Ok kids its been awhile since I posted and things haven’t been going for me the way I had hoped. The new job is awesome and I have no complaints on that front, but its just been taking up more of my time than I would like it to so chess has been on the back burner.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t have chess stuff as well as non chess stuff to talk about so here we go…
Larry Kaufman’s The Chess Advantage in Black and White is being updated and re-released by New In Chess! A few of you have left me messages asking where you could get a copy of this book that was originally printed by Random House under the McKay Chess Library brand. Unfortunately the few copies out there were being sold by people who were asking exorbitant prices for a new or even used copy. Amazon has a new book going from $95.81 all the way up to $345.09! So to those greedy piggies or booksellers who simply don’t know much about chess, time to lower your prices! The bad news is it won’t be published until February, but it is coming. The good news is that since it is a New In Chess product the book should be bigger with a an easier to read format. The original is a smallish sized book and my copy is about ready to fall apart, so this its happening just in the nick of time. Oh, the new title is The Kaufman repertoire for Black and White.
Over the past two plus years when I was finishing school and starting the new gig, I didn’t get a chance to play much chess. Thinking that this was going to be a pattern for me, I started toying around with changing my repertoire to something a little more one size fits all type of thing. I have always been a bit envious of Donnie’s (AKA Liquideggproduct’s) simple opening repertoire and how he has success and never worries about the opening. I have played the Modern with no losses to date and can even use a Modern – type setup against 1.d4 with some success. Replacing 1.e4 in my repertoire has been quite another story however.
I tried the English, the Reti and even a 1.Nf3 heading towards a Catalan setup, hell I even toyed with the idea of playing the Queen’s Gambit. Bottom line is I can’t do this! I can dabble with the Reti from time to time and I enjoy it, but I can’t see playing like this full time. The other choices, well, I’m just done with openings! I’m regressing to my early playing days repertoire and that’s that. I’m done, I just want to play and study chess, all phases of it (except the opening) and get to as many OTB tournaments as possible.
I have played well my last few times out and I am +5/=1/-2 in my last 3 tourneys. My performance over that time has been 1723 and it has netted me 57 rating points. OK so it’s not the kind of performance that’s going to lead to a smoking book deal but I’ll take it.
My two losses were rather pathetic affairs, an ill fated Caro Kann and an even worse Dutch. Why I attempted the Dutch again I have no idea, but I can assure you it won’t be happening again anytime soon! Other than that my games have been really good, the thing is with sporadic (read, nonexistent) study how have I managed to play so well? It took me a long time to figure it out, but it was simply due to the fact that I have been working day shift. I no longer have my head in a daze as I trudge off to a tournament because I’m out of my circadian rhythm. I never thought that being a vampire would affect my chess so dramatically but it’s the only thing I can come up with that makes sense.
Miscellaneous Grievances…
Amy Winehouse:
I’m not sure if the phrase hot mess was in wide use before or after she became famous, but she certainly exemplified it. I enjoyed her music and thought she was pretty cool, and I always hoped she would find a way to exorcise here demons, but I guess it just wasn’t meant to be, sad.
Politics:
I could go on for days and days about our supposed “leaders” in Washington D.C. but suffice to say they all need to be given new opportunities for employment that do not include public service, I plan on doing my part in making this happen for all of them in November 2012. Perhaps they have forgotten that they are public servants, or they are just plain incompetent, either way it’s time for the vast majority of them to be promoted to private citizen.
Boner Clinics:
Here in Arizona we have radio ads for an ED clinic that promises results for most men on the first visit. Now how exactly does that work? I go in with no boner and after one visit it’s standing at attention? I mean do they really think about what this sounds like? Then what do you do with said boner? Run home to the wife and….I don’t get it, I think there is a more genteel way to put this, although I haven’t thought of it yet. Again these are the types of thoughts that kept me out of the really good schools.
The deficit:
OK one more on politics and I’m going to leave it alone. I was watching the Daily Show last week and Jon Stewart had a graph that showed our current deficit at 14 trillion dollars and without the great deficit reduction deal it’s supposed to climb to 29 trillion by 2022, with this great deal it will only go up to 26 trillion dollars. This prompted me to look at Mrs. Wang and declare, “WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE SPENDING OUR MONEY ON?!?!” I mean seriously how could we have had a balanced, no shit in the black budget in 2000 and 11 years later not only are we in the red, it is going to double in the next 10 years, even after a herculean efforts by the brain trust in Washington? It just doesn’t make sense to me.
Reality T.V.
OK kids its over. There is nothing to see here. Are there seriously that many Americans that haven’t seen enough Surviving Slutty housewives of the Jersey Shore with Big Brother? Enough! I liked reality TV better in the 80′s when we called it wrestling and all agreed that it was scripted.
The NBA
The award for the most inept owners in all of professional sports goes to you guys. 10 years ago you had a lockout because you signed a shitty deal with the players and you were going broke. So your answer was to sign another shitty deal in which most of you are losing money yet again. I don’t feel sorry for you and you don’t deserve a professional sports team.
The Mets
Insert punch line here.
I think that’s it. Yup, that’s all, I feel loads better now.
Have a good week folks.
