Much has been made of the “work vs. talent” issue in chess. Most articles I’ve read on the subject suggest, as Peter Orszag does, that talent is a myth and enough practice and dedication controls one’s mastery of a subject. If one dedicates oneself to the honing of their chess, the theory goes, one can eventually achieve mastery of it.

On the other hand, I have read accounts of players attempting to raise their ratings who fail to do so despite much work and dedication to their chess. And I know of parents who feel that if their kids only study as faithfully as the Polgar girls were schooled, that their kid will become a Grandmaster-or-better. I believe very few in the scholastic community would seem to openly disagree with that. My suspicion is that this is both because we don’t really know where the next GM will come from, combined with a fear that deflating such lofty ambitions will reduce said child’s participation.

Orszag does comment that persons who are excellent at a subject tend to be able to be able to chunk groups of data better. He cites that Masters can recall actual game positions better in memory tests than us patzers, but that when then pieces are randomized into non-game positions all of a sudden the memory recall becomes even. The working hypothesis is that masters have better recall at game positions because they “chunk” the position into subsets which can be remembered as gestalt blocks.

Gestalt theory is important to me when it comes to discussions of excellence, for a couple of reasons. First, I tend to think (as some of the opinion commenters do,) that there is a mix of factors involved in the occurrence of excellence (or genius, as I’d prefer to think of it.) One can work at one’s golf swing every day for years and probably reach the PGA. It doesn’t make one Tiger Woods – though that may not be as much a superlative as it was a couple of years ago. Personally, I believe as a matter of faith that there is an upper limit to what any particular human is capable of in a particular endeavor. Without hard work one cannot rise to excellence, but there is more to genius than working hard.

(Interlude… I also frequently think that those who study genius frequently put too many eggs in one basket. Bill Gates does not necessarily have what it takes to be John Paul II, and what Madonna can bring to a chessboard has yet to be seen… though we’ve seen the result of Garry Kasparov vs. Sting. )

Secondly, one thing frequently omitted by those who consider excellence is the value of the team that brings a person to that level. “Self-made” is something of an illusion to me; greatness results from the group of people surrounding a person’s efforts. Also, in chess excellence is only demonstrated by applying one’s efforts against someone else who is in the same plane of excellence. There is no appreciation of Fischer, Kasparov, and Anand without having a Spassky, Karpov, or Topalov playing against them.

From there, consider that each of those individuals has had excellent coaching, managers, opportunities for play, and in this day and age software support. (Fischer might be considered by some as the exception to this rule. However, those who do so should first research Carmine Nigro, John W. Collins, William Lombardy, Arnold Denker, Fred Cramer, Don Schultz, and other people I won’t mention now…)

Bringing it down closer to Earth… I have subjectively experienced most excellent games of chess by playing those close to my level. Are they objectively excellent games of chess? Perhaps not. But I have felt better about some of my losses than some of my wins, Most recently was at the Bradley tournament – I can say I liked the game of my fourth round loss far more than my third round win.

The one other thing I’ll mention before closing this post out… There can be some value in studying excellence and genius, examining what others have done to reach that level and then emulating those steps. And it’s a fun subject to head-trip on and survey. As you’ve probably recognized, the broad subject of genius is one of my pet subjects of enjoyment. But, as a chessplayer, one must consider first and foremost the point of chess to oneself. Aim high, play the best you can and learn all that you’re capable of soaking up, but I think the supreme genius of Caissa is that before all else personal excellence best shines through when you

Enjoy your Chess!

I thought, “hey, last time around it took a week or so to pair me up for a two-game match. Class tournaments on IECC might take a little longer to find five players in my class range… why don’t I put my name in now and then I’ll still have a short break…” (At IECC, a Class tourney is five players in one’s rating range playing a single Round Robin – four games at once.) In the last update there was only one player signed up in my class level. So I went ahead and put my name in. I’ll have a week, or a month, before I’m playing again, right?

The next day, I got my registration and pairing notices. So much for a break! Although the games officially start today according to the pairing notice, I’ve already sent out my two moves and white and geared everything up for playing all four games.

(Though on the scale of problems, this is a fairly nice one to have at this point.)

Have a happy and safe labor day, and enjoy your chess!

In the third I really wasn’t sure that I had a positive win. It was Knight and Rook against two Bishops, though I also had a heavy pawn advantage and my opponent also had two sets of doubled pawns. My opponent’s two Bishops were heavily pinned down, but it seemed to me to convert it I had to let those Bishops roam free – a prospect I didn’t relish. So, upon my opponent making a move error (posted my move incorrectly) and having to retract back, I offered a draw. My opponent, though, resigned the game. It turned out in post-game analysis that my fears were a little overblown. While his Bishops would have been let loose, it seems likely he would have had to sacrifice at least one of them to stop my pawns advance, and it seems likely that it would have worked down to a Bishop against Rook and Pawns ending.

So now my record stands at 4-0-0 at the group where I’m playing. I’ve been trying to decide if I should take a breather for a week or month…. But the itch is getting stronger. While it can be a little inconvenient to have to keep up with the games, I feel the attraction of correspondence play. And I do enjoy the email format; maybe during my next games I’ll try a server also, just to compare.

