, and the providor is solid, solid, solid [2], all fully monitored, 24 access to Doc with pager... When I got home from my intake visit, the phone rang, and it was news of my dads death.

I have often said how psychic I am. All too true. I feel and see more than most want to receive, and am more sensative than most. Not knowing my dad had his last day, I RAN to the post office the day before he died, having writen him my first letter in four years (he was deaf, we did a LOT of email, but that in the end was beyond his capabilities), and mailed the letter. I got home, and could not stop crying. The phone rings--it's the clinic, and I am invited to come in the next day. I cry off and on all night. Off and on for hours. As I go to bed, I was thinking, 'if only I could have a contract put out on me, get drunk with the door unlocked and get shot in my sleep, it would conveniently be over...' [3]

The next day, I am in the clinic for five hours. I go to Lowes for the first time since November, to research major brands, having decided my only hope is to combine architect and territory sales, product representative roles, by researching major brands, all of which I know quite well, and also went to Home Depot. I can see what outsiders cannot in an hour, mapping major labels [4].

I get home, phone rings, dad is dead.

In one week: decision to go on antidepresents, go back inside Lowes for the first time in four months (another location, for sure, where I am not well known), and dad dies.

I still play chess, six to seven times a week, at FICS, and sometimes Y! or chessCube for minor warm up games, 1700 in latter, but no mental space to join USCF again, still. I finally finished Reifeld's 1001 Sacrfices and Combinations till the binding fully disintegrated, and have just done 1/8th of his 1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate. I am annualizing 98.6% at CTS, and soon will hit 90.1% for 50,000 tries, something few in the world have done there. The Polgar project continues, albiet my current state a big hangup. I am starting to develop some blindfold skill, but mostly its in my sleep that I have it, when my heading is swimming in chess positions [5].

I want to write the big ChessBase post, but I have zero extra. My plate is full. Life is hard. Life seems over.

Those of you who are young--don't waste your life. If you see a girl or a boy you like go for her or him. Don't have a job you like--get out. Don't love you wife or husband--end it. Do what you love, take the chances given to you. The journey is a one shot deal. Loyalty, keeping promises, helping others, being authentic. Go to Europe or Asia, learn Arabic of German or Chinese, read the classics, learn to cook. Learn SQL and basic accounting. Learn carpentry and baking and homeopathy and how to cultivate organic vegetables and hydroponics.

Hold hands, hug, kiss, cry, laught, mourn, celebrate. Meditate, pray, share, listen. Like Robert Heinleins list of skills a man needs, go expand you palate to the maximum. Be nice to children and old people and the disabled, feed the homeless and give a bed to someone in need. And go ahead, and play a few wild gambits after drink.

Love dk

[1] Having almost a Senior VP title on your resume from Morgan Stanley THEN working at Lowes for six years after professional architectural practice AFTER living in a Zen Temple in Korea is like being hot iron brandished misfit, as far as the corporate world is concerned. Needle in haystack situation as far getting a 'job'. It like but being a refuge but only you are white middleclass, but might as well be a homeless drug addict felon.

[2] Not all is lost on me. I almost didn't qualify in the subjectivity test, since my physical health is so good, despite a great score on sinking mood. :)

I continue to eat exceedingly healthily, just back from a 36 minute run, including hills five to six days a week....

When the psyhologist saw the numbers, my heart sank, but he left the room to go see the MD's, and said, 'Let me see what I can do'. Clearly, I not only belonged in the study, but could benefit enormously--and he knew it and I knew it. Mercy please, Lord. Yes.

[3] Armchair Doctors of the blogosphere, fear not. I DO WANT to live, but these are what are called feelings, defined in therapy as like/dislike.

[4] So the real rub of the matter is that I need to find a new direction. Technical sales, project management, program management open positions are flooded with applicants, not least of which WAMU, the largest bank bust in US history is from Seattle, so that 'on the margin', odds are 1: 400 or 500 I can find a job on the web. Prospective employers have their pick in detail here, of who they want:

"We need someone who can do Quickbooks, answer four phones, do html, photcopy, mailroom, refill coffee machine, CNC die and toolmaker, knowledge of AutoCAD, SQL, Nissan Factory certified, AND perfect driving record, must be Ivy League, under age fifty, over age twenty-five, provide SS number, detailed references", at Seattle,Craigslist.com as much as $11 to 13 per hour by gosh! Wow! Not far from the truth. Fuck that.

[5] Almost doesnt cut it, but dang it, I almost hit 1500 bullet at ICC and then missed it. 1500 bullet generally correlates (not alway, but usually) with a 1600-1700 blitz game and 1800-1850 standard chess. I am still trying... beating 1900's now and again, but also time to time losing to 1300 still, so not quite ready. My win loss ratio at FICS and ICC alike is about 33%, my pride and joy, badge of sustained punishment.

Pause then Big Unit, Brain Orgasm IV

2008-04-08T03:58:00.001-07:00

I have done a mountain of work beyond the view of most bloggers--hints:

Ten page letter to the Netherlands about a prospective University position;

Six page project planning document about a soon to be announced collaborative project with a leading blogger;

Mutliple tests in holistic mode, whereby despite having a diet in probably in the top 99.5% of white males in my age group, I am at that odd threshold of 'prehypertension' (one step from high blood pressure) where I probably cannot make marginal gains from diet but must do it with lifestyle, and state of mind.

My addiction to being DK what it is, that in my odd 49.55 years easily hundreds have said that I am 'as intense a person as' they 'have ever met'. Damn.

'The Mind Cannot Fix Itself'

'This is the shit' is more meaningful now. Test on stool for specificity on lactose intolerance and gluten intolerance, then four saliva tests, mailed today on adrenals. My holistic doc MD is looking at the big picture, believe you me. Rashes all over my body. High blood pressure: since childhood, but never to excess, but now inexplicably increasing. Terrable rashes as a child, now come to roost at age fifty, tried double rinse wash, new soaps, Aavion oat cry skin rash lotions, castor oil, all of it. Big picture time.

