Scots en prise.

I haven't been playing too well lately, but I did see a nice looking Scotsman who breeds water buffalo on a farm in Fife a few days back on television and I've been wondering what it would be like to have an affair with him and whether he plays chess. 

Cheap as it may be, there's a charm about logging into a chess day to find an opponent in one of your games has left a gift in the form of a queen en prise. You wouldn't want it all the time, but when it's there it isn't altogether unpleasant.

Promises promises, but still no DSL. 

My chess understanding isn't necessarily getting better, or maybe it is subconsciously.  

*  I don't make the plainly disasterous blunders (the ones that would be obvious to a 5 yr old) very often.

* My endgame play is much more easily calculated and I'm less likely to blow an advantage if I give the game my full attention.

* Tactical calculation is much more swift.  I'm not a patient player who likes to think long and hard about every variation (god bless those who do)...so pattern recognition and swift processing are key to my improvement. 

my latest blunder-free game, though laden with mistakes is a strange giuoco piano: