I haven't blogged about chess for quite a while, so I'll borrow Dennis Monokroussos' blog entry as an excuse to make up the deficit. Since I've left University life behind (sigh), I've resumed my decades long quest for chess improvement.
I have been fairly faithful in visiting the Chess Tactics Server every day for 45 minutes or so. Progress has been slow, but undeniable. That is the major area of weakness in my game. Disciplined thinking is another and I hope to study and to practice in games, especially on FICS.
I've joined their Team League and have played a couple of games for my new team: Veins (don't ask). But it's a humbling experience to go over the post-mortem with the help of chess software. Every stupid move is dispassionately highlighted.
And just to add to the pain, I'm wanting to upgrade the computer to something fast and multi-processor. Maybe there'll be a quad-core iMac next year? Unfortunately, the new chips are $1000 a crack, so I'm doubting it.
Anyway, I'm mildly relieved to see that I'm not the only one missing tactical themes:
Kramnik-Anand, game 5 with notes: Earlier today, Anand won his second game to take a big 3.5-1.5 lead in his world championship match against Kramnik. It was another great game in the Meran Semi-Slav, but it came to a screeching halt when Kramnik fell for a very neat trap - but one within his pay grade to figure out and sidestep.
Kramnik is now in biiiiig trouble, and if he loses tomorrow he can just about book a plane for Moscow (or Paris) for this weekend. If only for the sake of excitement, let's hope Kramnik overcomes his chess version of "the yips".
Meanwhile, here's today's game, with my notes. (On a replayable board, with deeper commentary than in the live blog post.)
(Via The Chess Mind.)
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