This Crazy World of Chess

I finished this book by Larry Evans a few days ago, but haven’t gotten a chance to review it until now.

Larry Evans has played a prominent role in the chess world for over half a century now, as player and journalist, so who better to dig up and expose the dirt of the international chess scene? This book is a collection of Larry’s articles from the last 50 or so years, and it provides a behind-the-scenes look at the chess world, for better or worse.

Evans was Bobby Fischer’s second for a while, so some of the articles provide more information about the former chess champion, and his rise to the top.

Evans doesn’t care much for FIDE, the international chess association. After reading this book, neither do I. It sounds like an organization that is rife with scandal, and is actually harming chess in the pursuit of protecting its own interests. Reading about this was quite disheartening. Right now, chess needs an organization to boost it up and really bring it back into the public eye, and FIDE doesn’t seem to be that organization. The USCF doesn’t seem to be much better, but I’m hopeful that with Susan Polgar at the helm, chess will experience a renaissance of sorts in this country. I really like what she has done with her foundation, and with trying to bring more girls into the game. I think that she will help to bring more visibility to the game. But enough of my soapboxing, back to the review.

One of my favorite articles was one in which he details a trip that he took to Russia during the 50s with the US chess team. It paints a very vivid picture of 1950s Russia, and just how large a role chess played in Russian culture. It was a source of national pride, and apparently still is. It’s what baseball is to America (well, without the steroids).

With all the articles collected in one book, some of Larry’s tendency to repeat himself becomes more obvious. There are several points or anecdotes that are repeated in multiple essays, and I found this a bit annoying. That’s really the only negative comment that I have about the book though.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. The chess world truly is a crazy place, and I’m glad that Larry Evans has spent his life chronicling it.

ICC play = I suck

I improved to 0-5 for Standard rated games on ICC. This time, I lost against an 11-year-old, which is doing wonders for my ego.

I really don’t know what the hell my problem is. Actually, that’s not true – I know exactly what my problem is. When a game timer is involved, I tend to rush through things. This leads to blunders, which leads to five losses in a row.

I need to work on playing under time constraints. Even under longer time limits, I rush through my moves. When I know that someone is sitting there waiting, and the clock is sitting there ticking away, I feel pressured to move.

I’m going to try to play another game this afternoon or evening, and I will take as much time as necessary to make the right move. I may end up getting into time trouble, but I may not.

This losing has got to stop, that’s all I know.

I love looking at Red Hot Pawn on the Internet

I think it’s important to support good software. If there is a program or utility that I use and enjoy, and that is distributed as shareware or freeware with a donation link, I usually send the developers some money. Since I hope to one day have my own small software company, I like to support the little guys when I can.

Even though I’ve already subscribed to ICC and WCL, I subscribed to Red Hot Pawn yesterday. Even though they offer most of their services for free (you occasionally have to look at an advertisement), I think that their site is excellent and I like to encourage and support excellence.

I haven’t had as much time in the evenings lately, so I haven’t been on ICC too much. But I currently have several games going on RHP. I usually get in several moves per game each day, and I enjoy the lack of time controls. If there is a sticky position, I can stare at it for ten minutes and really analyze the position before I make a move. This seems to cut down on the number of blunders I make.

I also like that I can access my games from my iPhone. So if I’m waiting for my wife to try on shoes or something equally dull, I can whip out the phone and play some chess.

If anyone out there is on RHP, look me up and challenge me to a game or three. My username is PeteyD.

The Art of Learning

The author of this book is Josh Waitzkin, whom you may know better as the subject of the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer. A chess prodigy as a child, he has spent the last few years studying Tai Chi and participating in international Push Hands competitions. As an international master in chess, and a world champion in Push Hands, Josh has been wildly successful in setting goals and working hard to achieve them.

This book is a mixture of things. He uses his personal experiences to convey information, and he does this effectively. Rather than describing the learning process in dull text, he writes about his experiences in the worlds of competitive chess and martial arts. This allows him to describe the learning process within the context of a story, which makes the information far more palatable and entertaining. I really enjoyed some of his anecdotes, and many are quite inspiring.

He has an interesting perspective on the learning process, and offers sound advice for those who desire to achieve greater focus in their endeavors.

I’d recommend this book for anyone interested in learning more about the learning process, or learning to become more focused on their goals. Also, Josh has had a pretty amazing life thus far, so it’s an interesting read.

