i am still around and playing just been busy. :-)
biggest thing i have learned in the last few months is due to the ICC games i have been watching. the five minute blitz games of really strong players are pretty interesting. also i read the josh waitzkin book The Art of Learning. which is a bit less about learning and a bit less about chess but a lot about life and some good stuff on the micro digging needed to be good at something. i would suggest reading it - even though you will not learn any chess from it you will learn something of what a successful chess and martial arts guy does. one of his best comments is about investing in loss. you learn by losing more than winning. and winning makes you think you are doing things right. but losing gets you to become better.
but back to the five minute blitz games. i spent some time watching these guys play and sometimes they think for about 10-20 seconds and other times when things seem really complicated to me they just move really quick. and its because they are good at something called chunking. they chunk about 3 peieces together and know how they work. like Q-N-B and how to get something done with that. also they know when they can not get something out of that. both guys do. and so they dont have to work out how they attack or defend with 3 peices, to them its JUST ONE PEICE. they chunk it together. and so thats the great time saver. its just what the machine does, the Q-N-B machine can do this or that. and they know when to use it. unlike me who has to multiply all the different things together and then see what all it can do and whether each of the 30 different uses of a Q-N-B are applyable. to better players all that how a tool works is figured. all they have to do is drive it. sorta like a person knows how to drive a car. AND play with its radio, and adjust the AC and use a turn signal and turn on the wipers and... to a 4 year old the car is a bunch of separate tricky things. but not to the experienced driver.
so i am going to learn to chunk stuff together. afterall i already know how to win with a Q-K vrs a K. ( as the easy example ) its just easy. but its because the options are limited and straight forward. i of course can do other stuff too... more difficult things. but i would guess i am about a 3 on the 10 scale for depth of such Chunks. so this is my busy beaver thingy i have been working on.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
a3 counter attack
just hanging out workin on the old house. :-) been working on the dutch system a bit. having trouble with
d4, f5
a3, Nf6
b4...
computer says go ahead and grab dem pawns. so i do. but then trouble is not far behind usually with a Q comming and rooks and all sortsa unleashed madness.
:-) i love puzzles!!!
d4, f5
a3, Nf6
b4...
computer says go ahead and grab dem pawns. so i do. but then trouble is not far behind usually with a Q comming and rooks and all sortsa unleashed madness.
:-) i love puzzles!!!
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Dutch Treat
just got the leningrad dutch book by some german guy in english. hmmm...
so its dutch, russian, german and english. just like me. :-) if only my american indian ancester chief kickbutt was in there someplace it would really be like me!
well, anyway it looks pretty interesting, you know what you are going to play against d4 and a couple of the other starts you can use it too. some people think its not too good so thats also the kind of stuff i like.
in other news we have started to look for houses in ohio, so if any of you want a tour of the football hall of fame... :-)
so its dutch, russian, german and english. just like me. :-) if only my american indian ancester chief kickbutt was in there someplace it would really be like me!
well, anyway it looks pretty interesting, you know what you are going to play against d4 and a couple of the other starts you can use it too. some people think its not too good so thats also the kind of stuff i like.
in other news we have started to look for houses in ohio, so if any of you want a tour of the football hall of fame... :-)
Monday, March 10, 2008
fricken sharks with fricken laser beams on their heads
so i got my eyes lasered the other day.
which should help my chess vision i am thinking.
how bout that norway dude eh?
which should help my chess vision i am thinking.
how bout that norway dude eh?
Friday, February 15, 2008
under stand
memory versus understanding.
here i think is the crucial point. to say that a grandmaster dude has 100,000 patterns in memory makes me want to quickly get 100large into MY memory. just think, if i had 100dogs worth of patterns in my bean i would be like... like a guy with a huge bean that's for sure.
but... i have been thinking. about two things.
1 - why tempo hasn't said "welcome to the new knight Sparfy, the "Retard Knight" or something. and...
2 - the 100,000 patterns. and here is my thinking: do they know 100k because they memorized them? or do they now know how to see those things and that makes 100k?
ok - let me explain... or at least make it more difficult for you to follow.
i can recognize a crud load of hockey attacks. like with 3 on 2 and 2 on 3 and when you get a guy at such and such a place and all. but show me a specific play and i wouldn't be able to tell you if they score on it. my memory is not that good. but i could tell you how dangerous it looks. what the odds of scoring. and so i think that chess is the same in some ways. the granddaddy dude can look at a board, and maybe he can remember some of the position - but i am thinking he can look and tell you how dangerous it is. based on his UNDERSTANDING of the way it works. and so i think that the 100k is a SIDE EFFECT of learning the amazing basics of chess.
so. i would say it would be better to learn to understand WHAT makes a position good or bad... not to try to just add to your memory. i don't want to rely on my memory i want to rely on my thinking.
in other news i have my CTS rating up to the 1440s now... so 60 points to go :-)
here i think is the crucial point. to say that a grandmaster dude has 100,000 patterns in memory makes me want to quickly get 100large into MY memory. just think, if i had 100dogs worth of patterns in my bean i would be like... like a guy with a huge bean that's for sure.
but... i have been thinking. about two things.
