Slogging away...and sleeping at the board!

Hi everybody

Just a quick passing post....

I'm practicing my chess 'vision' i.e. my ability to see instantly or within the first 10 seconds of looking at the board where the potential skewers, forks and pins may be available.

The problem is, we still have lots of foul, dirty, tempting goodies around the house I load up on sugar and fat (well must help the kids avoid obesity!) and then get on with my practice and all goes well for a while.

Queen moves around looking for said attacks, knight jumps around avoiding Queenie and before I know it I am riding the knights horse around the board and falling in love with the Queen who now looks like the version on Queen Elizabeth I from Black Adder.

I ask for a date, she asks for my head and before the fatal blow my darling 11 year old wakes me up from my comfy slumber across the board. 'Are you coming to bed daddy? you were talking in your sleep'

Another session ending in weird fantasy. I go to bed and answer my wifes sarcastic query of 'how is your study going?' with an embarrassed, guilty reply of 'ok I suppose' sounding more like a grumpy teenager, of which I will no doubt be experiencing in a few short years!

An odd post I admit but I intend to write a bit more over the coming weeks and for anyone at all interested, you will see my rise from a complete nobody with a rating of 1100 on my last check (over a year ago) into a club villain who wins tourneys from nowhere....mwhahahaha!

Ok bedtime.


Speak soon,

checkmate!

Christmas Knights in

Hi everybody!

Merry Christmas! Hope the holiday is going great for you.

I'll get straight to it. I have decided to try and win a chess competition at the age of 41.

My highest rating ever was 1300. Now I'm probably around 1100! I don't concern myself with that for now though.

I will be writing on here to record what I'm up to and recount some past games I have played in all sorts of places against all kinds of people.

In psychiatric hospitals (not as a patient as a auxiliary nurse all though even I admit it was hard to tell...) in a gymnasium cupboard, on planes, trains and in automobiles, in New York, Turkey, Colombia, in fields, on rough council estates, in historic ale houses and finally in my parents house every Monday playing against active and retired hooligans, scientists and artists.

I have played against people from all over the world OTB not on the internet and against players far far stronger than me.

Funny stories abound and are coming your way.

My success (or lack of) will hopefully entertain or maybe delight you...

I am a Pilates instructor by trade and also work as a service provider bringing motivation and movement for stroke patients and people suffering with dementia.

Definitely not your average 41 year old. I feel much younger than my years often forget myself after jumping on my kids skateboards or staying up watching films etc. I have a beautiful family, nice house and stay in really good shape but my bug bear is never achieving anything in chess.

All I want is to become a good club player and win some silverware. This will be a weight off my shoulders definitely.

You may find that odd but Chess is my dark mistress, I walkaway from it for years and come back. Rinse and repeat. Never done anything worthwhile though.

I have no natural talent I'm aware of other than a love of the game that is very deep so the work will be hard and long (that's what she said).

Well, that's enough for this post.

Thanks for reading, I'm off to study some chess...