concert

i went with jane to go see Blue Rodeo and El Torpedo. El Torpedo put on a good show, lots of energy and Blue Rodeo was more rocking than i thought they'd be. They were at the Molson Ampitheatre at the Ontario Place. I had never been there, but it was a great venue. i'm hoping to go back next summer.

in a chess-related issue, jane mentioned that she may take me and kirk up to kitchener on september 10th for the active tournament, so now i've got to decide what to play ;)

debugging

i love debugging...for real

got to debug for the first time at my new job

transposition

after 1.e4 e5 2.nf3 Nf6 3.d4 i could always play 3. ...d6 and go into the philidor (or just play the philidor in the first place). interesting, maybe i can play 1.e4 e5 after all ;)

"why'd i have to come to a shithole like this?"

well it's been a while since i've said anything so here it is

on saturday night, the superstars of World Wrestling Entertainment came to Owen Sound, and me and Kirk went, as his graduation gift. i really enjoyed myself. we were in the third row where the real retards were ;) i wish i would've brought a camera...could've got some good shots.

somebody crappy v. simon dean

it was a terrible match, looked fake, the crowd got on simon dean pretty hard. the crappy guy won

super crazy and psychosis v. hardcore holly and some ham and egger

super crazy and psychosis won by cheating...the crowd got behind bob holly it was alright

mr. anderson v. scotty too hotty

best match of the night, in my opinion. scotty too hotty flipped the other guy the bird and mr. anderson yelled out "it's a family show". quite funny. scotty did the worm but still got punked in the end. i cheered, everyone else booed it was a good match.

juventud guerraro v. funaki v. nunzio*CRUISERWEIGHT BELT*

not as high-flying as i would have liked. juvy went over the top rope, but nunzio eventually won with outside interference.

MNM v. Animal and Heidenreich *TAG BELT*

first of all it was cool. MNM came out with a second diva with even bigger boobs than the normal one. very nice. heidenreich came out with a mohawk just like animal...it was kinda cool. they beat up heidenreich, tagged in animal, he did like one move, held him up for the LOD finish and heidenreich came off the top rope. i think they've performed that match 100 times ;)

Orlando Jordon v. Booker T (dq) *US CHAMPIONSHIP* which turned into Orlando Jordon and Christian v. Booker T and Rey Mysterio

they were fighting, orlando was being a pussy, booker was beating on him. he was just about to do a spinneroonie when christian came in and intefered, then rey came in and saved him, and rey grabs the mic and is like "i'm not stevie ray (his partner from WCW) but do you want to tag and beat up these guys?" it was a normal mysterio match where he 619ed and then did the west coast pop. those springboard moves look *really* dangerous when you're 3 rows away, i'll tell you. good match. i stood up when rey rey was walking around slapping fives and he is not even as tall as my shoulder.

Randy Orton v. Batista

Orton comes out and he says he's in a bad mood. mostly because he's in a shithole like owen sound. crowd gets all over him. batista isn't as big as i expected him to be actually. the crowd wasn't really into it. spinebuster, one, two, three.

i don't think they'll be back for another ten years or so, the arena was *maybe* 2/3rds full. this was the second year in a row they came to owen sound, i'm guessing there was a better turnout the first time. there were a bunch of retards in our section. the one guy almost got into a fight with randy orton, the security had to give him the boot. it was a good time all around.

me and jane are going to move in together. we're going to look at a house tonight possibly. wish me luck.

Diablo reset so me and kirk have been playing quite a bit...he's developing a nice case of the "Diablo claw" from clicking the mouse so much...quite exciting.

i have a new job!

"On behalf of ..., we are pleased to offer you one year temporary employment as an Interface System Analyst at the Owen Sound site. This position will be effective August 7, 2005 to August 5, 2006.

Your salary in this position will be $53,843 which represents Grade 6 - Step 1. Your vacation and benefits will remain the same"

I am SOOOOOO happy. it is programming their database. there's a lot of training, so i won't actually be able to touch a keyboard until november or so. i finished my first set of training last week, mid september i have to go to Baltimore then two trips to Kansas City. i'll have to get more comfy flying.

anyways i'm almost off to work...oh yeah, i'm gonna play in the September Active in Kitchener as well.

one night in ... budapest?

i'm thinking about trying the budapest gambit as black...mostly to see how to play v. it as white. i want to play 1.d4 but want to allow the Nimzo. i have no problem playing 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3. we'll see how it goes...i haven't played anything dodgy in quite a while ;)

3½-1½

i played a quick 6 game match today with kirk and beat him 3½-1½

game 1 - white - Nimzo-Indian 1.d4 nf6 2.c4 e6 3.nc3 bb4 4.qc2 c5 5.a3? cxd4 and it got ugly and i lost
game 2 - black - Queen's Indian - Petrosian System and i won
game 3 - white - Slav Exchange - draw
game 4 - black - Sicilian miniature 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.Be2 Nc6 7.Be3 Nge7 8.O-O Nxd4 9.Bxd4 Nc6 10.f4 Nxd4 11.Qxd4 Bc5 0-1
game 5 - white - White - Benoni 1.d4 c5 2.d5 e5 etc. and i won

didn't even try the bird once. i have this sick fascination that i am good on both sides of the nimzo, but in reality i am not that good. it's interesting how people are like that...i feel the same way about the dragon and the king's gambit as well ;)

will the match ever finish?