Processing another 1,953 games into my chess database of Classic GM Games, actually comparing them to the preceding 3,278 games, with chessbase, for accuracy, game length. Give me a drink. Chessbase orgasm, explodes through roof. Vertical.

Maybe all those GM games touched are not a complete and utter void? Two nights in a row, guest sessions at CTS: ready for my comeback, as more or greater than ever? 90% tonight at 1600 elo a hint of things burgeoning to come? "Test, test. I repeat", "Testing One, Two, Three".

Taxes done tonight. Talk about the final exam of any trader.

Tehran: Swarms of Humanity Burst Our Planet. The Model does not work any more

At my employer, they finally had the good sense--despite my being senior level but non-managment--to ask me to have a lot more oversight. What is that? Authority comes not from job titles, but the ability to get others to do what needs doing? How true! To get others into correct motion and focus on the right task without the big title takes the ever so important: 'diplomacy".

Modeled from the most esteemed co-blogger Wahrheit, I need to quickly point out some nice leads on the web:

GM Dzindzichashvili vs Rybka, great article, please read to the end [1]!

The ever acerbic Yermolinksy, at his Yermo Diary, also not without controversy, as indicated. Can you imagine trying to please this guy??

Usual same old jack ass anonymous all over, snipping at me. If I am so bad, the why the fuck do you keep paying atttention to me mother fucker? If you are so good, come here and talk to me in the light of day. As the Zen master said, grabbing the student by the throat, shouting, with blood curdling screams in a calculated display of rage to wake the student up: "WHAT CAN YOU DO??!!"

Who has not seen the Charlie Chan, top ten stunts, at youTube??

Props to the old XY, who while nevertheless coming and going from our sphere, hit the ball completely out of the park with this video, 'In Box Zero'.

For those of us caught in the flood ( * me* ) this is THE video. Six-partite quadruple bravo, in the tradition of prescient inteligence cum Peter Norvig, Director or Research at no less than Google?? Ne Plus Ultra indeed.

[1] I've been reading chessville.com for years, not least of which Wit and Wisdom of Nigel Davies but am indebted to the ever particular Dutch Defence Edwin Meyer for the reminder to be reading there again, having momentarily lost touch with them. Cornucopia II indeed!.

Letters to a Young Chess Loser

2008-04-05T13:38:00.000-07:00

As is well known, chessLoser wrote a post to which I made a comprehensive comment, which precipitated many other comments, then even an Open Letter to ChessLoser by my very good friend and our most esteemed colleague Phaedrus. I hope that you all read it. Thank you chessLoser and thank you Phaedrus [1].

[1]. I wrote a post almost two years ago called Letters to a Young Blue Devil Knight, which is of course a backhand reference to German Expressionist Poet Rilke, who wrote the magnificient Letters to a Young Poet. It is highly recommended.

Raming GM Ram

2008-03-27T02:17:00.000-07:00

What if I told the kind reader that GM Ram by Rashid Ziyatdinov was a deep work? The more I look at it, the more do I find within it; the more I examine it, the more nuances do I find.

Silman gives an interesting review, as well as has a series of terse articles at his blog [1] by the author himself. One alert reviewer noted that the author 'is a mathematician and it shows', to which I heartily concur:

For example, the book has 256 diagrams. Could it be an accident that this is the square of sixteen, or that being an eight by eight board defines our royal game of chess and could contain exactly four full chess boards there?

Most experienced chess students who have examined the book know that it is composed of two major segments: the first consisting of 136 endgame diagrams [2] without notes or move order, and the second consisting of 120 middlegame positions also bare of identification, then at the same time, housing the full game scores following at the end of the book.

Some Things Simply Need no Explaination

My progress has continued through my carefully cultivated 3,274 Classic GM Game Collection in Chessbase9, and after months and years of effort, has me finally reach the 59 GM-Ram reference games as I approach the 1,562 game mark in this vast series mapped out by me long ago.

Here are some details about the book and its constituencies: while 14 of these games have only one illustrative key diagram, some 30 of them have two diagrams, and another 14 of them three diagrams. One game has four diagrams, totalling 120.

While Ziyatdinov provides 136 diagrams intended as source material for learning key endings to be 'learned by hand" (so well known that the student can know in his or her sleep the right answers, either as white or black to move--to win or draw, so that their solutions are automatic), alert readers who render the book into pgn or cbv files must really enter 272 positions. Again, the positions provide no hints and white or black to move are implicit choices in all those endings!

So this really would require not a database housing 256 distinct records, but in fact 392 of them!

Breathless Beauty!

My respect for this book knows no bounds. I resumed ranking each of my GM games, and had been rating them 1 to 5, with five as best. A grade of four or four-point-five is a rarety, but Mr. Ziyatdinov's book has many classic games that I successively rank 'stark raving' fives!

I will bypass the ending positions for now, and difer this unit till long after I have done a lot of other work, discussed extensively at this blog many times, but nevertheless fully intended by me not to be missed, and sternly included in my major chess study plan.

warmest, dk

[1] Substitute 2, 3... 9 in the web address for the full compliment of nine articles at the Silman site, or use the sloppy links embeded at Z's primitive web site.

[2] Essential Endgames =5 positions, K&P =19, Rook =28,Queen =6, Minor pieces =56, R & Minor 13, and Fortress =9, totals 136 positions.

Lewin in his well recommended Complexity: Life at the Edge of Chaos discusses 'lumpy interger constraints'. Kaufman of the Sante Fe Institute was contracted by Proctor and Gamble to see where savings could be derived in size of truck load, in preparing shipments. He analysed the entire supply chain, and found that they could save money (P&G) by shipping less than full truck loads, in dispensing time bottlenecks.

Similarly, Ziatdinov is mostly but not always forced to configure his book into units of sets of six, the postions per page!

Anyone got any LSD or other heavy drugs that I can take now? My brain valve setting is on now full. Then again, maybe Home Depot has a brain reducer valve back in stock that would suffice instead? Who needs drugs when you have an imagination? BDK: Kant rules.

