A shift in focus

For the past few years, I have been playing and studying chess everyday. Lately, this has slowed down as I am becoming more interested in learning about gardening, environment, global warming, alternative energy. Chess is seeming very trivial to me now given all we need to pay attention to.

Some sites I am finding interesting

www.ted.com

http://www.treehugger.com/

http://www.peakoil.com/

Books I recently read and recommend

http://www.amazon.com/ZOOM-Global-Race-Fuel-Future/dp/0446698660/ref=pd_bbs_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218535948&sr=8-4

http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Fail-Succeed/dp/0143036556/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218536025&sr=1-2


http://www.amazon.com/Apollos-Fire-Igniting-Americas-Economy/dp/1597261750/ref=pd_sim_b_25

Alot of smart people are working on various solutions.

I'll be interested to see what technology will rise to the top. It is clear that change is needed.

An amazing combination

I have an Alburt and Palatnik book on Chess Tactics for the tournament player. This is a position from Palatnik game against Kasparov(white) . White to Move played Bishop x g5 . This combination is about 14 moves deep all forced . Those who are adventuresome should attempt to calculate this before looking at the game score below.


http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1069723

Amazing.

White to move

From a game I recently played . Qxf7 .felt very ct-artish.


As I was playing I was listening to this

Traxler and game results

I am the first casulty of the tournament of Lepers . Donnie beat me quite handily. I for some strange reason started to play my carokahn defense against the Pirc and had a somewhat confused game. He pushed me around with some tempo gaining moves and I ended up undeveloped and uncoordinated. Arggh .

Great fun and Donnie is a good sport. A good sport says "now thats an interesting move" when he could rightly say instead "your move really sucks!" Update: he nicely annotated this game here

I don't have that file of this game but here is a traxler I played tonight that I thought was interesting.

http://blog.chess.com/view/traxler

Reti Gambit against a 1800 player

Today, I played a Reti Gambit against an 1800 player on playchess . The Game progressed to the position below which may lead to a possibility of two strong bishop pointing to blacks Kingside. The bishop in front of the queen often leads to some tactics .

My opponent has just played a4 starting an attack on my castled position. white to move, I noticed Nxe5 pxe5, Qxe5+ Kh8 . If rook blocks then Bc4 with pressure.

After shuffling the rook back and forth a few times, black decides to play a4 ??.

Then comes BXf6!!. The bishop can not be captured since knight take loses the queen and pawn take leads to QXh7 checkmate so he plays ..rg8 .

This loses to Bc4 with the battery that can't be stopped. Nice to have a game against a strong player where I got in some tactical shots. Perhaps this Ct-art stuff is working.....

Play through the complete game here

Odds and ends

Some progress being made. I feel like I am developing some better board vision and calculating ability. Level 30 tactic problem circles are going well. I am making efforts to play slower and more carefully. This is somewhat foreign to my nature and a big reason why I am at my current level. I am still overlooking some pseudodefenses in my variations. Defenses which are not defenses at all because of pins or can't recapture due to their defending a mating square.

Listening to World Reggae as music and Guns, Germs and Steel as book on tape. I am reading Forcing Chess moves which walks me through some chess tactics. Not a bad book.

Tactical Exercises update

I split Level 40 into two halves for minicircles . I just finished my third mc of the second half of level 30. I solve these exercises with a low key attitude doing them at times with the Red Sox or Celtics in the background. I am not making great gains from circle to circle but by the time I reach 8 times I seem to know them reasonable well.

Today, I am convinced that understanding why the tactic works and being able to verbalize (narrate) the characteristics of the position is an important part of tactical training. At one point I was convinced that I would see a position and automagically relate it to the tactical solution. This only happens after hours of missteps, narrating and working through the problems. This is the door I must pass before the magic occurs.

Unsure if I will move on to Level 50 afterwards.

I may classify some of the Ct-art problems by type of mate :Boden Mate, Anastasia mate , Arabian Mate etc. and if I do I will post it on this site.