Wednesday, December 26, 2007

A Rockin' Xmas and a Horrible Nightmare

I got everything I wanted, chess-wise, for xmas!

-I got Chernev's Logical Chess, and the first two games got me fired up. Like chessloser, I love kingside violence.

-A review will go up at Chess Central later today for the bag, set and board combo I got.

-I also received my first clock. Until I can set it correctly and have used it, I won't be able to review it :P

My daughter really likes playing with a clock, so I'm hoping she and I get a lot of games in. She wants to play in the Maryland State Girls Championship and will probably play at least one warm-up before that.

My wife also thinks we'll be able to swing my entry in the Baltimore Open. Two days and five rounds of G120 will blow my mind. I'll have the chance to play out the endgames I'm getting in G30, and hopefully get to them in better shape!

Now the nightmare...

I was dreaming that I was playing in the Baltimore Open and my first opponent was at least a Master. He was trying to convince me to start off in some kind of symmetrical opening with the king bishops King's Bishop 3...very bizarre. After spending a few mintutes looking at the setup, I declined.

He got pissy and responded to 1.e4 with e6 and I got mated in like 5 moves! I woke up sweating, thinking, "Oh my god...I'm gonna be a lamb at slaughter there!"

And then it hit me...GPA! If I'm gonna go down, its gonna be like a Quentin Tarantino movie, dammit! Loads of action and plot twists :)

And lastly, here's a cool, IMHO, tip for handling vinyl boards in bags:

After sitting down and putting my initials on the bottom of all the pieces, contact info inside the bag and on the clock and putting my name on the bottom of my board (my wife thought I was cute doing so, like a kid getting his school gear ready at the end of the summer :D), I noticed that the velcro straps were 'biting' into the board and adding two unsightly creases down the board. A little ripple from rolling up ain't so bad, but these made it look like I kept the board crammed in my pocket.

And what do people probably have laying around in tatters right now? Empty and nearly empty rolls of wrapping paper! I grabbed a naked tube, measured it against the bag and cut it just a tad short, rolled the board, slid the board inside the tube, strapped it in and bam! No creasing action, and a sturdier package!

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the tip. I'll make sure to keep it in mind.

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  2. I use the same clock and like it very much. I find it very easy to set the times. And I tried two other digital clocks before settling on this one.

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  3. The first thing you need to do with that clock is learn how to shut off the beep on every move option. It's a relatively loud beep and is really annoying! I don't have the clock, but others at my club do, and I hate hearing the beep.

    A heads up. It can be confusing at first glance because 5 seconds on the clock looks the same as the 5 second count down on the delay. I remember watching a game at my club where I thought someone had run out of time, but it's just the way the time delay displays before the actual time.

    Nice idea for storing the board. I always roll mine board side out so that when I lay it down, it doesn't curl up towards the pieces.

    I had thought about coming to the Baltimore Open. That's my old stomping grounds. Grew up in Ruxton, and spent a lot of time in Towson, including being a member of the Towson Chess Club that met at the YMCA. Unfortunately it's about the only weekend I'm not working or traveling elsewhere.

    Good luck!

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  4. The first thing you need to do with that clock is learn how to shut off the beep on every move option. It's a relatively loud beep and is really annoying!

    That was about the first thing I thought of when fiddling with it. I wondered if it gets brought to TDs attention much because it would be bothersome to here it all day long.

    And thanks for the delay tip!

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