Year

 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To play for fun or to play to improve rating?

Image
  Humans are competitive. I'm not going to pay to get better, but I do as many free puzzles as I can each day on Chess.com.  My lowest ranking came when I had Covid and I played anyway because I was bored. I thought I was heading to 700, 800, 900. I have to admit, my rating has dipped. I've gone on spurts of playing and if my rating goes up I get quite excited, but the habit of playing often takes over and I enjoy the game and I keep playing even if my rating goes down.  I think I have this idea that if I play a few games and really concentrate and put pressure on myself to win, then my rating will go up. Sometimes I like to play instinctually and there are unseen consequences to it. I like blitz games, 5 minutes each, because there's not too much thinking.  11/22/24 Ding Liren is the world champion. I thought it was Magnus Carlsen, who I learned relinquished his title in 2022. Didn't know it was Ding Liren who took the crown in 2023.  Gukesh Dommaraju is...
Read more

Draws

Image
There's the confidence to think you'll win, but then again choosing whether to accept a draw is a different confidence based on material, position and strategy. I play 1-10 games a day, usually more towards 2-4. I've won a lot of games by just being persistent and keep on going even if I lose my queen. I've lost a lot of games too, and I don't get too sore losing, but it does sting quite a lot, so the desire to win versus the desire to just play are in competition.  I like the psychology of juggling various strategies and ways of being in chess. I saw a post on r/Buddhism questioning whether a Buddhist should play chess: "I'm a Buddhist and I play chess. Should someone closer to the goal stop playing chess? I don't think you're close to the goal, so maybe worry when you get closer. Faking it till you make it? Well, if you want to quit chess, quit chess. I don't think that will make you enlightened, enlightenment is brought about by meditation, ...
Read more