My New Gadget

Yes, I finally decided to treat myself and got an ebook reader. It's definitely not the top-of-the-line model but a simple relatively inexpensive one that does the job remarkably well.

It reads EPUB books fine and I've been busy away from chess, reading the many free ebooks available from the web (like this one above) from H G Wells's famous novel, The Invisible Man (if you're interested, look for titles under Project Gutenburg).

The nice thing about this reader is that it also allows me to read chess documents and books!


The one shown above is Shipov's analysis of the San Luis tournament of 2005 that I've stored from the web.

Using a free book management software called Calibre, I converted the webpage (retaining the copyrights etc.) and store it locally onto the reader to be read at my own leisure. Very neat.

Going Through Games

The idea that I'm now in the year 2009 has not yet hit me.

Today, I found out about something, rather than sitting in the study where the desktop computer is, I setup my laptop on the dining table instead and started to key in moves (and feeding in the book annotations) from a master game. I found that a quiet time is good for a bit of self-study, even if it only lasted for something like 15 minutes. Every little bit helps I guess.


I didn't realise just how hard this effort turns out to be, constantly having to translate moves and variations from book to computer. At this rate, I figure that I'll probably take about 1 week just to go through 1 game and at this rate, it'll take me over a year to go through just one book.

I noticed my memory and concentration is getting a bit poor of late. The coupling of work (I work till 7pm these days) and household chores only seem to make my concentration worse. Nevertheless, I hope to go back to chess and relearn everything again. *sigh*.

I'm particularly interested in how not to just make moves but how to make good moves. Take for example the following position (see image on right) in this game.

In this position, it is White to play (I was White).

How would you evaluate this position? And what should be White's next move and what kind of plans should White develop?

Surprisingly, I played a move which 6 months ago I would not even consider and I got quite a bit of shock that the computer too thought it to be the strongest move. In fact, this was the critical moment of the game.

Once you've calculated it out, you can highlight between the brackets to see what I played.

[The strongest move was 1. a4! Breaking Black's position. Now Black is in a terrible mess. The beauty of White's position is that all of its pieces are on very good squares. I shan't bore you with the rest of the game but suffice it to say, Black didn't last very long. One continuation was 1... b4 2. Qd3 Kb7 3. cxb4 Nxb4 4. Rab1 and Black is in terrible danger and close to collapsing. Taking with 1.... bxa4 2. Rxa4 and White simply doubles up on the a-file and Black's King is in terrible mortal danger.]

Whatever Happened To My 4 Days?

The Australian Open is coming!!

Unfortunately, I would be working and thus unable to participate. However, I am tempted to pop in on Manly during one of the weekends to have a look.

The number of entries has swelled to nearly 50 for the Open Division and 40 for the U1600 section.

I wish everyone participating in the Open the best of luck and I wish the organisers as well for a good tournament!

Onto personal things, okay, my wife was away for 4 days and today she would be back. So let's see what I did during my 4 days.

1. Saturday - dropped my wife off at the airport. Went to work, ate dinner, watched Mythbusters (*cough cough*) and Iron Chef.
2. Sunday - housework, gardening, doing laundry, folding clothes, went for dinner with my aunt, uncle, Steven, cousin and family.
3. Monday - Went to the gym early in the morning, went to work..... errrrr.... spent 5 minutes on FICS (got beaten - actually got disconnected - internet connection keeps breaking up), slept early.
4. This morning - Went to work early so that I can go through one WC's annotated games (before work starts). Come evening, I'll have to pick my wife up later from the airport.

How much chess study did I get in during these 4 days?

Minimal.

I managed to learn a main tabiya during those 4 days. Unfortunately, that main tabiya only goes up till move 7 but I've finally understood why certain moves have to be played this way and why alternative moves are not so good.

Due to unforseen circumstances, I'll be working come this Saturday and Sunday and again on New Year's Day. Hopefully, things are quiet work-wise because I would really like to get cracking on some serious chess study.

Btw, Bobby Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games has been republished in algebraic edition. I'll have to try to get the book one of these days (as soon as I'm done going through another WC games collection book) and go through it for my own benefit and learning.

Homework Troubles

There's just no getting around it.

If I want to improve my chess, I have to do my homework - the hard yards, so to speak.

Unfortunately, it is easier said than done.

When I first started playing competitively this year, I'd realised there are severe gaps and defects in my chess knowledge and skills. These mistakes are very costly and they often have a detrimental effect on my play and I desperately need to fix them if I'm ever to have a hope of improving my play to a decent level.