1 - why tempo hasn't said "welcome to the new knight Sparfy, the "Retard Knight" or something. and...
2 - the 100,000 patterns. and here is my thinking: do they know 100k because they memorized them? or do they now know how to see those things and that makes 100k?
ok - let me explain... or at least make it more difficult for you to follow.
i can recognize a crud load of hockey attacks. like with 3 on 2 and 2 on 3 and when you get a guy at such and such a place and all. but show me a specific play and i wouldn't be able to tell you if they score on it. my memory is not that good. but i could tell you how dangerous it looks. what the odds of scoring. and so i think that chess is the same in some ways. the granddaddy dude can look at a board, and maybe he can remember some of the position - but i am thinking he can look and tell you how dangerous it is. based on his UNDERSTANDING of the way it works. and so i think that the 100k is a SIDE EFFECT of learning the amazing basics of chess.
so. i would say it would be better to learn to understand WHAT makes a position good or bad... not to try to just add to your memory. i don't want to rely on my memory i want to rely on my thinking.
in other news i have my CTS rating up to the 1440s now... so 60 points to go :-)
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
open up and sat AHHH!!!
so i think i am weak in opennings. just saying. so i have been trying to figure out some good weird ones. things i can just learn a bit - not spend 3 years mastering. been fun. playing new opennings for me the dainish and smith-mora-less gambit
Thursday, January 31, 2008
deer vrs the terminator
har har har! i found one!
wow am i both happy and surprised and a bit ... sad i guess. as a part of me needs to die to get better.
some times when i watch those african nature shows where the whatever runs after a whatchamacalit and they run and run... i am always hoping the whathcamacalit gets away. i guess i dont like to see things get ran down and eaten. an honest dual however - thats ok. if both want to fight just fine. go at it.
and. here is my break through.
i am going to try in my spare minutes here and there to get my rating at CTS up a bit. just for fun. i have a provisional otb rating of about 1260ish something. i feel of course it really should be about 1998. maybe 1997 on a bad day. you know, one big win from 2000! and champagne!!! and hot chicks!!!!! and... and... late night with dave letterman and tv commercials, more hot chicks!!!!
ok, but its not really 1998 or even 1997 yet.
and here is part of the problem. i dont like to see innocents killed. especially if its not a fair fight.
a pawn fork is awesome. its the little guy throwing up two middle fingers, one to each side. waaaahoooo take that biatches!
horseys are pretty much the next weekest peice. but they fork pretty good and its fun. bishops... not as much fun, but ok. rarely do i rook fork, queens of course all the time. but then its more contempt when i do that. like. come on you didnt notice i still have a queen, you think you might have looked for hanging peices.
then the clever stuff i like. the... umm... well smoothered mate and other trickyness to make me feel all clever.
and i was playing on CTS, you know i think i have solved almost 300 problems!!! i would like to get my rating to 1500. *shrug* i dont know.
and just before i started, like i was saying in the last post, i talked to the little guy in the celler of my being. *maybe* the subconscence? i dont know what you would call it. i call it jerry. he says no. call me something else. but... hasnt said what yet. so, until that time... he is jerry. so jerry said, "yeah, on it bud" when i asked him to keep a lookout for anything unusual while i was busy failing the problems.
after doing maybe 30-40 today it came to me. ( which is what people say when their jerrys are giving them info ) jerry said: "you dont like to see the little guy get beat up by a couple of bigger guys."
and i stopped. and wrote this. because i dont want to forget it.
"whatchamean?" i asked jerry.