Brief Interlude

2008-03-18T02:37:00.000-07:00

I am still hard at it, and plan to continue blogging for some time to come. But right now, time is diminishing... My boat is full on several fronts:

1. A project under careful development on the side with one of our leading bloggers, which we will be announcing in the weeks ahead. Lots of writing, lots of emails.

2. Full intensity at my job, where more and more work is done with fewer and fewer persons, in less and less time. Tiring and demanding. The housing downturn has hit the building materials retail world, and those of us with jobs wish to keep them! In order to get a better job, it is incumbant upon us to still have a job, to bargain from strength, not weakness or dire hunger.

Once a month, I work 17 out of 21 days, and I am less than half way through this term. To start, this is 10 out of 11 days. Oh my god, this takes energy! It also vastly simplifies my social arena but also backloads creative time at the end, when I work only 3 out of 7 days, my most creative week of the month and richest in chess play and investigation.

Kasparov - Karpov NY 2002
See Kasparov's face at -1:08. Talk about stress and emotions!

3. I have returned to CTS, got my 40,000 at 88.3%, soon to be 88.4%; my main focus there is now shifted to this last push to 97.00%, by 10,000 for my second ID. Once that is done, I will finish with the first ID to 50,000 at 90.00% resolutely according to plan.

4. Playing at FICS again, every day if I can, but not always, limited by vital energy burnt at 2. (Job) above.

5. I am also back at viewing my Classic GM Game Collection. The GM Ram unit is particularly rivetting, as the games of Steinitz, Morphy, and Anderssen are of delectable and steller quality. Thank you again Takchess for the pointer.

6. An acquaintance who is now a close friend approached me about the possibility of either teaching at a University or consulting in Europe, and all the writing both to develop this channel or idea is another major piece of writing. Blogging is wonderful, but some things are far more important.

Tiger Woods is "only 32 and already is tied with Ben Hogan for third in career victories with 64". This Sunday epic victory is the third time he has won Five PGA's in a row.

"Woods is so dominant that he has won seven of his last eight times on the PGA Tour, the exception being a runner-up finish to Phil Mickelson at the Deutsche Bank Championship on Labor Day. He's an incredible 16 for 25 since the 2006 British Open." Echo's of Fischers 13 Wins in a row against Chess Grandmasters.

7. I was viewing the pgn of Seirawan's Winning Chess Endings, and made primitive efforts to view Shereshevsky's Endgame Strategy, but given the magnitude of 1. (Project) and 6. (Overseas) above, I just have too much to do now.

8. On the side, as it is still winter, I cook a lot on my days off, and have made pot after pot of low-fat, completely delicious gourment soups. If only I had someone to clean dishes for me... :) ... I would do all the cooking in trade.

9. I turn 50 in October. Lots of shit to do before, believe you me! Lord almighty god.

10. Lunch and a long walk with GM Seirawan this Friday. Do you of you make outlines before you see your friends? :)

Our ways really don't work any more

11. The financial meltdown I have been predicting for the last year is here now. This goes beyong financial excess, but is a subset of human excess, entitlement, and disturbing socio-psychic imbalance, driven by a world gripped by capital markets at all cost, irrespective of human needs for health, sustainability, creativity, and fulfillment. Bush goes out, Obama surely goes in, but this only sustains the short term illusion of deliverance, when American excess must pay the piper amidst balooning debt spiralling out of control. Only sacrifices and re-engineering the way we live, move, and generate our energy can resolve this, not more economic engineering delaying the day of reckoning.

Philip Glass - Koyaanisqatsi. Can you cry?

April Oil is now US $107.00 per barrel, and China has the trottle turned 'full on'. Temperatures are raising and global warming is real. The complex adaptive system called our planet has gone from order to chaos, organized to chaotic, richly individuated to monocultural, and accumulative to dissipative. Please, lets not kid ourselves. The game is over. Life as we know it will never be the same and the future is now.

Warmest, dk

My New Method of Opening Study

2008-03-03T02:40:00.000-08:00

The real meat of the video starts after about sixty seconds.

I laughed so hard that I was truly crying with glee! Is this what chess feels like sometimes?

Can you imagine? This gets especially good with about two minutes till the end. :) It might also be said that this second one quite well describes the experience of working for a large, mega-sized American Corporations within it rules and job requirements.

Is Freedom Too Loose?

2008-02-26T12:14:00.000-08:00

Freedom--which I must admit is not exactly my forte--feels slightly odd if not disorienting to me.

THE FRAME:
I enjoy discipline, enjoy planning, and like structure. It is often how I find comfort and earthly reassurance. After that last big push on my Big Classic GM Database through most of January, I was by that time hungering for freedom from the predetermined routine of set daily viewing of high level GM games, and was all too happy to escape the dicta of self imposed neurotically close to perfect 98% accuracy at CTS. The prior was tiring and the latter was stressful.

After so much study of the classics in concert with CTS, I was by that time thirsting for live play, and subsequently played blitz 3/8 every single day for the three weeks starting in late January to mid February--till that urge gave out too, with the onset of flu two weeks ago.

Unlike any of my prior gigantic efforts at either blitz or bullet, I recently managed NOT to have a big overdose. Instead of playing for hours and hours and hours at at time if not ALL night long (as I often did before), I managed to play daily, for 'but an' hour at at time, sometimes two, but never an imprudent three or four hours--as often occured before!

THE BREAKTHROUGH:
Thereafter I rapidly seized upon Ivan's (Getting to 2000)scrumptiously marvelous suggestion to take a look at Angelfire.com which set me into a whole new frame. I found myself eating heartily at the cornucopia of game collections at Gambitchess, and shortly thereafter found myself revisiting Ossimitz with aplomb, luxurating upon myriads of studies, most notably in extensive ending study. After getting the flu, I stopped ALL effort at CTS and as I said, immediately stopped all live blitz play.

