Finally a nice day!

Its finally a beautiful day in Nebraska! Got the computer outside and the girls are playing in the dirt just like their brothers taught them to do. Now the big question is do I take a weekend off of my chess studies and spend some time in the yard, or hide in the house and concentrate on getting better at my game??

Looks like chess is loosing out again!

L8R

Raths

Tournament is a no go!

Well, while I have to grade my progress as a "C" for this week, it is irrelevant now. We decided to take the tournament money and invest in a gas grill. After talking about the situation, the wife and I decided that the money was better spent.


As you can see, we went with a big one! It has 474 square inches if primary cooking area, 3 stainless steel burners, side burner and cast iron grates. 36,000 BTU! This baby gets hot! It will go up to 500 degrees in about 10 minutes (which is about the temp that I like to clean it at). St. Pat's day we cooked a 12 pound brisket on it and it barely make a dent in what I can fit on it. Tonight we cooked a few chops and they came out just beautiful.


Some may ask why we went with such a big grill and the answer is easy. We have a big family! We have 5 kids in the house. My best friend, who is married to my wife's cousin (more like sisters really) also have 5 kids in the house. Add my dad (a widower) and Bob's mom (a widow) and the friends of the kids that always seem to show up on the weekends, and its not unusual to be cooking steaks, hot dogs, hamburgers, beans and whatever for 20+ people. And don't even get me started if we're cooking ribs! And all this is just the every weekend folks. On the Fourth of July we can easily bump it up to 30 to 40 people, as we have a decent view of the city fireworks display from the back yard.


All of this requires a lot of yard work, preparation of food, and lost sleep time. But it is all worth it to be surrounded by friends and family and food (and beer...can't forget the beer)!

Second week's grade

Well, time to grade the second week's worth of training. Its a couple of days late, but better late than never! This week's grade: C+

I got a lot of things done. Made good headway in my book. Started using ChessMaster. Even played a few games against Fritz. I haven't been getting my three games a day in on the PlayChess though. I'm still finding it hard due to the kids and everything. The interruptions are killer on the concentration. But I still think that I'm much more mentally prepared than I was for the first tournament.

Now to just get the money straight. While the entry is only $10 at the door, this little excursion is going to include a hotel stay, meals for my wife and I, and shopping for the Mrs. while I'm playing. So as you can see, it could be an expensive weekend!

L8R

Raths

First week of training.

Well I guess that it's time to grade my first week of tournament training. Unfortuneatly I have to give myself a D-. I got almost nothing done because I came down with the flu that my wife had last week. I basically stayed in bed for 5 days in a row. If it weren't for the laptop, I wouldn't have even made any chess moves. So being sick is the reason I gave myself a D-. If I were well, it would have been a definite F.

I did get the ChessMaster 9000 installed on the laptop, but when I went to do some puzzles last night it totally froze up the computer. Not sure what exactly I did wrong but it seemed to be working until I decided to upgrade the program. I think today while I'm babysitting I'm going to uninstall it and reinstall and see if it will work without the upgrade.

Next week should be better as I'm feeling about 90% better. But this whole week is important time that was lost. Time to get back on track!

L8R

Raths

Defenders of the Crown

I have decided to take part in another tournament. I paid $65 for the first one, including all the necessary memberships, so I figure that I should at least try to get my money's worth out of the USCF and the NSCA! The upcoming tourney is the weekend of March 24th, giving me almost 3 weeks to get ready. I have posted up a question on the Chess Exchange Forum and already gotten some good feedback.

In preparation, I'm going to load up my ChessMaster 9000 disk on my laptop and try to go through the tactical puzzles everyday. I am also going to get at least three 10 minuet games a day on the Playchess and I have upped my game load on ChessWorld to 24 games. I am still working my way through "The Complete Idiots Guide to Chess", but in a more casual way than I'm planning on pursuing games. I get a lot from reading, but I feel I really need the practice of more games to put what I'm learning to use.

The major drawback from all this practice is I will have to sacrifice some sleep. Working third shift, I have gotten used to taking a nap from about 8:30 to 10:30. But this is the time that I will be on PlayChess. Ahh the sacrifices of seeking success! I'll let you know how everything is going soon!

L8R

Raths

2 Games Up

I finally got around to entering in the games from the first two rounds from the Columbus Valentine tournament. The first game was a rather short one. I had 39 minutes remaining and my opponent had 41. It was not the best game that I have ever played. the second game lasted much longer, with myself having 13 minutes and Durwood having only 2 minutes left. After he captured my queen on move 10 I decided to pull back and play for a draw. Unfortunately he was able to promote his f pawn and was able to get behind my king and chase me into submission. I'll try to get my third game up in a couple of days. Its just so hectic around the house I can't get anything done. The link to the games is under "View my games" on the right.

L8R

Raths

Columbus Valentine Tournament

I decided to go ahead and play in the tournament today instead of just watching. It was a good experience, even tough I went 1/2-4 (I think that's the way that you put that you got one half point out of a possible 4). I got the 1/2 point by taking a bye in the last round. It was a 4:20 start time for the round, and the day started at 8:30 in the morning. By the end of the third round I was exhausted, and my play really suffered. In fact I came home, ate some pizza and went to bed. I tried to get some good sleep last night, but being so used to being up all night for work, it was an off and on type sleep.

I played in the reserve section (under 1500) with 4 other guys, all rated in the 1200's. I figured that I didn't stand much of a chance, so loosing all the games I played was not as depressing as it could have been. I was also able to get the number one seed in the section to go over our game, which was very informative. This was also the game where I made the most obvious blunders! Now I understand why they say that chess players have to be in good physical shape.

I am going to input my games into ChessDB and get a PGN file of them so I can post them on my past games list so all of you can take a look, but I'm still a bit tired and I have to be awake to babysit in the morning, so that will have to wait. So until next time.....

L8R

Raths