Road trip

What a strange and excellent week it was, while I was busily not-blogging.

Traveled to Anaheim for a physical security trade show. Boring? Furthest thing from it! This show revs up my inner geek – images posted here.

Anyway the conference booked Disneyland for an evening reception. Yes, kicked all the civilians out of the park so we could take over the west side. Couldn’t access all the rides, but six or so were kept open – and for most of the evening you could walk on without waiting. In this manner I rode Pirates of the Caribbean, then Indiana Jones (twice), and the Big Thunder Mountain roller coaster, and a few others. Total time spent in lines, all night: about 15 minutes. Total money spent: Zero. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

In Anaheim I also ate dinner at Roy’s. We East Coasters may remember Roy Yamaguchi from the Hawaiian finale of Top Chef season two. Apparently he has a lot of restaurants now and the food was fantastic. A colleague observed that the waiter seemed very knowledgable, so he told the waiter “surprise me”. And everything he got was amazing as well. Crispy calamari, tasty salmon, short ribs, tuna tartare with pine nuts, chocolate lava cake, pumpkin mousse, lychee caipirinha. All great.

Then I went to Philly and got to eat dinner at Morimoto. As in Iron Chef Morimoto. It’s a beautiful space and we had some great food, although I definitely established some limitations to my sushi enthusiasm. Tako, for instance, and some whitefish and some blue-skin fishes, are not for me. Chutoro, on the other hand, is spectacular.

The debatable value of trying too hard to win

Okay, the chessplayers have spoken. But I’m also going to write “running with your belly” later.

When you try too hard to win, you lose.

If this happens to you frequently, as it does to me, the game is trying to tell you something. But most of us come up with a wrong rationalization for these results. Tell me if this sounds familiar: “Well, at least [higher rated opponent] knows I wasn’t playing for a wimpy draw.” Yes, we tell ourselves that we play like cavemen because that’s more honorable than making draws. So the ‘value’ of this style is that it makes us feel mas macho.

There’s certainly such a thing as a wimpy draw. But for most players who frequently experience these tried-too-hard losses, here’s what it should teach you:

1) Your ability to evaluate a position is poor. This reflects lack of technical skill.

or

2) You aren’t objective enough. This reflects emotional immaturity (in the context of competition – don’t take it personally :).

Which problem is yours, and how do you fix it?

1) Ever do a post-mortem with a good (2300+) player? Almost without fail they will frequently assess positions — it’s equal, white’s a little better, black has enough compensation. If you don’t think this way, if you never draw these conclusions explicitly DURING PLAY, lack of technical skill is indicated. Read “Reassess Your Chess” by Jeremy Silman. Follow his methodology until it develops into a habit. Working and analyzing with a strong chess coach will also help.

2) Game scenario: You have an advantage but you are now presented with a choice. The line that makes the most sense seems to let your advantage slip. This makes you unsatisfied or angry, so you sacrifice material instead to try for a knockout blow. Then you lose the endgame. If that happens to you a lot, read “The Seven Deadly Sins of Chess” by Jonathan Rowson. Stop saying “Well at least I went for it” and work on developing the habit of trying to play the objectively strongest move at all times, regardless of result. Notice that in the language under point 1 above, strong players often say “White’s a little better” rather than “I’m a little better”. It’s that objectivity thing at work.

For the record, I have both problems :) But I am making a little progress.

Anyway you can always go back to playing like a caveman, but why not try to be strong instead of trying to look strong?

Because democracy only works if you vote

Please note your preference in the comments. My next post will be one of the following – whichever gets the most votes:

1. Protein and hygiene

2. Running with your belly

3. Link love

4. The debatable value of trying too hard to win

5. A good movie you haven’t seen yet

6. Nobody cares – put a sock in it, Slater

Eeeewwww, that’s beautiful

Time-lapse video of mushrooms, mold and fungi. (A rare and good excuse to use my ‘fungus’ tag.)

Five classic board games

A friend has a beautiful house (well, cabin might be more accurate) on a lake in Maine. It’s not insulated, so you can’t live there year-round. So it’s a summer vacation house, and it’s a bit of a time capsule, filled with flotsam and knick-knacks from the 70s. Including a killer collection of board games.

Anybody remember …

That’s TV host Peter Marshall in the picture. Apparently Peter’s given name was actually Ralph Pierre LaCock. At some point that was deemed not fitting for a television personality.

Movin’ on! How about…

Art auction madness! At some point I loved this game. Now that I’ve played it again, I can’t recall the attraction.

Side note: My family was big on board games. I was an insufferable poor loser. Why they let me keep joining in, I do not know.

Who could forget Scribbage? Um, me. But maybe you remember it. Looks like a mashup of Scrabble and Speed Dominos.

I LOVED PAYDAY! Now my daughter loves PayDay.

And here’s Trouble, with the famous Pop O Matic die roller (also used on another Kohner game, Headache). Good times. Perhaps one of the last commercial products to advertise itself as “frustrating” – see upper left of box.

Got any stuff like this in your attic?