JOKES and POOR RESULTS (Course correction for a new week!)

Sometimes you feel bright, inspired, and generally like a king killing Monster~ this is NOT that day….

THE EXPERIMENT (that wasn’t entirely a good idea)… A little more than a week ago, My training program seemed in pretty good shape.   I was going through the last of my second pass bain; my turn-based chess was as intense as ever, I was browsing somewhat slowly through some good game annotations, and slowly working on my pet opening—the french.   The weakness was , as I saw it, that my gameplay was getting a little too infrequent, and some bitter weather meant that the chess club was meeting as often as I would have liked...

The game abhors an imbalance and I felt, despite all the warnings, that  a careful spate of blitz was in order, besides I mused I could give the resulting games a really careful look and really try to pin down some specific and routine flaws in my thinking; no doubt exaberated by the quick pace of even a G10 game (which is the slowest of blitz at chess.com).

In truth, I was also empathizing quite a lot with a thread I saw on the chess.com forum.  It goes like this, if I got a standard ELO of nearly 1400 elo- how the heck can my blitz be a measely 10x?   sigh.  This is simply a prideful question and really not a good way to direct ones chess improvement program.

AN CHESS OPENING JOKE that Goes a little too far this weekend.  So  I’m blitzing this weekend, and rapidly bringing up my k (shorthand for mathematically saying , yep we’ve seen a lot of recent games- He’s A PATZER! )  and generally creating lots of examples of really AWFUL chess, When I learn of a really odd opening!

I only really payed attention to it, because I was being all 'lemony' and feeling like; you Don't know what you think you know about an opening.   So Learning of an Crazy opening that breaks every rule in the book and doesn't easily by force?! it’s a riot!  Surprisingly Not (at least with the people I’ve played with) it wasn't a forced loss…. E4 d5 Ke3?

This is nicknamed by someone with little imagination and I really odd habit of mis-spelling , ‘the BongCloud opening’.  

When my kids heard about it, they had to play it.  ( I think they assumed it would be a great way to level dad).  Ha!  It didn't work for them though…as got generally got beaten; My son at 1-1 and my daughter at 0-2.  All the while their dad distracted by something silly, Not too sensible at all.

But where it really hurt; was in chess club.  The friend I usually play with simply Demolished me.   He was curious about the strange opening and I didn’t immediately  win; but he didn’t struggle to invade and box my king in after some heated exchanges.  He put it nicely, but I think he felt he had to say;   "Your game isn't in good shape this Week"

NOW I DON’T WANT TO OVER-REACT TO A BAD NIGHT…but on the other hand, this weeks routine has been sort of like FAST FOOD chess.  Quick to satisfy the hunger and lacking in a deep visualization.   Even the ‘turn-based’ chess, must adamantly be considered a little light-weight…  Where in the normal routine of serious OTB game, one must picture the board and strain to see all the intricate details;  that kind of chess allows an analysis board.  Fantastic for concocting and understanding the deep implications of a many ply variation, but Lazy in the exercise of deep board visualization.*

SO THIS IS MY COURSE CORRECTION;  hastily thrown on the blog.   I want to quickly write up what I learned and how I’m going to make it better!

• Browsing on the chess.com forum Might be fun- but its important Not to get too involved with peoples issues.   simply put there’s lots of people that quickly run to conclusion that they are losing incessantly cause they just don’t understand their opening, or some other reason. 
• Be careful in the name of ‘balance’ not to embrace an activity, which might swallow up most of your time.   
• Any distance from tactic puzzles and I inevitably feel weaker.   I think I am at a part of my training- I have gained the ability for flashes of tactical power; rather than a more consistant grounding in it.   see next point for a reason , why.
• I believe that Board visualization is at Least as important as a good thinking process.   They two separate skills account for nearly all the blunders of a PATZER chess player.   and specifically…
• I Truly do struggle, a little more than others at Board visualization.  Its ironic, because I think I do excel a little more than others at pattern recognition, but this quickness to see a motif and slowness to get the exact placement of the pieces right, explains Exactly why I have such struggles with refutes.

So Put all this together and you have an important COURSE correction.   I do truly feel that the CC is worth it.   And Yes, I think I’ll continue to use the analysis board.  It helps me understand the deep possibilities in a position.  And the discipline to carefully explore all the consequences are good, and HAS been very good with my thinking process.

On the other hand, I NEED TO be the Guy that truly embraces Puzzles!   I should get back to Bain and quickly add others that are more about calculation, and less in ourright pattern recognition – I have quite a few that I could consider.  But I think “pandolfini’s endgame tactics” is a Great idea at this point.  I WENT through that book a long time ago and can confirm that careful calculation is the only way to solve most of the puzzles.   I might begin Reinfields 1001 chess tactics, too… I need to sink my teeth in denser stuff.  Another book to think about is Heisman’s “Looking for trouble”

I think concurrently going through 2-3 puzzle books might be challenging, but It might be good “cross training”.

LASTLY I need to adjust my gameplay and avoid Blitz.   I have joined the slow chess league at chess.com and I will join for the qualifier.  IT Is time to start playing, at Tournament Speeds and conditions EVEN IF for now, I haven’t found a reasonable OTB tournament option...