me and chris were supposed to play games 3 and 4 tomorrow, but that's not gonna happen. i'm going to ottawa next weekend so it won't happen then either...grrr

i was reading through Winning with the Sicilian by Mark Taimanov and trying to play the Kan/Paulsen/Taimanov Sicilian. It's very interesting, i like the opening and i'm learning alot. There's also a new tabiya for me



it's interesting, i'm gonna play a bunch of games v. kirk with both sides. the idea is that with 1.e4 c5 2.nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nc6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be2 Qc7 7.O-O Nf6 8.Be3 Bb4 there is a hole on b6, so the move 9.Na4?! tries to take advantage of that. It's an interesting line and an idea I can use as White.

the cure

i've been on a rule "the cure" kick lately, and i'm curious why no right wing band has done a cover of killing an arab lately. probably not in the original intention of the song, but in the post 9/11 united states, it would almost be a folk song.

Note : in no way am i anti-arab, nor right wing, but i was just thinking that this mornign

another one bites the dust...

this time is was Purdy's Fine Art of Chess Annotation by Cecil Purdy the first world correspondence chess champion. It is a fabulous book and I highly recommend it. one funny thing, out of the 120 games listed, there is a repeat

[Event "AUS-FRA m"]
[Site "Australia"]
[Date "1946.06.29"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Renaud, Georges"]
[Black "Green, Martin"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "E62"]
[PlyCount "52"]
[EventDate "1946.06.29"]
[SourceDate "2005.01.01"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. Nf3 O-O 5. g3 d6 6. Bg2 Nc6 7. O-O e5 8. d5
Ne7 9. e4 Nh5 10. h3 Bd7 11. Kh2 f5 12. exf5 gxf5 13. Ng5 Nf6 14. Bd2 a6 15.
Rb1 Ng6 16. b4 Qe7 17. Qe2 Rae8 18. Nf3 h5 19. Ng1 h4 20. Rbc1 e4 21. Qe3 Ne5
22. Qe2 Nd3 23. Rb1 Qe5 24. f4 hxg3+ 25. Kxg3 Qd4 26. Nd1 Qxc4 0-1

he must have liked it ;)

the curse

i love the new audioslave album...here's the last song off it

"the curse"

help me i don't know what i'm doing
help me before i fall to ruin
and if i'm blind
i will lead you on
come follow me now
before our time is gone

and as your laughing at this fool tonight
let me rid myself of any line that i might use to trip you up
and as i'm howling at the moonlight
don't you kid yourself i will be luck
never be your curse
never be your curse

help me i don't know what i'm saying
sometimes this tongue can be betraying
and if i'm wrong
is that such a crime
and if you want
you can set my words to right

as you're laughing at this fool tonight
let me rid myself of any line that i might use to trip you up
as i'm howling at the moonlight
don't you kid yourself i will be luck

and if your eyes forget to well
and if your lies forget to tell
and if our paths forget to cross
it doesn't mean you're lost

so if you're laughing at this fool tonight
let me rid myself of any line that i might use to trip you up
as i'm howling at the moonlight
don't you kid yourself even at my worst
i won't be your curse

i learned something this morning...

my alarm clock's "drop height" is less than 4 feet

can i play the semi-slav again?

i was always afraid of the meran variation, but while going through Purdy's "Fine Art of Chess Annotation" I saw this move order

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 e6 5.e3 Nbd7 6.Bd3 dxc4 7.Bxc4 c5!

turning it into a QGA (Black took 2 moves to play ...c5, but White took two moves to play Bxc4) maybe Nbd7 isn't the greatest move in the QGA, but Lasker tried it against Capa Capablanca-Lasker. it may be worth a look, eventually ;)

1-1 after the first set of games

the first game i won neatly and the second i lost in a terrible blunder. my excuse is that a bunch of people came into the restaurant and was noisy. the proper response would be to get ragozin to turn up the radio and blow smoke in my face ;) here are the games, mostly proper, from memory...i haven't annofritzed it yet...maybe two sets of moves are out of order...