While I'm fortunate to have a job in the midst of this economic climate, unfortunately, the job entails me having to work weekends and on public holidays at times.

I've always believed that it is possible for anyone to reach FIDE Master (FM) level if they devote sufficient time and resources for chess study and practice.

This is where I fall short.

I've a study plan but circumstances have forced me to make me divert from it. That's because I get side-tracked by something more important when I'm at home.

In addition, the nature of my work requires a high level of concentration throughout the day (I work as an analyst in the security industry) and it's often and not surprising that by the time the end of the day comes, my brain just refuses to accept any new information thrown at it.

Take last night as an instance in point. I tried to feed my brain some chess annotations from one of Anand's early games but it lifted its hand to say,"Enough! No more." and proceeded to spit the information right back at me. It's like trying to feed a videotape into a VCR only to have the VCR eject out the tape constantly. Frustrating.

Does this mean that I need time to rest? Yes.

I know I need to rest but I can't possibly have that every night. Coffee works for like 10 minutes for me, after which, the Sandman (inset) starts to blow dust in my eyes and my concentration falls apart.

One way I found which seemed to help was to go for an early gym session in the morning (I've been heading to the gym 3 times a week at least and trying to swim once a week) to boost my energy levels. I found that it has helped somewhat because come the end of my work day, I find that I still have at least a good half an hour of brainpower energy left.

I barely touched the telly these days although last night, I stayed up to watch a documentary on the origins of the Vietnam war protest in America. I rarely watch prime-time television programmes (save for the occasional CSI episode on Mondays) although I do watch quite a bit of BBC and SBS documentaries.

On weekdays, I do Sudoku in the morning, the Crosswords during lunch and try to fit in some chess homework at night. I've been contemplating giving up the Sudoku and the Crosswords but it's hard to kick the habit and these puzzles offer my brain something else think on besides say, finding a new variation in the Sicilian: Canal-Sokolsky (Rossolimo) Attack.

It's a constant daily struggle I admit but just because it's hard doesn't mean I give it up.

The Ego Has Indeed Landed

Immediately after finishing first in the recently concluded Bilbao tournament, Veselin Topalov gave an interview and proceeded to rubbish the upcoming WCC match:

"I will watch the forthcoming match between Anand and Kramnik but I should confess that I am not that interested in the match between number five and number six in the rankings."

"Kramnik is not the strongest chess player even in Russia. Morozevits, who outplayed him on Tal Memorial, stands higher. And Anand in Bilbao has only been a “pale shadow” of the previously great player....."

Isn't it amazing what winning one tournament can do to a player's ego?

Last week in the end, I did drop by to play in the traditional Lightning competition for Grade Match Presentation at Ryde-Eastwood RSL.

And surprisingly, I came in joint runners-up in the U-1600 category, getting a score of +4-4=1 and got $9 for my effort. A nice tidy sum of cash - which I proceeded to use it on my way home with Steven who needed to buy milk at the petrol kiosk. The highlight of the lightning competition has to be my game against top board Jason Hu (2200++) who showed me the art of crushing your opponent (me!). :)

Last Saturday was spent at home fixing up a handrail and installing a security sensor light at my backyard with my neighbour's help. I was working on Sunday so I couldn't get much training in and although last night was a scheduled day for postponed matches for the Ford Memorial, I didn't have any games on. So I spent the time..... sleeping.

I admit I have not been doing any form of serious chess training lately. Sure, I looked up a couple of lines in the Sicilian (out of boredom) but that was just about it.

I would really like to get back to chess training in preparation for next week's Ford Memorial game but I'm just not in the mood for it. If I can kick myself in the ass if it means getting myself invigorated, I'd do it (aka. laziness).

Hmm.... I just realised that I will again be working this Sunday.

Tonight, the Ryde-Eastwood Bobby Fischer Cup soldiers on.... and I'm quite tempted to play a new opening I just came to know about 2 weeks ago.

In the meantime, it appears the US markets decided to take a plunge because of the sub-prime loans fiasco, taking with it many Oz investors' superannuation savings (similar to 401ks for the US) and thankfully, for now, I am not affected. However, I dread to be the one who is nearing retirement only to find out that my lifelong savings has gone down the drain.

Out Of Shape, Out Of Touch

Boy, am I not only out of touch with chess, I am also badly out of shape.