Gonna climb back on that horse

I haven’t played in the last two days. Part of this is due to the fact that I am bummed about my performance (or severe lack of) thus far on ICC. But I will get back up on that horse soon – probably tonight.

Probably the main reason I haven’t played in the last two days is because we got a Wii. Man, that thing is just totally cool. Tough to put down the controller. I think I have Wii Tennis elbow though, so I’ll probably take a break from it today.

In other news, a smiley Amazon box brought me My System by Aron Nimzowitsch. I’m only about 9 pages in, but I’m enjoying it so far. I like some of the analogies that he draws between situations in chess and other life situations (such as how a loss of tempo is like a farmer losing a sucking pig to illness). I will offer a full review when I’ve finished it.

So that’s the update from here: Too much Wii. Gonna get back on the horse.

It’s really quite depressing

I’ve played four games since I joined ICC, and I’ve lost four games. Does ICC have such high-caliber players that I suck even more than I thought I did?

This is not good. I’m finding myself in time trouble in nearly all my games, which leads me to make hasty decisions. Perhaps I should try longer time controls and see how I do. I think I’ll try that tomorrow with some 20 10 time controls or 30 10 or something like that.

Tomorrow…. because I’m done with chess for tonight. I’m gonna go turn on the boob-tube and try to forget about my bad baaaaaad chess.

Yeah, I really shouldn’t play when I’m tired

Check out this magnificent display of suckitude. Here’s the position after like 16 moves. I’m Black:

It’s my move. So what move do I pull? Well, I actually stared at the board for about two minutes. My mind wandered a bit, and I roped it and pulled it back. And then I figured that I would like to start forming a battery on the d file. So yeah, I moved Rd7.

My opponent’s response? Why, he obliterated my queen with his knight, of course. The move was obvious.  

Duh. Big stinking duh.

My rating on ICC sucks hard right now. Like triple digits hard. Ouch. I’m gonna have to rest up and come back tomorrow.

Update: As I was about to log off, Chessaholic logged in, so we played a 15 0 game. It was a pretty close game, but I spent way too long, and ended up in clock trouble. I lost on time. Brain no go fast tonight. Petey tired. Petey go sleep.

OK – I’m on ICC. Bring it!

I signed up for a year of membership on ICC tonight. My handle is PeteyDaddy (duh), so if you see me online, feel free to challenge me to a game or three.

I’ll be putting Chessic, the Mac client for ICC through its paces to see if it will suffice for regular play. I hope so, or else I will need to dust off stinking PC and download the Dasher client. I’ve already tried the Java client – Jin, and while it’s pretty nice, it doesn’t seem to be logging my games so that I can review them later, which is a dealbreaker for me.

Enough blogging for now – I’m gonna jump on ICC.

Oops – I did it again

Booyah! I just beat the guy from work again. That’s twice in a row. His rating was 1694, and so my rating on RHP has climbed to 1316.

It’s a pretty even game until move 24, where he blunders away a knight and immediately resigns. I guess he respected my game enough that he considered it an unwinnable position for him. He should have kept playing – I’m sure I would have blown my advantage at some point…

I’ll take the win though, that’s for sure.

Here’s the game:

[Event "Challenge"]
[Site "http://www.redhotpawn.com"]
[Date "2007.11.09"]
[EndDate "2007.12.01"]
[White "PeteyD"]
[Black "GuyFromWork"]
[Result "1-0"]
1. Ng1f3 d5 2. g3 c6 3. Bf1g2 Bc8g4 4. O-O Nb8d7 5. d3 e5 6. e4 dxe4
7. dxe4 Ng8f6 8. Nb1d2 Bf8c5 9. b3 Bc5d4 10. Ra1b1 Qd8a5 11. a4 O-O
12. Bc1b2 Bd4xb2 13. Rb1xb2 Qa5c3 14. Rb2b1 Nd7c5 15. Qd1e1 Ra8d8
16. Rb1d1 Rf8e8 17. h3 Bg4h5 18. Nd2c4 Nf6xe4 19. Qe1xc3 Ne4xc3 20. Rd1xd8 Re8xd8 21. Nf3xe5 f6 22. Rf1e1 Rd8d1 23. Re1xd1 Bh5xd1 24. Ne5d3 Bd1xc2 1-0