I’m also strongly considering doing a video on one or two of the games. It’s been awhile…

When I finally resigned, we had less than 20 minutes left on the clock between both of us. Not bad for a 160-minute time control.

I’m glad it’s the game I ended on, though. I’d rather have a stimulating loss than an easy win. (Well, OK, I’ll take a stimulating win over that… ) At least I didn’t drop any pieces horribly, and I think it’s the best game I’ve ever played facing 1. d4.

Anyway, Kudos to Bradley University and Wayne Zimmerle for putting on a great tournament, and I expect to be back at the 48th Annual Bradley Open. (Must remember to take camera next time!)

This is my first time on the Bradley University campus in Peoria. I’m actually glad to be at a college campus for a tournament… reminds me of the happy days when I was a student myself. I must admit to missing campus life!

It’s a very nice day and a nice campus. The Student Center where we’re playing has ample seating and places to hang out in between rounds. The tournament facilities are very nice – bathroom right off of the playing area with a lounge in between. We were a little crowded in Round 1, but then another room was opened for the top five boards.

This round there were 16 boards in play, which means 32 players. I was playing bottom board, and they had made only 15 board places, so we had to snap out a table quickly so we could play our game.

So, my round three game was against a scholastic player from the Bloomington area that I hadn’t met before. It turns out she’s taking classes with Colley. When I saw that her rating was 120 I didn’t expect much trouble, but it did take longer than I expected. I wasn’t hurting at all, but she made some good defensive moves at points which required me to think about how to use the extra material that I had amassed.

OK… time to go and relax a little and have a little nosh.

It seems that maybe the chess viewer has trouble with names or multiple rounds? Or maybe I loaded the wrong game…

First game was Black against a player rated 1616. I lost a pawn early on, and that turned out to be my undoing.

Oh well. A fun game, and next round coming up!

(I also found out that to step up to the Local Tournament Director level it’s my Regular rating that has to have 26 games played, not just my Quick rating. This tournament will bring me to 25 games.)

If you’re in Peoria at the tournament tomorrow, say Hi! (But if you are there… it’s after 10PM the night before… what are you reading Chess Blogs for??? )

So, if I can find a WiFi connection tomorrow, I’ll probably be doing my round-blogging thing. Just as a test, I’m going to try to display my first Correspondence Chess win courtesy of the Caissa’s Web game display software:

The vast majority of correspondence games today are played by a webserver – the server keeps a record of the moves and time, etc. I believe Chessbase has some function for interacting with correspondence servers (at least for the ICCF server I think.) But I’m doing what might be considered ‘old school’ today, and playing by email. I signed up with Internet Email Chess Club, a free-to-play group.

Ordinarily I support the United States Chess Federation as I can, and I expect that I will eventually engage in correspondence play there. They offer e-mail and postal mail rated play. However, I believe that all the USCF game options cost entry fees to begin.

I’d like to try an actual postal mail game too, just to say I’ve done it. But I think it would be easy to rack up $10.00 or more of postage in such a game. (Granted, that would be spread over three to six months of play, but still…)

Eventually I may post my game, but I need to do a little reconfiguring of ChessBase to achieve that. (My HTML generator is currently set to generate games for my screen saver…) But a first victory is a good start, nonetheless!

I’ve had a number of things keeping me busy since we went to St. Louis. (BTW, the facilities there are as good as the August Chess Life makes them out to be!)

Non-chess wise, aside from work, home life, etc. I’ve taken up poker online (and winning at it!) Also, fishing season has returned and I try to get out every weekend for at least a couple of hours at one of the ponds at a local city park.

Chess-wise, I’ve been enjoying my chess but haven’t had a lot of time to blog about it. My four correspondence games are continuing. Been playing since mid-May and I seem to be in good position still in all four games. When they’re finished I’ll probably blog (and/or video) about them. But that has soaked up quite a few hours.

Tournament-wise our local club has been running events on every Monday night (plus the last quarterly tournament we held.) If I haven’t been playing, I’ve been directing. (More directing than playing, I think.) This has made me very close to one of my goals now – I believe I have sufficient Quick-rated played games and directing experience to now request the test to become a Local TD. (I’m not sure if I have to wait for those games to be reflected in my official rating or not – and I think I asked that question of USCF already. :O ) I’m still learning, though, just like any other TD worth their pawns… I think the test will help me focus on my areas to grow in.

One of the hard things about blogging is the periods that make for the best blogging are the times when I’m busiest and have the least time! (True for everyone, though, I know…) Then throw in hat it’s the dog days of summer here and we’ve had energy-sapping high humidity as well as heat. Enough griping, though…

One thing some of our club members have come up with is that we’d like to play some tournaments outside our local area and meet other players than the regulars at our club. So I’m also looking into what tournaments are coming up out there. (Seems like tournaments are a little more sparse in the summer. But having freinds to carpool with makes the radius a little larger to find places to play.)

Well, the wife’ plane should have arrived already…. and was listed as on time. So it’s time for me to keep moving along through the summer days enjoying my chess. Until I get the chance to blog again, I hope that you too keep finding ways to

Enjoy your chess!