Progress Report, Week 5

Here was last week (Grade: C-)

Some better work this week, despite the ubiquitous holiday distractions and time-stealers that I'm sure most of you are also experiencing! Promising and delivering these reports has had a good effect on my study habits, since I'm aware that my Vast Readership will be watching. Also, Liquid Egg Product threatens to sic Singaporean cops with canes on me if I break the no blitz promise...yeah, that's motivation.

So let's start with the good news: No Blitz this week! Played two 15 0 games on FICS with a 1627, won both in pretty good style, standard rating there now 1690 (1631). Did I mention no blitz?

Over at Chess Tempo (rpearson) I went +57 -19 for exactly 75 percent, not as high a percentage as I need to get to, but a decent improvement over last week. Also, I spotted at least two "duals" that I got docked for, when my solution led to the same position, but no big deal. Chess Tempo rating (standard) 1738 (1673); decent progress there.

I even got into the Joe Gallagher book on Tal that I mentioned back at the beginning of this program, even if only for a few minutes, so that's a tiny bit of progress, too. Here's a funny position from the introduction that I thought you'd enjoy, from the game Tal-Petrosian, USSR Team Ch. 1974:


One might reasonably ask how an all-time great like Petrosian ended up in this position after 18 moves; looks more like Morphy-NN, offhand game, London 1858 does it not? Tigran, didn't they teach you back at the Pioneer's Palace in Tblisi to develop the queenside?

Ha, anyway Tal finished the game efficiently with 19. Neg5+! hxg5 20. Nxg5+ Kg8 21. Qf4 Nd7 22. Rxd7! Bxd7 23. Bxf7+ 1-0.

Now wasn't that easy?

I'm giving myself a B for the week on sticking to the program--next week, Chess Tempo percentage must rise significantly!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Good Night!