CS - CO
1. Nf3 d5 2. d4 Nf6 3. c4 Bg4 4. Nc3 Bxf3 5. exf3 e6 6. Bg5 Be7 7. Be2 Nbd7 8.
O-O O-O 9. Qb3 Nb6 10. c5 Nc4 11. Bxc4 dxc4 12. Qxc4 b6 13. b4 Qd7 14. c6 Qd6
15. b5 Rad8 16. Rad1 h6 17. Be3 Nd5 18. Ne4 Qb4 19. Qxb4 Bxb4 20. a4 a5 21. Bd2
Be7 22. Nc3 Bf6 23. Nxd5 Rxd5 24. Bf4 Rc8 25. Rd3 Rxd4 26. Rxd4 Bxd4 27. Rd1 e5
28. Be3 Rd8 29. Bxd4 exd4 30. Kf1 Kf8 31. Ke2 Ke7 32. Kd3 Ke6 33. Kc4 Ke5 34.
Rd3 g5 35. g3 f5 36. Rd1 f4 37. Kd3 Kd5 38. Re1 Kc5 39. Re7 Rc8 40. Rd7 1-0

CO - CS
1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 cxd5 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. Bg5 e6 6. Bd3 Be7 7. c3 Nbd7 8. O-O O-O 9. Nbd2 b6 10. Qc2 h6 11. Bf4 Re8 12. Ne5 Nxe5 13. Bxe5 Nd7 14. f4 Nxe5 15. fxe5 f5 16. exf6 Bxf6 17. Bh7+ Kh8 18. Nf3 e5 19. dxe5 Bxe5 20. Rae1 Qd6?? 21. Nxe5 1-0

there are a couple adjustments i will make for the next two games...apparently he likes to pin the knight on f3/f6 ;) off to search for some pepsi

bleeding edge of the caro-kann

(for the uninitiated, the bleeding edge is even newer than the cutting edge)

so i've been pretty much set in my ways regarding caro-kann theory since i began...karpov system v. the advanced (...Ne7, ...Nd7, ...c5, ...Nc6) ...Bf5 with ...Qc7 in the main line, ...e6, ...Bb4 in the Panov, etc. i got my new NIC and they had some analysis on a different line in the main line after 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.Nf3 Nd7 7.h4 h6 8.h5 Bh7 9.Bd3 Bxd3 10.Qxd3



now i always played 10. ...Qc7 here because i was always afraid of 10.Bf4 if i didn't. and with practice it was difficult. it screwed up my development because i liked things like ...Bd6 and going at the king. of course the theoretical books said things along the lines of "...Qc7 is unnecessary because Bf4 isn't that strong anyways" not for me! but in my new NIC they gave a couple of lines with 10. ...e6 11.Bf4 Qa5+ 12.Bd2 Bb4 and i decided maybe it was time to take a look at this. the lines they showed featured 13.c3 Be7 14.c4 with the idea that the c-pawn push made his king less safe if he castled queenside. they showed a bunch of games, but the one that got everyone horny about this was Leko-Bareev it looks like a typical Caro to me, but i think it's stronger for Black. it was first played in 1994 at the World Open or something, revived in the Leko-Bareev game and played a bunch of times at the Olympiad, IECC, etc. so it's bleeding edge theory. if i get 3.Nc3 v. the Caro this weekend, i'll give 'er a go

also, i've decided to stop playing on auto-pilot in the advanced Caro and look to play ...c5 earlier, since i've gotten move ordered since i've been playing correspondence by playing the Karpov line.

maybe tomorrow i'll wanna settle down...

maybe tomorrow i'll just keep moving on

in any case tomorrow i'm starting up my "match"...wish me luck...i thikn i'm gonna play the grunny v. 1.c4 (1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 d5!?) a la Botwinnik and Smyslov. I was gonna try the Dutch but i decided against it...and really the grunny isn't that bad ;)

NIC

i just got my first New In Chess magazine. i love NIC. it has grischuk on the cover, the first ever article by kasparov (as a retiree) and a bunch of stuff on the Russian Team Championships.

bronstein is fabulous

Bronstein is fabulous. Kirk said he may take Clin-ton on in a match. Clin-ton plays the Nimzo, so i may recommend the Samisch variation. Bishop pair, big center, what's not to like if you don't go overboard with f3, e4 etc. it's better to play e3, Bd3 then e4, rather than give Black time to adjust with f3.

match with o'shea²

so apparently it's on for real this time...next weekend at 2pm on sunday we're gonna have a game. and then game 2 sometime eventually.

C.Sadler		O'Shea
1489	0-2	1633
1502	½-1½	1600
1515	1-1	1567
1528	1½-½	1533
1541	2-0	1500

correspondence

after getting royally pissed off last night becasue i lost (another) game in blitz because of stupidity i have decided to go back to my original ways and play a million correspondence games instead. i enjoy it. so i'm at QUeen Alice

we'll see how long this lasts ;)

club night

i played the same guy at the club about 8 times and beat him all 8 times. i played the dragon as black, the bird lopez, the tchigorin proper and a caro exchange. as white i got a crazy nimzo (1.Nf3 Nf6 2.d4 e6 3.c4 Nc6 4.Nc3 Bb4), bird lopez (he copied me), and cozio lopez. kirk inspired me to try 1.e4 e5 tonight by his terrible usage of the tchigorin lopez on ICC today. shah advised me that if i have to play blitz, i should play with at least a 2 second increment, so there are no wins on time.