I logged onto FICS and promptly got caned in 10 successive games.

Fun, fun, fun.....

Tomorrow I intend to take my module exams for module 3 and 5. The end of my school term is fast approaching and I cannot be lax now with the final hurdle and graduation from this class just 5-6 weeks away.

As for chess, I need to rework from basics all over again. I've forgotten some of the lines I played in response to 1.d4 and 1.e4 and I suddenly found myself ho-humming just 4 moves into the some of the games.

The problem herein I feel is that after studying chess, not all of it gets into long-term memory so I would need to re-train my brain when the time comes.

That means on Wednesday morning and lunch-time at work, I need to cram in my opening repertoire and sharpen my tactical and positional skills again.

I need to start playing blitz the odd while so that I can remember the moves.

On a separate note, dk and Phaedrus have started a collaboration on a global eBook for middlegames. If you are interested and have the necessary time to help them out, please drop them a note on the link. It's a massive undertaking and I sincerely hope that this project becomes successful.

That's all for now.

Theory Exam Over....

That was a toughie exam yesterday.

I scored 80.2% (just passed by 0.2%). The only other fella in our class who passed was our usual top performer, Adam and he got 81% (he usually averages 90% for the module test exams). Everyone else failed and had to do a resit. Yikes.

That was the hardest MCQ exam I've ever had in this course. Thank goodness it's now over.

I woke up this morning and snuck in a 45 minute workout to relax and now I'm very relaxed and relieved.

I have a new colleague Victor at work today and I showed him Muller's Endgame 1 lesson on the technique of opposition, the fight for key squares and triangulation and I think I scared him when I told him all of this needed to be committed to memory when playing chess.

Oops.

Having A Bad Day? Try Me

With less than 24 hours to go, I am only 60% confident of my passing my exam tomorrow. The exam consists of about 60 questions and have to be done in 1.5 hours.

Did I forget to mention the passing grade is 80%?

In between my studies, I snuck in a couple of internet blitz games but got bored. The best game of the lot was a ferocious King's Indian Defense and for some reason, I couldn't find a way to finish off the attack and White busted me real good with the queenside pawn storm. I will have to look at that game once I have the time.

I've put on another 2 kilos and if this keeps going, I'll put in an entry to be the next contestant on the Biggest Loser (yes, we do have an Australian version of The Biggest Loser - see inset).

That's all for now. I'll be back once my theory exam is done tomorrow. *cross fingers*

The Art Of Analysis

I popped over to the chess club at Manly-Warringah RSL last night to watch my brother-in-law Steven play. Anyway, while I watching his duel with Michael Morris, I was asked if I could give a very nice lady a game so we proceeded to play. Unfortunately, in the middlegame, she missed a tactical shot and lost a Knight in the process which was enough for me to convert to a winning R+N+2P v R endgame. I even missed a simple tactic (which I should have spotted) towards the end. She was very gracious and congratulated me for my game and we exchanged pleasantries. I noticed one change in my play. I am starting to play very very slowly in the endgame, sometimes, taking four times as long as I normally would, carefully calculating and analysing, playing prophylactic moves to make sure I don't blunder or lose the win. This was a surprise to me. Previously, when I am a winning endgame, I used to "rush". Now I play slowly, cautiously and taking my time to calculate lines when I normally don't when I see the win in sight. I think that is the most heartening thing to see.

As the saying goes,"It is of no use to have a winning advantage if you cannot convert it."

I've managed to acquire Alexei Suetin's book, 3 Steps To Chess Mastery. It's now my favourite bathroom reading material *grin*.

In the section "The Test Of Mastery", Suetin comments:

"....how, by what means, does one learn to analyse correctly?"

"A player must first master various principles, schemes, and characeteristic tactical and strategic devices. At the same time, the development of one's thinking is preceded by the acquisition of combinative vision. This is also a complicated process. At first a player notices only simple threats, then he begins to see all sorts of double attacks, and finally, that harmonic interaction which leads to combinations. Only after going through such a schooling does a player obtain the nececssary basis, which allows him to use flexibly his knowledge and skill. The analysis of complex positions, where strategic and tactical factors are closely interlaced is first and foremost very hard work. For the unprepared, it may even be beyond their strength.

Therefore, don't try to take too many steps at once. Get to know your true capabilities, each time, of course, setting yourself new problems. Along this path there is much disillusionment, causing annoyance and dissatisfaction. Without these bitter feelings you cannot get by. But remember that if you are dissatisfied, it means that you are searching. This is one of the fascinations of the art of chess."