"what i farkin just told you. tard." jerry is not an a-hole, just... not really happy with word games. but thats another story.
so, since jerry knew all about what was going on. and i am afterall jerry. i just sat for a bit so that the idea could become words and i could store it as a rule. and i am planning on implementing that rule and hopefully it becomes habit or maybe an acquired motor skill or somesuch.
i had just failed a problem. and jerry said that was the THIRD time today i failed the same type of problem. a bishop had just moved to a square and there were no queens on the board. as in the other two problems. and i looked furiously for the fork to kill it. none. then the other peices, nope. king was out of reach. gads.... tick tick tick. fark! fark! fark! fail. bad luck. more like bad move, not luck. no luck really in chess. well, luck means you moved better than you thought you could. or the other guy moved worse than you thought he would. the more i practice the luckier i get! well. anyway. back to the problem.
i clicked the "show the stupid answer since i am too stoooopid to figure it myself" link. and it showed the answer, just like the other two times. and this is it:
double up the attack on the now pinned bishop.
easy!
easy, but not nice. the poor defenseless bishop. sitting there, just munching on some praire grass, not hurting anyone, soft little bishop fur blown by a gentle breeze from the west. ahh... munch... just happy happy little cute bishop. and the computer wants me to SMASH THE LIVING CRAP out of it. with two HULKING saliva dripping ROOKs. no emotions. just DEADLY KILLING MACHINES BENT ON TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF THE WEAK.
disgusting. i felt like vommiting.
cant we just let the bishop go? like its hurting anyone anyway? it doesnt even CARE about the dark squares. i mean come on.
i avoid that pressing overloading over and over. i know it now. i sometimes load up on a pinned piece in a game. but only to draw defenders away from what i really want. and its not the pinned poor piece. i know this now. i let that one go more often than not. a free peice!
i think, its not its fault. its the kings fault. he is the one placing you in danger poor little pawn. dont worry, i just want you to bring your friends from the king. i will get him not you. sorry to scare you little guy!
so i need to change my thinking on this. after all when i go kill the king the whole set of peices die. all of them. struck down whether a rook lounging on the first rank with his feet up and the tv on, or a set of pawns busy holding hands in the middle of the board. or a knight on some secret glamorous and dangerous mission. so i guess they are dead in the end anyway.
sarah connors?
duh-duh-duh, duh-duh, ta-duh!
duh-duh-duh, duh-duh, ta-duh!
duh-duh-duh, duh-duh, ta-duh!
duuuh - duuuuh - duuuh.... dut-da-tah. DUHHH, DUHHH, DUH!
duh-duh-duh, duh-duh, ta-duh!
duh-duh-duh, duh-duh, ta-duh!
i'll be back...
duh-duh-duh, duh-duh, ta-duh!
wow am i both happy and surprised and a bit ... sad i guess. as a part of me needs to die to get better.
some times when i watch those african nature shows where the whatever runs after a whatchamacalit and they run and run... i am always hoping the whathcamacalit gets away. i guess i dont like to see things get ran down and eaten. an honest dual however - thats ok. if both want to fight just fine. go at it.
and. here is my break through.
i am going to try in my spare minutes here and there to get my rating at CTS up a bit. just for fun. i have a provisional otb rating of about 1260ish something. i feel of course it really should be about 1998. maybe 1997 on a bad day. you know, one big win from 2000! and champagne!!! and hot chicks!!!!! and... and... late night with dave letterman and tv commercials, more hot chicks!!!!
ok, but its not really 1998 or even 1997 yet.
and here is part of the problem. i dont like to see innocents killed. especially if its not a fair fight.
a pawn fork is awesome. its the little guy throwing up two middle fingers, one to each side. waaaahoooo take that biatches!
horseys are pretty much the next weekest peice. but they fork pretty good and its fun. bishops... not as much fun, but ok. rarely do i rook fork, queens of course all the time. but then its more contempt when i do that. like. come on you didnt notice i still have a queen, you think you might have looked for hanging peices.
then the clever stuff i like. the... umm... well smoothered mate and other trickyness to make me feel all clever.
and i was playing on CTS, you know i think i have solved almost 300 problems!!! i would like to get my rating to 1500. *shrug* i dont know.
and just before i started, like i was saying in the last post, i talked to the little guy in the celler of my being. *maybe* the subconscence? i dont know what you would call it. i call it jerry. he says no. call me something else. but... hasnt said what yet. so, until that time... he is jerry. so jerry said, "yeah, on it bud" when i asked him to keep a lookout for anything unusual while i was busy failing the problems.
after doing maybe 30-40 today it came to me. ( which is what people say when their jerrys are giving them info ) jerry said: "you dont like to see the little guy get beat up by a couple of bigger guys."
and i stopped. and wrote this. because i dont want to forget it.
"whatchamean?" i asked jerry.
