Donald Trump used to say on “The Apprentice” that
there’s nothing worse than losing. Or better than winning.
Last night (Nov. 30) I finally consummated my return
to USCF rated chess with my first rated win since 2000, this time in the ladder
at the Arlington VA Chess Club.
I have been studying Larry Kaufman’s book (Book
reviews blog July 3, 2012), and won the White side of a Nimzo-Indian, playing
the dogmatic “4 Qc2” on move 4 to get the Twi Bishops without doubled
pawn. In the middle game, there appeared
a position where I had two double pawns on adjacent files, reinforcing one
another as battering ram or smart bomb,
blasting open Black’s position and setting up a mate. I don’t think I’ve had a position like that
my whole life. With two bishops you need
to get pawns moving.
My hand knicked another piece as I was castling last night, I thank the opponent for not calling a frivolous "touch move". It's rather like instant replay on a home run that touches the top of an outfield wall.
I had reported a horrific loss (resigning in the opening) on my first game,
Sept. 28. Trump would have fired me for
losing.
My previous win in 2000 had occurred in Sr. Paul, MN
in the last round of an action tournament, right at time control. I was playing Black in the Exchange French
and had the advantage the whole game, but barely squeaked in a mate as the flag
fell.
Let’s move on to other mundane fare. There was a small story in the Washington
Post this week about colleges requiring swimming as part of their P.E. for
freshmen. There are stories that people
are not learning to swim as kids, particularly African Americans. I was afraid of the water and didn’t learn as
a boy. In college (at GWU) a semester
was required. I somehow got so I could
dogpaddle across the width of a pool and passed the course.
I see that on Oct. 9, 2007 I had blogged about my swimming
issue here (n a company kayaking party in 1997), and that led to a moral discussion that spilled over to another
posting about helping out after Katrina on the TV Blog on August 29, 2007, invoking
t “reverse radical hospitality” (and a challenging comment).
I recall that a female friend who went to Duke in
the 1960s (now an English professor herself) told me that everyone had to pass
a survival test and stay in the water for one hour.
Eventually, long after I graduated, my high school
(Washington-Lee in Arlington VA) put in a school and made it mandatory. The pool has been upgraded and rebuilt since
the school got a new building in 2009. What
would have happened when I was subbing if I had been asked to do P.E. and the
class was swimming?
At least, nobody shaves, unless they compete.
There’s another little story this week, about newer
heart pacemakers, the wireless routers and capability to monitor the patient
from home. I suppose my mother could
have needed one when she was alive; could my own wireless network have somehow interfered? My own doctor said a month ago I might need
one some day. What would that mean about
my setup at home? The article (in the WSJ)
was mainly concerned about new privacy concerns (and HIPAA).
At age 69, I’ve kept going mainly with
momentum. I do have some arrhythmia, and
I haven’t done much yet in the way of medical monitoring. I find the prospect of it intrusive,
potentially humiliating (think about the Holter device), and problematic. I haven’t even done the colonoscopy yet. But, given the “moral” issues that I have
raised about being different (and I will return to this again at a high level
very soon), I may need to agree to a covert period of monitoring to figure out
just why I got behind “physically” (in a developmental sense) when I was a
boy. No one has ever found anything. But
modern diagnostic tools might unravel a moral mystery.
Oh, one other thing -- I am following the Nationals' signing negotiations off-season. My advice: don't give any sluggers away (LaRoche, Morse). Next year, I want 100 wins. I'll do my part on the chess board.
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