I of course viewed all the games of Moreila-Linares while exploring and structuring the many game collection downloads, and make a lot of big discoveries or advances in annotation, and am now finally making ample use of ChessBase's 'copy to notation' feature--not of variations, but copy of entire high level games now. You go to 'reference' at ChessBase, and for example, can pull up all the historic games played in the subject variation or, much more germain to my study, all the recent high level games, sorted by ELO. So then before running fritz--often very deeply on a position--I look at many archtypal games in that postion, seeing the tendencies embedded there. Marvelous learning tool.

Buddhists: Form is emptyness, Emptyness is Form

RIDING THE BIG WAVES:
I also made a 33,000 game file from careful sifting (out of 109,000 source games) on the Caro-Kann that I will use for reference, and also made a 13,893 game file on the Slav that I intend to use for reference (given it's kinship with the Caro, I aught to play it--but don't), made a 1,016 game file from various books on the Caro, started a Kings Indian Attack or Reti file, a French file, formed an English Opening file, and even have something on Donaldson's Strategic Opening Repertoire.

Its like walking into a new world. I have waited patiently before starting on openings, knowing that when I did so, would do so with vigor, methodically, and correctly. No half measures.

TOOLS AND TECHNIQUE:
I am using the 1,001 Sacrifices and Combinations file, in parallel to resumed work with the Reinfeld book again. This is potent, because I never use a board, but do it all mentally, and sometimes cannot quite see the full win (but often can). The cbv file allows me to drill into the postion, and do so fully. It feels real good. I combined that with the other combination books into one big file, set up a strategy file (Kotov, Pachman, Euwe, etc.), set up an endgame file (Shereshevksy, Chernev, Seirawan, Averbakh, etc.) and am using this each night--too. I set up a basic openings file, a basic tactics file, and a classic miniatures file, and others too numerous to mention. I am not idle.

But this freedom of which I speak--which included neither recent live play or CTS--with no disciplined viewing of GM game daily, has felt really, really good, and I am bursting my box. It would not be far fetched to say that for weeks now, that I have been spending two to three hours per day at chessBase. It is endless, and I follow my fancy. It is time.

WHAT ELSE IS THERE?
What else is there you ask! Lots. Lots more. I finally am slowly going through the cbv file of Seirawan’s Winning Chess Endings as a primer after of course years already among Chernev’s nice endgame book, Pandolfini's, Soltis marvelous Grandmaster Secrets: Endgames, then finally Averbakh’s Endings, Essential Knowledge…

Then after Seirawan, I will continue with Shereshevsky's cbv file (133 games, cf. Ossimitz), which I started last week, but after three days and nights on the first position (Capablanca-Reshevsky, Nottingham 1936), realized that I wanted to do WCE first.

Shereshevsky's book itself is NOT to be 'hurried' (cf. his adage: "Do not hurry!"), but chewed quite slowly and with great care… As it is, his note in this second game to the first line, which says that '3.f4 gxf4 4.exf4 d4! is a draw' is far, far from clear, and never mind the game, but on that alone or the exceptions to that, DAYS can be spent on those alone.

But even here, in what should be much simpler, I find lines in S’s book, that Fritz sees big improvements on that are suppose to be clear wins, but really aren’t, so this is not just 'click, click, click', but true investigation in depth. Then I read his book in bed AFTER much cbv work, just to reinforce the lines, with his comments.

Aronian: Rare Oddity, One hand for the clock and the other records the move!

FINDING ROUTINE IN THE UNROUTINE:
So that is about it. I work with chessbase in Seirawan, I read his book in bed latter, work on the 1001 book, and even get to check some of the more difficult lines in chessBase. Again, I don't use a board, and in some cases although rarely, cannot see the line well enough, then go to cbv and/or Fritz to see it, and it works wonders over the little brain only in unfolding all the 'ins' and 'outs. I started back at CTS, but three wrong in 94 is piss poor, but I will recover it. :)

I somehow don't think that Mr. Polgar played any games with his girls, but was all business!

POLGAR'S CHESS MIDDLEGAMES:
Do all of you know of Phaedrus? "And what is good, Phædrus, And what is not good... Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?" His blog is best of breed. He and I have established a major connection, and to say that he is a peer or more of temposchlucker's aught to get your dandruf up@!

In a comment at my blog, he handily and easily made a comment that he wished that he at a cbv (chessbase) file of the Polgar Middlegame book for his teaching and students, and this led to many exchanges that has led to a major project about to begin. He suggests that this will prove invaluable. I do not know if this is true, but what need I think? I trust this man, do not blink, do not look left or right, but follow him therein. Who knows what will come of this?? Wonder of wonders!

We need ten good chess blogger~students so that we can each render five hundred games and/or copy them from cbv, and pool our efforts. Listen to me. We don't want slave labor. But we need six more good ladies or men. We are happy to do this alone, if it just be us. But if you wish to participate, then please let us know. No one's ego is involved, we just want to execute. It is an evolving process. But we want quality and perfection, not ordinary slap dash ho hum fabrications. Quality, oh Phaedrus!

Our Efforts at Chess Blogger Go Round and Round the World Day and Night, a Beehive of Activity

PERSONALIA, OR HOW EZRA POUND BIT THE DOG:
Just a gentle reminder to new readers: there is more, but this isn't the best place to tell it all. So, in briefest outline: I applied to the City of Seattle for a 9-1-1 Police Dispatcher, or emergency dispatcher position, but didn't get it. If it were just to talk and be on the phone, this I can do well. But they wanted not just good typist, but "highly proficient typists". I scored high, and was on their shortlist among hundreds of applicants and they wanted me, but in the end, you also need to be able to type fast, and accurate, with your eyes closed in all ways. Let us salute all 9-1-1 operators. It is a very hard test! And if you are dieing or hurt, damn, you need someone fast, and good, and accurate. They were all very, very professional at Police Headquarters, and exceedingly have my utmost respect.

I have worked in tools now for 16 months, after years in flooring. As is well known, I work for a major competitor to Home Depot. I know 38,000 items on sight. Six years as a chess player in a big hardware store is a miracle employee. I remember all that I see, and know where it all goes. And if only Morgan Stanley could now see me training employees on a fork lift! Go to hell I say. Those bastards!

