Monday, April 16, 2012

Survival



Okay, the kids survived their first tournament.

Were they ready? Megan, probably. Jack – no. But he's so damn eager, there was no way he was staying home.

Both kids lost all their games, but it hasn't seemed to phase them. And that was what I was hoping for. I was fully expecting them to lose all their games, but I was watching for the attitude afterwards. Megan seemed a little down that night, but she perked up the next morning and wanted to play (and even more encouraging – headed right to her workbook when our game was over.)

Talking to the director, he mentioned he had Megan play up a quad from where she should have been as he didn't want to pair her and Jack together their first time out – a nice touch, even though it pretty much guaranteed Megan finishing last. (Megan beats Jack every time they play, so had he lined things straight up, given the numbers, Megan would probably have finished 2nd in the bottom quad.;)

Megan can suffer from a lack of confidence, so her even making this step was big. On the way there, she was saying how she was less shy than the week before when we headed over there for a drop-in visit.

We'll have another lesson tonight, and we'll see how she feels about things during the week. As of right now, they're both wanting to head back on Friday.

As far as my progress is going, I picked up a copy of Rapid Chess Improvement by Michael de la Maza from the library over the weekend and quickly churned through it. Most of the book reads like an infomercial, so there's about 40 pages of real content in there. And it's quite eye-opening. It has certainly changed my intended curriculum.

Right now, I'm reading Heisman's Guide to Chess Improvement and will be summarizing the book into a bunch of maxims after I've gone through it. I'm really liking the way Heisman approaches improvement – I'll be digging up copies of his other books whenever possible. I've also downloaded the entire Novice Nook archive (from which the above book was derived) off ChessCafe, and I'll be organizing that material over time. I'm also starting round one of the Seven Circles mentioned in the de la Maza book, doing 45 tactical problems a day this week using the CT-ART program.

My first tournament in 21 years is looking to be the Portland Chess Club G/60 the last Saturday of the month. 12 days from now. If I can just focus on safe play, I should do better than I used to – I've found my old score books, and the number of blunders in my games is staggering. I've signed up for the 4-day version of the US Open, and the Wednesday G/30 quads. I figure I'll get maybe four small tournaments in before that, plus some online and club play, so I'll have most of the rust shaken off by early August. I expect I'll still be Class D at that point, but one can always hope, right?

I've sort of picked the openings I'll try to play, and they're the standard “don't have a lot of time to study, but want something mostly safe that can still be tactical” type. Colle (or London) with the occasional Trompowsky as white, Scandinavian and Main Line Slav as black. I'm trying to spend less time on opening prep than I used to, but those books are so damn addicting.

So, as of right now, my toolset looks like this:

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