"what i farkin just told you. tard." jerry is not an a-hole, just... not really happy with word games. but thats another story.
so, since jerry knew all about what was going on. and i am afterall jerry. i just sat for a bit so that the idea could become words and i could store it as a rule. and i am planning on implementing that rule and hopefully it becomes habit or maybe an acquired motor skill or somesuch.
i had just failed a problem. and jerry said that was the THIRD time today i failed the same type of problem. a bishop had just moved to a square and there were no queens on the board. as in the other two problems. and i looked furiously for the fork to kill it. none. then the other peices, nope. king was out of reach. gads.... tick tick tick. fark! fark! fark! fail. bad luck. more like bad move, not luck. no luck really in chess. well, luck means you moved better than you thought you could. or the other guy moved worse than you thought he would. the more i practice the luckier i get! well. anyway. back to the problem.
i clicked the "show the stupid answer since i am too stoooopid to figure it myself" link. and it showed the answer, just like the other two times. and this is it:
double up the attack on the now pinned bishop.
easy!
easy, but not nice. the poor defenseless bishop. sitting there, just munching on some praire grass, not hurting anyone, soft little bishop fur blown by a gentle breeze from the west. ahh... munch... just happy happy little cute bishop. and the computer wants me to SMASH THE LIVING CRAP out of it. with two HULKING saliva dripping ROOKs. no emotions. just DEADLY KILLING MACHINES BENT ON TOTAL DESTRUCTION OF THE WEAK.
disgusting. i felt like vommiting.
cant we just let the bishop go? like its hurting anyone anyway? it doesnt even CARE about the dark squares. i mean come on.
i avoid that pressing overloading over and over. i know it now. i sometimes load up on a pinned piece in a game. but only to draw defenders away from what i really want. and its not the pinned poor piece. i know this now. i let that one go more often than not. a free peice!
i think, its not its fault. its the kings fault. he is the one placing you in danger poor little pawn. dont worry, i just want you to bring your friends from the king. i will get him not you. sorry to scare you little guy!
so i need to change my thinking on this. after all when i go kill the king the whole set of peices die. all of them. struck down whether a rook lounging on the first rank with his feet up and the tv on, or a set of pawns busy holding hands in the middle of the board. or a knight on some secret glamorous and dangerous mission. so i guess they are dead in the end anyway.
sarah connors?
duh-duh-duh, duh-duh, ta-duh!
duh-duh-duh, duh-duh, ta-duh!
duh-duh-duh, duh-duh, ta-duh!
duuuh - duuuuh - duuuh.... dut-da-tah. DUHHH, DUHHH, DUH!
duh-duh-duh, duh-duh, ta-duh!
duh-duh-duh, duh-duh, ta-duh!
i'll be back...
duh-duh-duh, duh-duh, ta-duh!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
green light
ok, i am moving to ohio in a few months and have decided to take a few months off when i do. i have prety much spent the last 3 years building my little house on the plains and am kinda burned out a bit from all the fun times figuring out house problems. so... when we move and dump the motherscratcher i plan on starting a few things. one is to write a book. as you can tell from my awesome blogging skills this should be no problem at all. the other is of course to get really good at chess. i figure i want to start the clock of how many points in how many days at that time. i dont know if that is allowed, hopefully it is. right now i am more interested in not losing touch with the chess world rather than skaking its foundations. so i am probably not improving much right now.
thinking back on stuff i am still convinced that the best way for me to improve is to try to get to the point where i am creating problems for my opponant, not just happening apon them and then capitalizing. i think, that i must... hmmm... i guess the way to describe it is to say i would like to be able to step slightly sideways of the game, to run not quite parallel to the most logical path, but to run slightly away in such a manor that i can create a problem. maybe as a card shark is doing slight of hand. but more subtile. more... i dont have the words maybe. more... ahhh. there is not the word. hopefully you follow my meaning a bit. to be able to jump from rock to rock across the creek with your arms all in a weird place to keep your balance. thats the look i want in my play. the jumping and the movement. :-) but with skill.
my and my enormous ego beleive this is possible. i have asked the little man that lives down in the celler of my being, and he said, "yeah, its possible, hell, grand masters do it. if those dweebs can..." so i have a green light from that area.
sorry for the lame holding pattern blogs of the last month. just a bit distracted by the real world sadly.
in other news the superbowl is on sunday. i think thats like the biggest sports event in the known universe? so we decided to ask over some friends. i will try to get a pic of the group.
thinking back on stuff i am still convinced that the best way for me to improve is to try to get to the point where i am creating problems for my opponant, not just happening apon them and then capitalizing. i think, that i must... hmmm... i guess the way to describe it is to say i would like to be able to step slightly sideways of the game, to run not quite parallel to the most logical path, but to run slightly away in such a manor that i can create a problem. maybe as a card shark is doing slight of hand. but more subtile. more... i dont have the words maybe. more... ahhh. there is not the word. hopefully you follow my meaning a bit. to be able to jump from rock to rock across the creek with your arms all in a weird place to keep your balance. thats the look i want in my play. the jumping and the movement. :-) but with skill.
my and my enormous ego beleive this is possible. i have asked the little man that lives down in the celler of my being, and he said, "yeah, its possible, hell, grand masters do it. if those dweebs can..." so i have a green light from that area.
sorry for the lame holding pattern blogs of the last month. just a bit distracted by the real world sadly.
in other news the superbowl is on sunday. i think thats like the biggest sports event in the known universe? so we decided to ask over some friends. i will try to get a pic of the group.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
windy chess peices.
hey - i decided to do the chicago open in may... at least i think its may. anyone else going?