Like any language, it builds. In the beginning, you cannot speak, then the simple sentences, then more advanced words and constructs. Latter on, you can comprehend or express complex thoughts or sequences. It is humbling, for so many (usually but not always male) men come in with vast knowledge, and you must assist them.

First they ask if you have an XYZ and you not only have never seen it (3,400 items in my corral), but never even heard of it. The first time, if you are in error simply say "we don't have it" but then then minutes latter they politely put it in your face: "For the future, here it is, this is what a VIX-bit looks like'. Then the second time: "Do you guys have VIX-bits?" "Yes, but lets see if we can find it". The third time, it is yes, we have them, then you can find the bay. The forth time, a prompt yes, espre decor: "Yes we have them, and they are right __ __ here";! As you reach.

So the knowledge builds, and if you are like me, it builds and builds and you never forget, and in time, you not only know the other 34,600 items, but now 3,060 of many little 'wigets' in your area. Its just now those last 340 of them that I...

What is this world and Who are We??

Lastly, I remember all kinds of model numbers and item numbers, thousands of them or hundreds.... but now in tools, the DV13 by Hitachi, the Dewalt DW345, the BlackandDecker FS210... then the 13,000 rpm's, tpi or tooth per inch, torx bits T-15, T-25, T-30, T-40, 1.5mm allen wrenches, 14.4 volt, 9 amp heavy duty 1/2" chuck drills, metal cutting carbide blades, lithium-ion batteries, bi-metal sawsals blades, cup grinders, crescent wrenches, basin wrenches, pipe wrenches, open end box wrenches, come alongs, bunge chords, jumper cables, AC-Adapters, ntp air fittings, 150 psi compressors--90 psi, 4.8 SCFM paint sprayers, Bosch SDS shanks, 18 GA brad nailers, narrow crown staples, hook and loop sandpaper, random orbital sanders, 5" adhesive backed sandpaper, 20 oz claw hammers, wonderbars, 5.5 hp 5.0 gal Shop Vacs, 3/8" drive sockets, 7/16" 12 point deep socket sets, easy-outs large and small, planner blades, porcelan drill bits, drum sanders, double beveled compound miter saws, coping saws, bow saws, leather tool belt harnesses, knee pads, tool chests, caution tape, chalk, propane, MAPP gas, hammer drills, impact wrenches, #2 Phillips, magnetic bit holders, 8-32 threads, 8mm threads 1.25 threads per mm and 20 mm long screws, glazing points, hot air guns, glue sticks, pole sanders, wrecking bars, the 0.030 solder, then the 0.035 solder and on, and on, and on. After 16 months, it is all starting to come together rapidly for me... Look Mom, no drugs! A place to go five days a week and forget the horror of existence: "The Horror, the horror. The horror of ... existence", a river slowly wound up into Kurtz.

Kafka said that Alexander the Great simply did not conquer the world so as not to have to move the weight of his own body?

I turn 50 in October. My goal is finally this summer to be able to climb Mount McGregor, among the highest non-technical peak in the state. A day just to drive there, then a long water taxi... from 1598' to 8,123' or 6,525' of gain in one day (2,034 meters), the most strenuous possible in a day. 6.5k feet in eight miles is a killer. I planned this in 2001, but at the last minute canceled the trip to be in a wedding party, as solemnly requested by the grooms brother: "It would mean a real lot to him". Needless to say, he doesn't even talk to me any more, and now I must recover this dream...

Hardcore Pawnography Offer, Warranted

2008-02-15T18:36:00.000-08:00

I get excited sometimes

ChessLoser took up my offer to call me, and we had a long chat early tonight about chessBase9 and why I very much hope that he can buy it soon.

The details are private to him, but he will soon, with apolomb he reassures me.

It was a absolutely total delight to chat with him about what I have recently integrated (above and beyond my now well known 3,274 Classic GM Game Database) among:

Now vast book files comprising endings, classic books on basic tactical problems, game collections such as from the many books on great former WCC's, strategy, openings generally then specifically in the Caro Kann, A Strategic Opening Repertoire by Donalson, The Reti; and finally among: advanced tactical collections, classic miniatures, games annotated verbally among the major classics, and autofritz files such as on Vukovic's Art of Attack, Euwe-Kramers The Middlegame, Vol's I &II (Hays edition!) [4] , and finally the treasure trove by Shershevsky's Engame Strategy.

I do not wish to suggest that Obama has my vote (or doesn't) but he definitely has the total initiave both in the press, among all races and economic levels, and with PROMISES for those who believe the new can occur?

In no way do I wish to suggest that links to Ossimitz or Gambitchess cum drivingsinsane.angelfire are new. But what is notable is recognizing how to utilize these sources, in bootstrapping yourself into a focused and integrated and study of chess in its gigantic, global, and universal availability. What you can radily and efficiently accomplish through these files in chessBase9 is spellbounding.

If it is 18th Century Europe, you might as well learn French. If it is 2020, get ready with a Bachelars Degree in Electrical Engineering with specialization in nanotechnology and telecommunications, a Masters in Business with a specialty in supply chains and distribution, and start an extensive set of notes on sustainability, globalism, and practice the art of negotiation. And, if you are gonna play chess and study the game, have chessBase9 and use the critter. I suppose that I use it for three hours hours a day--at least.

The Spice of Life

ChessLoser was most gracious in sustaining our conversation before his dinner. After my exegesis on chessBase9, we got to chat about life, and compare notes. What a doll this man is, a real treasure! I confided to him that while he was not the second blogger I had offered to chat with, by making my identity and ASL available known to him, he was only the second to do so. A huge good heart this lad has [1].

To conclude: yes, you can get the world off the web outside chessBase9, by-passing their rich coffers, but no, you cannot get the universe with your friends without it, when we can all send you or intercommuncate with cbv, rich text files, with variations, comments, the whole nine yards.