The above note definitely struck a chord with me.

I continuously get dissatisfied with my chess skills OTB. I get frustrated from making analytical mistakes, not thinking "correctly" or mis-evaluating the nature of the position. And usually after games, when I reach home, I fire up Fritz only to be told what I really should have played and I learn. As a result, I fall down, get up, fall down, get up .... ad infinitum, striving to improve my game. I acknowledge that I might never be able to reach master level or even attain a 2000 FIDE rating but that doesn't mean I can't try for it.

In the meantime, I just have to work much harder on my analytical skills. Botvinnik once wrote," What does the art of a chess master consist of? Basically - in the ability to analyse chess positions. Anyone wishing to become an outstanding player must strive for perfection in the field of analysis."

Someone once asked me,"Why are you so hard on yourself?"

The simple answer is,"Because I want to improve."

All Worth It

Folks,

Here it is (see diagram on right) , the reason why I:
a. forfeited my last 6 games in my chess club competition
b. took 1 week of annual leave from my work
c. woken up with "keyboard" face (aka. falling asleep at my keyboard) more times than I can count
d. ate instant noodles the last 8 days

My next study term doesn't start till February next year. So I have a good 3 months to brush up on my OTB chess skills. *grin*

Now that we got that out of the way, I thought I take a little breather (especially after that last post) and post a small little review of a Chessbase (yes, the nerds from Germany- I can't count the number of times that website has pictures of attractive looking women playing chess which is highly embarassing) DVD.

It's a slightly dated DVD. It's from GM Daniel King's PowerPlay 1 DVD - Mating Patterns.

Yes, it's another less than veiled attempt by Chessbase to seduce you to part your hard-earned money.... and to provide GMs with some additional income.

Btw the picture on the right of Daniel King is not him asking you for a handout (although it may appear to be so) nor to buy more of his DVDs (which he certainly won't mind).

Bad jokes aside, in this DVD, King explores in detail the following main mating patterns:

a. the Greek gift sacrifice
b. the Lasker double bishop sacrifice
c. the Lawnmower Mate
d. the Bishop See-Saw
e. the H-file Rook distraction
f. the Knight mate
g. the Back Rank mate

In each of these patterns, King throughly explains the combinations needed to carry out each of these tactical treats successfully and when to recognise the tactics fail.

I have to say that among other commentators in other Chessbase DVDs, he is one of the most interesting commentators and there's seldom a dull moment in his presentations.

King is precise, clear and engaging. He also slips in a few jokes to keep up the interest of the viewer, which I think is wonderful in that it breaks up the monotony - especially if you've been viewing 3 or more lectures (like I have been doing) consecutively.

In all, there are approximately 40 lectures and 11 exercises in this DVD, totaling about 4 hours.

The only caveat of this DVD is that most of these tactics can be read from say, Vladimir Vukovic's classic The Art Of The Attack and there is little fresh material here if you are already versed in these mating attacks.

Most of the lectures start off from middlegame positions where tactical shots abound.

There's a minor quirk here. King was puzzled at one stage on how to remove the arrows he had placed all over the board and had to ask, "Mr. Cameraman, what am I doing wrong?" which clearly demonstrated his unfamiliarity with the ChessBase user interface. *tsk tsk*. ;)

But other than that small slip, his annotations are excellent.

Now the million dollar question. Will I recommend this DVD to other players?

Well, I am quite tempted to ask you to read Vukovic's classic and other well known chess tomes instead. This DVD fills the gap for an improving player who has little time to study and wants an introduction to the world of mating attacks and mating combinations.

I would rate this DVD more suitable for beginners to early intermediate players.

Oh, I find the review at Chessbase on this DVD is pretty much spot on.

Exams Are Over!

With a monumental sigh of relief, I've cleared my Finals Exam for the first semester with a flying score of 88% and I can now finally look to getting back to chess training again!

The Ryde Eastwood is organising some kind of rapid competition tomorrow night so it looks like I'm going to be there. My brother-in-law Steven is heading there and it'll be great to see him again.

Days Like These

What happens when you are in a slump?

I was wondering about this because I realised that despite my work on endgame technique (which has since gotten better), my tactical vision appears to have suffered.

For example, take this game. For reasons beknownst only to myself, why for the life of me I didn't play h5 followed by Rh1 to try for an advantage didn't occur to me (Black cannot of course play Rxh5 because of Bg6 forking the 2 Rooks).

