What's the deal...

with impatience?  I've been in game after game and been close to killing my oponenet and then make some bone head move and blow the whole game...  its like my brain gets ahead of itself and blows off a perfectly sound move that will eventually lead to a win in favor of a quick check that leads to my almost imediate demise...  of course playing online poker at the same time I'm playing online chess probably doesn't help instill the inclination NOT to gamble with my chess pieces.

    On the up side I've been reading some books on the game that I forced my seven year old niece to check out from the library on her card and, apparently, bone head moves are not uncommon even at the level of grandmasters competing for world titles.  That's a bit refreshing.

 Of course part of it is, I believe, being in the habit of making bone head moves against children who aren't quite savy enough to catch it (although my niece did catch me throwing her my queen tonight which actually caught me by surprise - I, of course, summarily took every single one of her remaining pieces and then mated her before sending her off to cry herself to sleep - , and, no, she wasn't really crying but was actually saying she'd play me again in the morning!)

 And I sent away for a chess set from WholesaleChess.com (I'll let you know how it is when I get it...)  I ordered a green and white vinyl board with algebraic notation on the sides, a heavy weight tournament set of pieces (plastic) a soft carrying case (which will also hold a clock, two pencils, and score sheets/books,) and score sheets...  I figure if I'm going to get back inot this I'd better do it properly (I never learned notation growing up) and I better teach the kids better than I was taught.  Besides, if they get used to playing with tournament pieces and get good enough maybe they'll actually win something someday and speak the words "I'd like to thank my uncle for teaching me this game" into a microphone somewhere...  hey, a guy's gotta have a dream right?