Money (double click to expand this fascinating illustration), of course, doesn't just grow on trees!

Of course, you have to eat your own cooking, so to stand by my words unabashedly told him that if after a year he felt that it wasn't worth his while to improve at chess, after he bought it, that I would (*while telling him that I was by no means rich*) mail him US $60.00 for a $160.00 if he wasn't satisfied, no questions asked. :) This reduces his risk to now only $100.00, not including 'a year out of pocket' (or 'discounted future value') but does so to the tune of a factor of now only 62.5% [2] Not bad for magic come his way.

Love to all beings, dk

[1] Now my public lists of beers that I will buy [3] include in rank order:
temposchlucker, Robert Pearson aka Wahrheit, and now chessLoser.

[2] Friendship truly has no price tag, and cannot be included in ennumerating costs, as it is priceless.

[3] ReAssembler would necessarily have to be Sushi, but here in the hotbed of new Asian cuisine.

[4] As I have said a great many times already, my respect for this book knows no bounds. And now to have this! Notes directly from Ossimitz, aught to give you some of the flavor:

****** Games /Positions from Euwe/Kramer's The Middlegame (dt. "Das Mittelspiel" is until today the most complete treatise on this subject. It took Euwe originally more than 10 years to finish this project in 12 small volumes. Today this book is available in a nice 2-volume algebraic figurine edition with main author Kramer, published by Hays Publications. At Amazon.com you can find The Middlegame: Book I and The Middlegame: Book II . The german edition (1 volume, +700pp, Ed. Rattmann, ISBN 3-88086-55-6) is still available at some specialized chess-dealers (like http://www.niggemann.com/), but no longer among the german books in print. Here are two versions of complete collections belonging to this book!

middleg.zip Bradley Loh's completely annotated electronical edition! YES! Here you find not just the moves and positions, but also all the varations, verbal annotations, introduction texts to all diagrams, some chapter introduction texts. Moreover Bradley Loh has added Chessbase-specific features like arrows, colored squares, training questions for making this an absolutely incredible learning tool!

YES! This copyrighted material is put here for free with grateful permission of Lou Hays, who published the printed stuff.

YES! This collection is a free gift of Bradley Loh to the worldwide chess community, as anything for download on my website! My heartfelt thanks to Bradley for his extraordinary work!

YES! There is a catch: for extracting middleg.cbv from the zip-file you need a password. See the file password.txt about how to get the password easily out of book II of the Hays Pbn edition (or of any other edition you have available).

eukra.zip The sequence of positions and the numbering is according to the german edition (12 parts). I have marked all the diagram positions as "critical middlegame positions". Open the search mask in CBLight, choose "Comments" and mark "critical middlegame position." With OK the search finds all games, but after that you come directly to the diagram position when opening a game! Voila!

Dropping Acid, Then Lets Meet Here

2008-02-07T03:27:00.001-08:00

After five fairly intricate, somewhat positional games with my fine opponent, who outranked me by a bit, (1w/3L/1d=5 before our final game shown below), I won our sixth game, before turning out to sleep now, saying to him as I played 1.e4 e5 2.f4: "Lets go for it".

Of course, as many of you know, I am not an e4 player, but I can do it when I want to, especially the Kings Gambit, which I tend to spring late in a series, as if to say, 'lets switch it up a bit'. Also, wide viewing of mryiads of GM games allows me to do this on demand:

My guru's spiritual teacher, Maharish, whom she lived with in India for eight years in the 70's, writing him of her strange, otherworldly experiences, simply sent her a one word telegram in reply, saying:

"Come".

She packed her bags, went round the world, and thus began her journey. He made her a teacher, and she trained me as a teacher trainee. His influence comes directly to me, through her directly. Added to that, she studied with Tibetan Lamas for years, in my tradition, Zochen [Tib.: Engl for 'Pathless path']. Thus my very, very exposed work with the public, at her suggestion. Screaming at me, literally:

"Consulting? Technical sales? Project Management. NO! No. Get a humble job. A waiter, or something humble". After nine months of hard looking, if not two years unemployed, after I left Wall Street, she suggests this--and I had my retail job five days latter, and have now been there closer to six years than not now.

Maharishi died two days ago, in the Netherlands, after reaching millions with his transcendental meditation.

Warmest, dk

How Much Land Does Tolstoy's Man Need, or scope of GM game study

2008-02-02T18:28:00.001-08:00

Great Russian author Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy--cum master psychologist of human nature--once wrote a great essay called 'How Much Land Does a Man Need?', and I reproduce some short characterizations of this fine tale:

"(Russian: Много ли человеку земли нужно?, Mnogo li cheloveku zemli nuzhno) is an 1886 short story by Leo Tolstoy about a man who, in his lust for land, forfeits everything, including his own life. Late in life, James Joyce called it the greatest short story ever written" Although it is set in Russia, it is about the greed that many people had at the time and the outcome of that greed", and

"There was once a Russian peasant who worked hard. The earth never failed to feed him and his family. His life was quiet and secure but he was never satisfied and happy. 'We have too little land. If we had more land, I would fear nothing and no one.' He borrowed money and bought twenty-five acres of land. 'Now he was his own master. The grain stood tall. He had a bountiful harvest, and he made a handsome profit at market. He was able to repay all his debts. There was peace and happiness under his roof.'

"But unfortunately, it did not last for long. He wanted more land so that he could become rich. Over and over again he moved his family, so that he could buy more and more land. One day a traveler told the peasant about good and fertile land in the faraway country of Bashkir. There, for one thousand rubles, a man could have as much land as he could walk around in one day, and:

"Leo Tolstoy's short story about a man's consumption by greed. Honest, hardworking sharecropper Buck believes that a piece of land to call his own will make him truly happy. He and his wife eventually procure some acreage, but when Buck learns that other farmers have more than he does, he becomes obsessed with improving his lot. A never-ending quest to acquire still more land leads him to make a deal that will test his greed and his physical strength like never before. He literally dies trying to claim a huge parcel of territory and ultimately ends up with 'as much land as he'll ever need -- six feet from his head to his heels.'

