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More "Learning"
He told his friends, "You know, the law of averages says
Anything will happen that can" that's what it says
"But the last time the Cubs won a National League pennant
Was the year we dropped the bomb on JapanA Dying Cub Fan's Last Request
- Steve Goodman
After several months of anticipation, I finally got to play another "ALTO" (At Least Twenty One) Adults-Only tournament at Marshall. They are doing them every 3rd week of the month this year - highly recommended if you're just getting started with over the board chess.
I dropped all three games today. The last time I won a game of OTB chess was against some grade-school scholastic players at the Day After Thanksgiving Tournament aka Andre Harding Memorial. That brings my OTB classical losing streak to ...12 games in a row!
Anyways, here are studies for today's games:
Round 1 vs. Nambiar
Round 2 vs Yu
After my first round loss I had a full point bye in my section, so they paired me with someone from the Over-1600 section.
Round 3 vs Omilabu
Meanwhile in online chess...
I've been playing 3+2 blitz games, usually limiting it to 3 rated games a day with some analysis afterwards. I recently broke 1500... at least something is showing improvement - and hopefully it will translate to my slow chess.
Playing blitz chess can help improve key chess skills, such as pattern recognition, tactical awareness, and speed of calculation. It can also give the player the chance to play many more games than one could get at long time controls, giving improving players exposure to more (and different) openings, while growing experience in handling all kinds of scenarios.
- GM Jeffery Xiong - https://new.uschess.org/news/gm-xiong-says-let-kids-play-blitz
I'm also playing in the Lichess4545 LoneWolf League - round 2 tomorrow...
Why don't I just play d4 N3...?
Despite my losing over and over, I still feel I'm on the right track. I'm going to continue playing e4 openings and trying to play fighting chess over the board, even if that means more losses.
This video by GM Aleksandr Rakhmanov makes a pretty convincing case:
[playing 1.] e4 teaches you to play open positions uh like fast play attacking chess.Thiis is something really hard to learn if you start with d4, especially if you are lower rated... When you start to play chess you need to blunder a lot, lose your pieces - blunder them - grab your opponent's pieces...
The point is e4 leads to an open position. There will be a lot of options to to take something, to blunder something...while other openings, let's say 1. d4, 1. c4, 1. Nf3 lead to closed positions and it will be more difficult to play chess.
