Timing Is Everything
My biggest problem I find is time... there is far too much of it. Give me a nice quick five minute game any day of the week. Anything beyond that and my attention wanders. I had kinda hoped that I'd actually be able to sit down and play a game here but with these day long delays between moves sometimes it seems like an incredible waste of time... I've always been fairly dominant in my openingsbut something more and more of my friends learned when playing with my back at Cal was to take their time... if they drew it out long enough I'd just get bored and then they could beat me. I guess thats why the guys on Market Street in San Fransisco sitting at table after table after table playing speed chess have always rather appealed to me. I've always rather viewed chess as a battle... and battles are fast, bloody and confusing. To me chess was never about how well you could set something up for an endgame it was about how quickly you could think... how many pieces can you keep in your head at one time, how many moves... but this slow play stuff is just killing me - there's no fog of war, no bodies lying on the battlefield no overwhelming assault on the enemy. What I wouldn't give for time limits... then at least I'd know I got beat by a person and not an unending clock. But maybe that's why other's like the game... because they can take their time with each move... think them all out and tire out their opponent. Me, I never saw much point in the long game, it never seemed a true challenge. I always kind of saw long games as being lazy... so being in a place where the games are not just over, say, an hour, but over a period of days... I can feel myself just packing on the pounds as I sit around and wait... anxious to get on with it.
But perhaps this is why I need to be here... to explore strategy and patience on a deeper level. To explore technique and procedure.
That and to actually play with adults because playing with a 5,6 & 7 year old has got to be the most excruciating practice on the planet - except when you see them start to learn something.