"[The main character] lives in a commune and some of the people have begun to buy their own tracts of land. He sees this and decides that it would be a good idea if he did the same thing. He was worried that if he didn’t act soon, he would miss his chance. He wouldn’t have to pay any fines and could keep all the money he makes. The more people heard about it, the more they wanted it for themselves.

"The night before he had a dream that the devil was sitting over his dead body laughing. He dismisses it and goes back to sleep. The next day he starts out to stake his claim. He is trying so hard to get as much as possible that he miss judges how far he has gone and begins to have problems walking. He is tired, hot, and hurt. He has to start running to make it back in time... begins to realize that he should not have been so greedy, as it is taking it’s toll on him. He barely makes it back on time, and alive" and

"Right as he gets to the finish, he sees the Chief sitting and laughing, just like the devil in his dream. He collapses and dies right as he finishes. He is buried right there. 'His servant picked up the spade and dug a grave long enough for [him] to lie in, and buried him in it". And, again: "Six feet from his head to his heels was all he need."

------------------------------
What does THIS have to do with the study of classic GM games, and, as such, necessarily first the selection and collection of those games? Let me explain:

One of the leading Israli chess Grandmasters, Psakhis is reputed to have attained mastery of chess by only and exclusively studying 200 games from the Chess Informant publication. On the other hand, Silman used to say (during one of his live commentaries to the 2002 U.S. Chess Championship in Seattle) that he used to look at something like one hundred games per day (I am not endorsing this, but worthy for comparisons sake)!

By the way. as long as we are talking about the heart of life as it relates to potentially unchecked vast ambition, I sent GM Seirawan (along with a few other close friends of ours), a copy of a classic song I had heard at work: "Lay Lady, Lay", and it struck me so much, I dug it up, not realizing that it was sung by none other than Bob Dylan. I sent a bcc to Jeremy Silman, and he promptly wrote me back, saying that he 'listened to it, all the time', and knew it well;

In putting the finishing touches on my classic GM game database, it struck me at a certain point that I just didn't need any more games, and almost got stuck in endlessly trying to add one more set of games here, one more set of games there, to the already capaciously large and ample and abundant database. At this point, as I am often want to say to any of my many correspondents now, who write asking for a copy of the cbv file (which I always gladly email to all who ask for it, freely--with nothing asked in return save a simple acknowledgement of it's recept), often remarking, like JFK:

"Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country", remark to them, "don't ask me what is IN the game file, but, rather ask me what is NOT in the game file!" 3,274 games, outlined here, with an emphasis on complete books first, only with missing individual games distinctly second in importance.

To quickly recapitulate, I spent 2.5 years slowly chewing on the first 941 games, from the three main Chernev game collections, through the two early Nunn collections, Timman, Burgess, Stohl, the two classic Nimzovitch books, Fischer, Bronstein, and finally Romero's book.

Then I added the game from the ICC classic chess game collection, evidentally compiled by Tim Krabbe, and now also posted at his fine professional blog, Open Chess Diary (surely, never be be missed by any chess fans whatsoever)! Then I added his 110 Most Fantastic Moves ever played, and his Over 250 Unsual, Funny, and Beautiful Games file. And finally, some snippets from his endgame collection--a small file, in that instance.

Then why stop there? I added GM-Ram, Soltis Greatest Games of the Twentieth Century, and finally then Reti's, Masters of the Chessboard. At that point, I was cleaning up my games from 2007, that is to say games viewed in contemporary chess praxis, and realized that I had best add the games from the best of Informant, both from chessCafe, Chess Brilliancy by Damsky, and 640 Golden Games. Opposing this very modern contribution, I finally rounded out the classics by laboriously adding Alekhines 107 Great Chess Battles 1935-1942 and Tartakowers 100 Master Games (updates from 500 Master Games, but after WWII), and Fines very, very, fine (no pun intended) World's Great Chess Games.

And, let me remind the kind reader that I do not drink alcohol or do drugs. I do not play golf or go shopping or have--at this time--a girlfriend, but I do have a cat. I need a digital photo of him very badly for you all! May God please help me!

As I proceded, I found that there was great convergence. I found that it was becoming rarer and rarer for anyone to mention a great classic GM game that was NOT in my database, and in those rare cases where they were not, forthwith added them promptly.

It seems to me that two thousand or fifteen hundred games, to truly absorb is plenty. No worries, ok, I have three-thousand plus+. I am almost done viewing the second unit, games 942 to 1,735. Once I get to there (I am at number 1,486 so don't have far to go), I aim to take a break, and for the remaining 1,200 games or so (there are necessarily some duplicates, so less than or right at 3,000 actually), will click through them fairly quickly.

My plan is to drill in more deeply in the first 1,500 or so, with diminishing returns on the next 1,500 (1,501-3,000+).

So like the man who set out to scribe as much land as he could walk in a day, only to die of exhaustion, so too here, I must prudently stop, and see that my 'value chain' consists in going deeper into these same games in the collection while not being enjoined to add to it (or viewing more and more new games), so that the knowledge would have to become a blur instead of true recognition of things already known or famiar.

Most of all, my yearning is to spend about half a year on the next 50 or so games from Chernev's The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played, when I had already annotated the first twelve or so, to great profit and learning.

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In closing, as a small parenthetic thought, might I suggest that the kind reader NOT miss this very, very endearing 'in depth' video of video of Magnus Carlsen trainer, Simen Agdestein, from chessVibes.com, about twenty-seven minutes long and very descriptive about his chess training, vertical ascent as a younger chess player, and Agdesteins various non-chess periginations.

Warmest, dk

Running ALL The Horses, Literally!

2008-01-31T02:38:00.000-08:00

Far be it for me to say I have not been blogging due to any lack of interest, quite the contrary, I have actually NOT been blogging due to intensely ardous work on chess daily and for hours and hours for many weeks now.