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Distracted
so i have been a bit distracted lately. the distraction section of the CT-ART program. and... in a milestone for me, i solved my first ever 3 digit rated problem with no errors yesterday. weee!!!
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Blockages
i am about halfway through the ct-art thingy. some of the problems i am not too happy with. you have to make about 6 correct moves and in the end you lose a pawn or about halfway through you could have picked up a rook or something. and it keeps telling you no,no,no...
but i guess its not the GAME of playing the ct-art, but the learning to look for those weird thingys it shows you. which is something i didnt really do before starting that program. so all in all i am very happy with it.
i dont move all that fast on it though. i think i will pick up the pace over the next few months.
currently i am learning about interception. which is something i never thought of before, sacrificing a major peice just to block something. gads. thats like the ultimate in stubborness i guess. i like it.
in other news i think i might have the infloor heating up and running in the next day or so. :-)
but i guess its not the GAME of playing the ct-art, but the learning to look for those weird thingys it shows you. which is something i didnt really do before starting that program. so all in all i am very happy with it.
i dont move all that fast on it though. i think i will pick up the pace over the next few months.
currently i am learning about interception. which is something i never thought of before, sacrificing a major peice just to block something. gads. thats like the ultimate in stubborness i guess. i like it.
in other news i think i might have the infloor heating up and running in the next day or so. :-)
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Happy New Year :-)
Got the trench done finally. So all set with that! I guess i did some conversions wrong on the metrics units or something. so the correct depth was actually 13.36 UberLiters.
and i spent a ton of time thinking about the way to learn. and i believe its like playing golf or most other sports. except maybe that rugby game. not sure how that works with guys grabbing you and all. but say... golf. ( golf ) in golf you have to just hit the ball. like in chess you have to just move the pieces. monkey easy. but in golf you have to hit the short shots, long ones, putts... chips, lobs, punches, sand, some shallow water...
and in chess you have all sorts of things going on too. as some of you may know. so. to get better at golf you need to practice all of the shots. but you also need shot management - when to hit it less than the max because you want to set up the next shot.
now to my thinking.
i believe i am on the correct track with my Create Really Awesome Problems scheme. CRAP for short... now with CRAP i believe i will become much better. but, chess is not all CRAP, its learning how to set up CRAP. like setting up a nice 100 yard (347.234 uber liter) shot rather than trying to bomb the drive the whole way to the green and ending up chipping out of the woods.
so. here it is:
1 continue the tactics until i get em down a bit.
2 at the same time (now) also learn how to get to the point where i am setting up the problem. back up the position a few moves. see how i could make that problem happen in a game. after all by setting up the problem i am already going to know the solution to it. hopefully my opponent does not!
that's it. learn to move into a problem and ta-da! 2000 in a few years.
and i spent a ton of time thinking about the way to learn. and i believe its like playing golf or most other sports. except maybe that rugby game. not sure how that works with guys grabbing you and all. but say... golf. ( golf ) in golf you have to just hit the ball. like in chess you have to just move the pieces. monkey easy. but in golf you have to hit the short shots, long ones, putts... chips, lobs, punches, sand, some shallow water...
and in chess you have all sorts of things going on too. as some of you may know. so. to get better at golf you need to practice all of the shots. but you also need shot management - when to hit it less than the max because you want to set up the next shot.
now to my thinking.
i believe i am on the correct track with my Create Really Awesome Problems scheme. CRAP for short... now with CRAP i believe i will become much better. but, chess is not all CRAP, its learning how to set up CRAP. like setting up a nice 100 yard (347.234 uber liter) shot rather than trying to bomb the drive the whole way to the green and ending up chipping out of the woods.
so. here it is:
1 continue the tactics until i get em down a bit.
2 at the same time (now) also learn how to get to the point where i am setting up the problem. back up the position a few moves. see how i could make that problem happen in a game. after all by setting up the problem i am already going to know the solution to it. hopefully my opponent does not!
that's it. learn to move into a problem and ta-da! 2000 in a few years.
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