My general play on FICS appears to be suffering. I've lost games I normally would have won and it's tough plucking yourself up to take on game after game, only to stumble and fall at the first hurdle again and again.

Something is seriously wrong with my game and it's starting to scare me.

On the back of my mind is of course my studies, yet again, which I have to resit for my exam and to make matters worse, my lecturer hasn't gotten back to me.

While I still enjoy and love playing chess, there's something in me that's just not .... well, right. I can't explain it. It's like some kind of weird "writer's block" that I cannot seem to overcome.

Tonight is my chess night again at my local Ryde-Eastwood League club and I'm seriously thinking of giving it a miss and the fellows are having a blitz social session, I think.

Btw, I purchased a small digital DGT Easy chess clock. This is primarily used as a timer to gauge myself when I am working on endgame studies. It's also useful when my nephews visit me and want to have a nice little game of chess.

Exam Resit

My finals exam was an absolute disaster and I failed to reach the 80% passing mark and had to resit, in other words, I failed. Major bummer. This means I have resit the exam within the next 2 weeks.

My performance on Wednesday night rapid chess was atrocious. I won 2 games (mostly due to my opponents making mistakes under time pressure) and lost my final game as White against Les Mikolajczyk (which I thoroughly deserved, no less).

Next Wednesday will see the end of this rapid chess competition and 3 weeks later, the start of the Classical competition.

I'm still limping along (yes, limping) on FICS and my Blitz rating has only gone up marginally from 1245 to 1280, showing I still need a lot of improvement.

I'll be getting some Tactics CD Training soon and once my exam is done, I will work on them.

In the meantime, because of work commitments, I can't go down and see the competition at Ryde Eastwood League club for the Ryde Eastwood Open this Labour Day weekend (as I have to work on Saturday and Monday).

I Would Not Buy Any Chess Books

Yes, I would not buy any more chess books...... but chess videos...... hmmmm....... now, that's a different story.

First off, I know the amount of material in a book will always cover much more than a chess video. So what is it about chess videos that make people (ok, me, in particular) go ga-ga over them?

Welcome to the world of instant gratification. In other words, welcome to my world. I am finding myself severely short on time (did someone say time management? :) ). I have 2 exams this week and only studied one of them and the exams are tomorrow night and I have a rapid competition on tonight at my chess club. *insert scream*.



By shelling out some hard-earned $$$ on some chess material (needs pre-approval from wife first, I'll gently explain to her it's cheaper than hiring a chess tutor), hopefully, I can manage my time better. Really, I am seriously considering getting a chess video to work on chess as I can ill afford wasting any more time than is necessary between wife, studies and chess and the 1,001 odd little repair jobs needed around the house.

I am also in need of getting a chess software and am now considering between CT-ART, Chess Position Trainer or other software based on Tactics Training to brush up on my chess. I don't think I can go wrong with more tactics training.

Over the next few days, I'll be evaluating some of these software. Hopefully, I can get one applicable to my needs.

Not Very Manly

I didn't participate in the end for the Manly Springs Tournament as the arrangements have already been made. Steven arrived late as my nephew was having rehearsals and his match had to be postponed. I may not be attending Manly Chess Club in the future as it's too far and takes half an hour to drive home to my place.

Overall, it's a nice little club but the distance is proving way too much for me to overcome.

I also have this matter of studies that I need to do.

Creating A Study Plan

Yes, unfortunately, like any knowledge you wish to acquire and be good at, you need to study it.

For chess this means to become better at chess, I have to adopt a study plan.

The problem with my chess is multifold. Where do I begin?

If I study the endgame, my opening suffers, if I study the opening, my middlegame suffer, and what about positional play, or tactics?

I've read countless online chess tutorials and their advice was to study tactics, tactics and more tactics.

But then to improve my chess, should I go back to the beginning and study 1 or 2 move checkmates, pins, forks, skewers? Or should I go for more complicated examples?

It appears that this might be the only way to go for me. At my current level, there's little point in learning endgames and openings if I am failing to see weaknesses in my positions and falling to simple pins and skewers. In the meantime, I also need to also look through my own games of where I gone wrong so I can improve my game.

Gosh, I wonder how people can spend time to learn all these things outside of work and family life.

Starting tomorrow, I will draw up a plan to study chess to manage my time more efficiently and I am also going to work on chess tactics, one diagram everyday. *gulp*