I'm Now at GM Nigel Davies' "The Chess Improver"

I have begun a weekly "column" at GM Nigel Davies site The Chess Improver. That will likely be my main venue for writing about chess in the near future, but there are some pretty good archives here, if you care to browse.

There are a few pretty bad ones, too, but your odds are good, even if the goods are odd.

My first post there is A Broad View of Improvement.

And remember, there are BIG things in our future!

Didn't he get promoted to Admiral?

A Mantra for Chess Improvers

I get feeds from a lot of sites, but rarely has something hit the inbox that struck me like this.

From this long and interesting post, a small nugget of pure gold for people striving to improve at chess:

[The girl asked] "How do I let go of this harsh false self, this ego, this part of me that keeps beating myself up and comparing myself to others, yet still keep striving to improve myself? Once I give it up, will all the drive I need to succeed just evaporate too?”

(...)

She simply responded to the girl, “There is one thing you have to keep telling yourself throughout this process, and it’s something I continue to tell myself to this day: ‘You are fine just the way you are…and there’s always room for improvement’.” Those words were like a sledgehammer to my chest that knocked the wind out of me. So direct and so simple. The most important part to me was that she said “and there’s always room for improvement,” rather than “but there’s always room for improvement” which would make the acceptance feel a lot more false and conditional.

From that point on, every piece of personal growth I pursued, everything I read, every piece of advice I got from people, every goal I set, every memory I recollected, every emotion I processed through meditation…I processed all of it through the filter of that mantra: “You are fine just the way you are…and there’s always room for improvement.”

And I asked myself if I've ever thought of my chess life that way.

You can ask yourself, too.

Bob Dobbs Teaches Chess: On the Vital and Universal Principle of Slack

You may have noticed my new profile pic.  This is of course not my public visage but my "true" face:

If it strikes a chord of recognition, congratulations!

If not, you need to read Le Wik's take on the Church of the SubGenius.  Whatever you do, do not click on this link direct to heaven on Earth, for you are not ready.  Believe me, don't click on this link.

What does this have to do with chess, you ask?  Merely everything.  Wikipedia's tame description of slack does not do this important topic justice.  Think about it--the only reason you can get a glove on and off of your hand, is slack.  Why can you hit a golf ball 300 yards without ball and club exploding into pieces?  Slack.  How did the initial Singularity that spawned the Universe as we know it explode into matter and antimatter, most of which cancelled each other out, with just enough matter left over to make galaxies, stars, planets, people?  By now you well know...SLACK.

Slack is the reason chess is still interesting after hundreds of years of study; there is just enough slack in chess that LOTS of looking has never revealed a White forced win, and a player a pawn down can often still draw the game. Thousands of different opening sequences are "playable" just within the first few moves.  Attackers, defenders, positional players, wonderful weirdos like Nimzowitsch and upright physicians like Tarrasch, magicians, politicians, spooks, cops and criminals--all can touch for a moment the Universal Slack through the chessboard.

Will this knowledge make you a better player today?  Perhaps, if used intelligently.  Feel the Slack in the position, be creative and when in trouble, trust in the positional Slack that allows so many bad positions to be saved; at least you'll enjoy the game more, if you just keep the above picture in mind.  Try not to laugh out loud during the game however.  Your opponent may not yet be in on the Joke...

By the way, if you want some thing that ROCKS, this ROCKS:




ADDED 1/27/10:  For those who don't speak German, here is a rough translation (Feuer frei!" is the German expression used to order weapons to be shot, as in "Fire at will !". Literally it is "Fire freely")