It's really hard to split your time between work and chess and family as I found out to my detriment.
In the meantime, I've been hanging out at Norths Chess watching the club competition. My brother-in-law Steven made a short draw with Jack Ruan last week. I plan to go see him in action tomorrow again.
My wife is still recuperating from her ankle surgery. She can walk upright now (slowly) and is trying to walk without the use of crutches but she has gone back to work (Thanks to all for their well wishes). We're hoping that she recuperates fully as we're planning to travel to the USA in 3 weeks' time.
I've got a few Roman's Lab DVDs from my father-in-law as well as working through some of chesslecture.com videos (yes, I do subscribe to them) as well as a couple of Fritz Trainer DVDs that I purchased some time ago (Daniel King's Powerplay 11 - okay - I know 12 is out and Viktor Bologan's DVD).
I spent much of last weekend working on a few endgame problems (using Mueller's FCE book and his Chessbase Trainer). I've also tried to concentrate and work at creating an opening repertoire database but it's been far less fruitful than I would have hoped. I'm still tossing between Chessbase Light and Chess Position Trainer. Bummer. Both software have their pros and cons and I'm finding it hard to pick one.
On other good news, my office working hours till 7pm is about to change once daylight savings kick over in April - which means my working hours will fall to 5.30pm once again ie. more time for chess at night. :D
In the meantime, I've elected to not play in either Ryde-Eastwood nor North Sydney club championships.
I wish your wife a speedy recovery,i had an accident in may 2008 and reconstructive surgery on my left ankle in september 2009.
ReplyDeleteSo i know what she is going through.
I have been blooging for a while,and came across your blog via prodigal pawn(a.k.a. tommyg).
Great blog.
It must seem april cant come soon enough.
Are the power play dvd's good?
Hello ChessX,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the well wishes. :)
I've been trying hard to find time to blog but it's been hectic on my side.
I'll do a few reviews of them when I have the time in my next few posts.
cheers and take care :)
Powerplay 12 is only interesting if you play the Hedgehog system. It seems to be an openings DVD, unlike the previous 11 DVD's which are generally instructive. I would hate to see DK switch to doing opening DVD's now.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks for the headsup on the Chess Position Trainer. Might be just what I need.
ReplyDeleteHere's a link for the latest download (Version 3.3) which is a bit of a pain to find (the original website only provides version 3.2 for some reason):
http://community.chesspositiontrainer.com/files/folders/releases/entry290.aspx