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blitzing farwest
Mar. 10th, 2005 03:30 amI worked rather a long day yesterday. When it was over, I played blitz chess at www.freechess.org. I got into this endless series of games with a user named "Farwest". At first, I won the games somewhat handily. By the end, I was losing fairly equally handily. Overall, I think we broke about even. My blitz rating is slowly climbing out of the low levels it had achieved, but I still have a way to go to ascend back to a reasonable level.
I bought a book on eBay written by a Canadian postal chess expert who is doing something of which I approve--self-publishing little chapbooks on obscure little opening variations. He had an exuberance I recognize as being kindred to my own--he wrote me something like three e mails about the routine act of my purchase via paypal. He even closed the last one with a call for suggestions of other odd strategies about which he should write. The booklet I bought from him deals with an entirely absurd counter-gambit to the King's Gambit. I already have a good absurd defense to the King's Gambit--Mr. Keene's fun strategy of bringing the queen out inappropriately early to try to harass white's pawn structure. But in blitz chess, it's sometimes fun to play things one would not play in slow chess.
My nephew, 13, sent me an IM asking when we would play chess again. It reminded me that I need to find a chess tournament to which I can take him, perhaps involving travel to some town near good hiking trails. In the meantime, we set up a tentative time a week from Sunday to play a match.
I am up now with a trace of insomnia, but it won't last long. I want to make the next two days very productive indeed, and I'll need the sleep.
I bought a book on eBay written by a Canadian postal chess expert who is doing something of which I approve--self-publishing little chapbooks on obscure little opening variations. He had an exuberance I recognize as being kindred to my own--he wrote me something like three e mails about the routine act of my purchase via paypal. He even closed the last one with a call for suggestions of other odd strategies about which he should write. The booklet I bought from him deals with an entirely absurd counter-gambit to the King's Gambit. I already have a good absurd defense to the King's Gambit--Mr. Keene's fun strategy of bringing the queen out inappropriately early to try to harass white's pawn structure. But in blitz chess, it's sometimes fun to play things one would not play in slow chess.
My nephew, 13, sent me an IM asking when we would play chess again. It reminded me that I need to find a chess tournament to which I can take him, perhaps involving travel to some town near good hiking trails. In the meantime, we set up a tentative time a week from Sunday to play a match.
I am up now with a trace of insomnia, but it won't last long. I want to make the next two days very productive indeed, and I'll need the sleep.
