First Blog Post for Sherlockian100

I had one of those families that did not take many pictures or videos (granted video recorders weighed 30 pounds and had to be carried around on one's shoulder). As a result, I didn't have many pictures to show others when reflecting on my life. I also never kept a journal. I wish I had. When I was about 11 years old I got into magic (coin tricks, cqrd tricks, etc) Well as time went on, a began getting good at it. After a couple of years and numerous books (yes books...we didn't have youtube, or even dvd's back then. When you wanted to learn something you either hired a teacher or picked up a book.) I began doing it professionally. Anyway, here I am 30+ years later and every now and then (although I no longer do it professionally it is still a huge hobby and I am currently writing a beginners book, more for fun than anything) I will remember something that I want to discuss or write about and I can't remember where I saw it, who did it, what it was called. So, even hunting it down is challenging.

So, what I decided to do was start keeping track of my Chess learning experience.  What I am learning, how I am learning it, what I am struggling with, what I feel like I am getting, who is inspiring me and why. This is mostly for me, but I decided to do it on here so that maybe someone else that feels like they should be "getting it" and they're not, can see that maybe they really are.

Like right now as a brand new beginner, I am reading about tactics and doing puzzles and that is great. But, when I play a game, I feel like I am completely telegraphing my moves and not using much in the way of tactics. I see a piece, I move a piece in position to take that piece. I have played a few live games on here. But, when doing a tactics puzzle, I know there is a solution. If I am learning about forking, I know exactly what to look for and I know it will be there, so I keep looking until I see it. In a game, I am looking for something that may or may not be there. What to do when it is not.

The other thing is, I have been studying up on various openings. Not getting all into theory way ahead od myself, but so I have a basic idea of how to play various openins. It all makes perfect sense when watching videos by the GM's but then I play a real game and the other person, also brand new starts playing all kinds of things like just barraging me with pawn move after pawn move (as an example). Basically all the things the GM's say not to do, they do. But, because the lessons are teaching how to play against someone else making somewhat, albeit various, logical moves. They don't teach how to play against totally bizarre moves. I realize that at some point I will be playing non-newbies and that issue will go away.

So, I will be dropping in and writing about where I am at in my process one a week or so, depending on my progress that week. It will be my chess diary.