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.

Out of the Comfort Zone and Into the Fire

Nigel Davies has a new post at his Chess Improver blog, Knowing Your Style. While the post is great, the title might actually be a bit misleading; he's saying that playing for tactical shots as your main goal is not a "style" at all, but a tendency to do what you already know, to stay within your "comfort zone."

There is a good deal of wisdom in the idea that tactics exercises are the best way to a ratings gain, at least below expert level, but I wonder if having this as your main form of chess study doesn't also lead to a certain stunting of long-term growth. As Davies notes:

Growth implies change and change is scary, so there can even be a tendency for people to cover up their insecurities with a certain chess machismo. I’ve heard the Accelerated Dragon (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6) described as the ‘Gay Dragon’ by aficionados of the more violent form (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6). But doesn’t the requirement to develop new skills actually require greater courage?

Indeed. it seems to me that to get the most out of chess, the game itself and as part of your life, you will need to push yourself into new and uncharted territory, whether in the opening, venturing on speculative sacrifices, playing up a section or playing out equal endings with the intention of grinding down the opponent. Whatever you don't like, or fear, do it on purpose!

Best Spam Comment Ever?

Since the advent of word verification on comments, I still occasionally get spam, and it would seem that some fool is actually placing these manually, on at a time, often on two-year-old posts.  Some appear to have come from China and some from Korea, though I have no doubt this is equal opportunity spam--any idiot on the planet can do it.

Some just say something like:  "Great post!  I am also interested in GOLD Jewelry," or whatever.  Some have a whole paragraph of nonsense.  Today, though, I got this on a two-year-old post (dude, nobody reads those except through Google refs that don't justify your effort, believe me):

(Links excised)

Ancient Greek philosophy was divided into three sciences: physics, ethics, and logic. This division is perfectly suitable to the nature of the thing; and the only improvement that can be made in it is to add the principle on which it is based, so that we may both satisfy ourselves of its completeness, and also be able to determine correctly the necessary subdivisions. All rational knowledge is either material or formal: the former considers some object, the latter is concerned only with the form of the understanding and of the reason itself, and with the universal laws of thought in general without distinction of its objects.  Formal philosophy is called logic. Material philosophy, however, has to do with determinate objects and the laws to which they are subject, is again twofold; for these laws are either laws of nature or of freedom.  The science of the former is physics, that of the latter, ethics; they are also called natural philosophy and moral philosophy respectively.

 Educational spam; hallelujah!

I Invent a Totally NEW Word - Please Make It Go Viral!!!

Over at Liquid Egg Product the Mascot has produced, directed and starred in a Halloween Holiday Classic. In the comments, I write:

Seriously dude, I know you’re loyal to Donnie and all but someone with your combination of churtful yet charming snark, slender physique, immunity to criticism, babe magnetism and tolerance for tasteless violence and gore would fit RIGHT IN with most of the Hollywood crowd.

Churtful? CHURTFUL??? I think I meant to say cheerful, then thought to change it to hurtful, and LOOK WHAT HAPPENED! Ma, I done a good thing!

Cheerful and hurtful. And snarky. Yes, that's Hollywood these days. And Washington. And Brussels, for our European readers. You pay for the privilege of going to the movies and finding out THEY are using YOUR money to insult your values and your beliefs, you pay 20-30-40-50+ percent of your income (how high does it go in Europe? About 25 in America right now, but just wait, my American friends, do you think with a $1 trillion ++ deficits year after year that will hold?) to politicians to tell you you're too stupid, you poor sap, to know what's good for you.

You pay, they play and churtfully enjoy the privileges (root-private laws) of being the elite.

Speaking of the elite, Liz Vicary has been on a tear lately, see people who hold views that contradict mine are stupid (part 2) which purports to show through some truly pseudo-scientific gobbledygook that atheists are (of course) more intelligent than all those God-believing idiots:

It just seems so bizarre to me that otherwise intelligent people can believe there is a man in the sky who controls things. And this leads them to kill each other, wake up early on Sunday mornings, wear funny necklaces, talk to themselves, and not do fun things like have sex and eat certain delicious foods.

There's a sophisticated argument. Since atheists like Hitler, Stalin and Mao never kill anyone, and since it's obvious, for example, that those religious types don't have sex, all that sort of thing would presumably end if people would just go atheist and bring about the peaceful, sleep-late-on-Sunday sex-filled paradise they so richly deserve.

Idiots.

But seeing as that was "part 2," let's go back a bit to part 1--have you ever thought that conservatives are all stupid? wherein Ms. Vicary consults some completely different pseudo-scientific gobbedygook purporting that "Conservatism and cognitive ability are negatively correlated." I'd like to quote more but do go read her post, which consists almost completely of the article's introduction. The commenters do a good job of questioning the premises, so I don't have to. Remember, if it doesn't pass the "smell test," check your premises.

The funny thing is that with E. Vicary you never know whether she really believes this stuff or she's just playing with the audience. Look at the blog URL...that's the secret of her success. She writes for Chess Life and gets in movies and stuff, and I toil away here, unpaid except for the warmth of my Dear Readers' comments. So, I must say, kudos to her. She's actually a Raven in disguise.

I do hope she was kidding about this one.

One of the commenters there is, coincidentally (really? - ed.), ChargingKing, who recently asked for some link love in regard to my previous post. Here it is, because Chris Harrington is an intersting person and writer, and we played some good games in the old days in Reno.

It's intrguing to me that he seems to be passionately appealing for moderation and middle ground in his comment: Doesn't it ever wear thin fighting and creating conflict? As a philosophical kind of guy I would think Chris would appreciate the Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis process as described (if not in exactly those terms) by Hegel. It is great conflicts that create great discoveries--just like in chess. Fighting and creating conflict are the chessplayer's bread and meat. Just, after it's over, let's all go have a beer, like those conflicting liberals and conservatives do (when we're not looking).

To bring this whole thing back around to the important point, I'm being CHURTFUL here, okay. Cheerfully hurtful. If you would be so kind as to go forth now and use it over and over and over, with full attribution and links to Robert Pearson's Chess Blog, I would be much obliged. I am hoping to see it show up in text messages all over the world by next week.

UPDATE: Churtful is in the Urban Dictionary as a variation of the verb churting "The act of being dull, boring, kind of grey, and specifically draining to the person that is having to listen to you." As you can see, this has nothing to do with my own brilliantly original coinage and we will speak of it no more.