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Friday, 23 November 2007

Saturday, 26 May 2007

  • taking the test on the rainman's site, i get...



    HA -- funny, I'm this guy after 3 tests (the last one even with some random answers)

    On a sad note, I lost my first game at the Open tonight.  Not only did I lose, but I LOST.  I cannot say that I was beaten as much as I beat myself.  It was a short game and pretty much reflected that I broke all of the rules or decent chess.  While getting a decent position coming out of my opening, I made a critical error which allowed my opponent to take advantage of a trap.  It's the third round of 1999 amateur team tournament all over again, except here I lasted a few more moves to 14.

    Afterward, I got a good tongue lashing from Albert Chow my unofficial chess mentor.  It was well deserved, I had not developed pieces, I had made moves without thinking and played quickly when I had two hours as well as some opponent time to think.  I think the post-mortem went longer than the game, every minute a little less pleasant than losing as Al pounded all of the things I did wrong.  So what did I do wrong?  Well I can remember all of the things I did technically, but it comes down to my own mental preparation.  When I played Al before, I was loose and comfortable and played well against a master, playing now, i was tight, unfocused and lost to a D player.  A good night's sleep, a big breakfast and round 2 at 11 AM.

Monday, 21 May 2007

  • Wish Nori a happy birthday and me good fortune this weekend.

    HAPPY BIRTHDAY NORI
    (this is a little late as his birthday is 5/10)
    from P1010096  to IMG_3676  when he's not being bad, he's so cute.
    I sent a bunch of pictures to Nori's breeder and she posted them on the front page, here's her site: www.hugapug.us

    OKAY CHESSTIME!

    The 16th annual Chicago Open will be this weekend and I'm playing in it.  I'll only be playing on the 1500 and under section because of my low rating and I expect to do pretty decently, here's the info in case anyone might want to spectate.

    Friday May 25 -- Monday May 28
    at the Doubletree Hotel In Oakbrook
    1909 Spring Road, Oak Brook, Illinois, 60523

    Chess tournaments are not usually on an elimination basis, so everyone plays all seven rounds, here are the times when they start.  The games are usually very long, the time control is 40/2, SD1 which means my first 40 moves must be made within 2 hours and afterwards I'll have an hour sudden death, there's nothing sudden really about it (unless you're actually playing I guess) and this comes to a total of a possible 3 hours per player (yeah that's just time on your clock so your opponent has the same time on his) so a total possible playing time of 6 hours per game (they rarely go that long though.)
    The Schedule:
    Round 1    7:00 PM Friday
    Round 2    11:00 AM Saturday
    Round 3    6:00 PM Saturday
    Round 4    11:00 AM Sunday **(I'll be taking a 1/2 point bye to attend church)
    Round 5    6:00 PM Sunday
    Round 6    10:00 AM Monday
    Round 7    4:30 PM Monday

    Here's a link to a useful article if you have never been a chess spectator.

    Okay, some more Nori pics:
    P1010068
    IMG_3783IMG_3817
    IMG_3781IMG_3679

Sunday, 21 January 2007

  • I dislike the foosball...

    ... and I suppose that while people are blogging about the bears win tonight and the superbowl to follow -- by the way, I think I can still recall about 70% of the lyrics to that song, which is a tragedy since I can never actually finish it in my head making it persist there painfully.  What was I saying? Oh yeah while people are blogging about it (I suppose I am too), I figured that I will post this picture I took at the grocery.

    01-20-07_1627

    While I am sure that the company used the word as the Sanskrit word for "temple" (check out their FAQ site,) one -- meaning me -- cannot help but think of Yoda somewhere staring off meditatively munching on some 74% dark.

Sunday, 29 October 2006

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