I did finish compiling the big, or what I now like to call the gigantic database, comprised of about 3,000 classic GM games, or 3,274 games with necessary duplicates.

I did finish reading Euwe-Kramer's Middlegame in Chess volume II, topped 88.0% at CTS, and even have been entering by hand the Informant endings selected in chessCafe, or The Pearl in Endings by Zdenko Krnic parts one and two, into cbv files, including all the annotations. This is not all of it. There is more.

I have resumed live internet play again, as distinct from study only, and have moved up from 0 4 lightning at FICS to 3 8 blitz there, not to mention analysing most of the game in Fritz 8 for variations. This is an interum step towards soon playing 2 12, but need a little rapid brush up first between this faster chess and somewhat slower time control (relative to my recent history, at least).

Actress Lake Bell: perfect mouth, perfect eyes, perfect everything!

I watched all the start of the games at the Dutch classic Corus or Wijk aan Zee. Also, I have deeply organized or structured all my chessBase 9 files in the new year, classifying things according to games to add to my classic GM game database or what I call GM candidates 2008 (adding more to my Gigantic game file just makes things too unstable, so instead segregate new content, thus); I have a file below that, that I call interesting recent games that don't quite warrent classic, since so many great games exist which, if I made them all classics would greatly diminish the significance of the latter game file; and finally, I have a classic file for historic (not recent) games mentioned in chess journalism but somehow--in rare cases--not in my Big GM Game File already.

I also have an endgame file now, that for example the Pearl of Endings would go in, but any other endgames mentioned in the press are included. So that is four new files now.

And if this were not enough, I have been very, very carefully reading and implimenting the Mig article on GarryBase or on how to build a repertoire in chessBase, and further in the three related articles by Steve Lopez at chessBase.com, and finally the two fantastic articles by Grandpatzer regarding similar. Just try this, little alone comprehending it and what it all means and on how it all goes together! Not a simple, mindless matter, but this is clearly among my next steps in chess along with ending study.

For Polly (Castling Queenside) et al. Old model from ten years ago, then improved version, with more design and expense! $$$.

Very, very lastly, I have resumed my work at Reinfeld's 1001 Sacrifices and Combinations, and am also reading Alekine's 107 Great Chess Battles 1935-1942 is, the title, in bed, jumping from diagram to diagram and reading his acerbic text. Alekhine is not what you exactly call a 'nice guy', believe you me!

On a personal note, work is very, very challenging now, what, with all the downsizing going on in the housing industry, and the precarious position of being a high performer at my big retailer but, at the same time, also being the highest paid person in the store who is not a manager, and more than many of the department managers, so they don't take much of an interest in any of my complaints of which there are many since I am neither a docile person nor quiet in the face of injustice, stupidity, and systemic or copious disregard for humanity. :). Honest.

GM Seirawan is comming back to Seattle in early spring, and promises to meet me again. Last years lunch with his wife while quiet pleasant had to be uncharacteristically rushed. What do I say? Do I not see the man or just take such a special opportunity as it comes? Of course, the latter very kindly was able to squeeze me in, treating me to a capacious lunch as part of a thank you for a valuable investment strategy which paid them handily--eaten at my favorite Korean monk friends Teriyaki resturant which is now sorrowfully closed.

Epic heros Sir Edmond Hillary (right) and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa (left). Hillary is aptly remembered in Nepal for his kindness to the locals more than his record first summet of Mount Everest.

I turn fifty in October. I have been very, very, very, very sad. Where did it all go? My life???

I am on the short list for a Police Department 9-1-1 Dispatcher position in a large nearby city, and out of several hundred candidates, managed to be among the thirty or so who qualified for the first round. Nevertheless, the requirements and steps are daunting, but reassure mysef--with unabashed candor--that I am one of the best persons that I have ever met on the phone...

...and rather like the idea of gettting paid with secure employment for tending inevitable progressive societal instability to come in the years ahead, what with global warming, certain flight of capital exiting the U.S. ensuing from Dollar disintermediation and stock market devolution if not collapse, fiscal and monetary crazed policies only posponing the day of reaconing, further purchases of U.S. assets by China, power interuptions, global disturbance, food shortages following distribution, transport, and delivery system problems, etc, etc, etc. And so on....

I do not wish for these tensions, but see them all coming--for sure--to our as yet unruffled shores amid vast worker workcamps in the guise of corporate participation, milking the poor and overworked so a few rich persons can ride in Hummers or get priviledged spa vacations and other luxurious perks of vast entitlement.

As Voltaire's Candid said: "Let us tend our gardens". Or, let us tend our chessBase as I would say.

Prelude to the Big One

2008-01-20T03:23:00.000-08:00

Damn. It's done.

Twelve days is a long time NOT to blog when you are busy at chess every day--and busy, intensely busy on matters of real interest to fellow chess improvement bloggers... twelve, crazed, long days...

...come home from work at 10:30 pm, nap, or work on chessBase for an hour to unwind, barely taking a second to run to the bathroom or make tea, but literally jump on the computor and start grinding, grinding, pedaling as hard and as fast as one possibly can...

Sleep for 15, at most 30 minutes, wake up without an alarm, and work from 12:15 am or 12:45 am till the 'wee smalls' (English for very late hours) and grind till 4:30 am, or 4:15 am including CTS every single day, then watch Wijk aan Zee live at 4:30 am PST then go to bed at 5:30 or 5:45 am and get up at 11:45 or noon... then do it all over again.

What did I do? How to explain such a huge thing? I added fifteen hundred games to my 1,735 GM chess game database. Now it is 3,273 games [those intensely curious, before the next big post, can glance at the list of game sets here, with emphasis on the last 678 games]. Lots to say--more latter. This is my news. In ten or eleven days I did this, viewing many of them, at times entering them by hand one game at a time or correcting errors, comparing versions between books, chessBase, and chessGames.com--at times even adding exegesis in the form of notes if you follow...

...the image of the crazed unshaved scientist with piles of paper pushed to the side, but intense laser focus on one single thing... latter. I have earned a rest.