Towards zero

After only 13 posts, I already know that this is a successful blog. The reason I know this it that I've already written a successful blog, and see all the telltale signs recurring. Neither blog is successful from an external standpoint; my first successful blog had only two devoted readers, and this one has at most one at the moment. However, external success is definitely not the object for true bloggers. The object is for the blog to be internally consistent, and interesting to the author (of all people :-)).

My first successful blog was called "My first play million" (http://myfirstplaymillion.blogspot.com/), and was about poker. In five years plus, I penned 1,386 posts. I've found that the key to writing a post lies in selecting an appropriate title; once I settle on a title, the post just seems to write itself. Being frugal by nature, I tend to reuse truly apposite titles.

When you've written hundreds upon hundreds of posts, your ability to come up with imaginative titles understandably starts to run a little dry. The solution for this is to plagiarize (as Tom Lehrer remarked, that's why God made your eyes :-)). Many times, I reuse the title of a book or a song I like. This post's title is no exception. "Towards Zero" is the title of a mystery by Agatha Christie.

What do I mean by towards zero? Simply that the difference between my wins and my losses, so long in the negative numbers, is inching its way back to zero. If I can manage to win one more game than I lose tonight, I'll be all the way back.

neostreet: 1212 (53-54-8 (115))
monvieux: 1274 (279-226-15 (520))

Patience, grasshopper

I continue to find so much common ground between poker and blitz. The surest way to lose money in a hurry in poker is to be impatient. The surest way to cause your position to go south in a hurry in blitz is to be impatient. It's definitely hard to be patient, but it really does pay off if you can manage it.

You're probably thinking I'm about to tell you how I was really patient in one of my games last night, and how that enabled me to win. Actually, I'm about to tell you the opposite :-) As many have observed before me, you never learn as much from a victory as you do from a defeat. It's so instructive to play over one's defeats, seeing where one went wrong.

That one game where I wasn't patient is the game I remember best from last night. It all hinged on a completely awkward knight move I made in the opening; this horrible move gave my opponent a free pawn and put a permanent cramp on my position. Move in haste, repent at leisure!

On the plus side, I won as many games as I lost.

neostreet: 1200 (48-50-8 (106))
monvieux: 1264 (278-226-15 (519))

The zen of blitz

One of the things I liked most about playing poker was that it was actually relaxing. When you've achieved a certain level of proficiency, nothing that happens at a poker table can faze you. Already, I'm finding the same is true of blitz chess. That may sound very odd, so I'll try to explain. To play poker well, you must be able to recognize patterns, and react to them in ways which have served you well before. Once you've seen the patterns enough times, they become like old friends, and they don't surprise you. You look forward to their reappearance, and to reacting to them in the ways that you know so well. As it turns out, that's also an excellent description of proficiency in blitz. Played in this fashion, blitz is very akin to meditation. You're trying to become a seeing eye, and to lose your ego. It almost becomes a case not of you recognizing a pattern, but of you observing a pattern recognizing itself :-)

neostreet: 1200 (44-46-7 (97))
monvieux: 1264 (278-226-15 (519))

Stalemate stupidity

Last night, I drew my first game due to stalemate stupidity. My opponent only had his king left; I had a queen and a bishop in addition to my king. Like an idiot, I played too quickly and placed my queen on an injudicious square, ending the game abruptly. To add insult to injury, I lost a rating point.

Here are my current short term goals:

1. get my blitz rating over 1200
2. get my winning percentage over 50%

neostreet: 1170 (39-45-7 (91))
monvieux: 1283 (273-219-14 (506))

An absurd law

I'm crushed - it turns out there's no such thing as a perfect escape velocity win. I complained to monvieux about getting robbed, and asked him if he'd complain on my behalf to chess.com, since he's a paid subscriber and I'm not. They got back to him promptly, citing the following:

Law 6.9 of the FIDE Laws of Chess states that: "If a player does not complete the prescribed number of moves in the allotted time, the game is lost by the player. However, the game is drawn, if the position is such that the opponent cannot checkmate the player's king by any possible series of legal moves, even with the most unskilled counterplay."

I find this law utterly absurd. What it means is that I can win on time if I have a king and a pawn against a king and two queens, but I can't win on time if I have only a king against a king and two queens. In the first case, I theoretically have enough material to checkmate my opponent, provided he gifts me with both queens and allows me to promote my pawn to a queen. In the second case, even if my opponent gifts me with both queens, I still can't checkmate him, so the time victory doesn't count.

I'd never heard of this law in my nearly forty years of playing blitz. I'm willing to wager that over 95% of blitz players have never heard of this law. The biggest problem I have with it is that it doesn't pass the sniff test. If you tell me it's preposterous to claim a win on time when I have only a king, I tell you it's equally preposterous to assume that the mere existence of preposterous moves an opponent would never play, which make a checkmate possible, makes a win on time possible. What poppycock!

neostreet: 1173 (37-43-6 (86))
monvieux: 1270 (265-213-12 (490))

Daylight robbery

99.9% of the time, I played online poker at night. The prospect of playing poker in the daylight felt unseemly, or even a little bit sordid. I would never feel that way about chess, at any hour of the day. Yesterday, I played some games in the afternoon. Indeed, that was how it was possible for me to be robbed in the daylight :-) What do I mean by that? Simply, that I was robbed of half a point, since I wasn't credited the full point for a game I won on time. The chess.com software informed me that the game had been drawn due to insufficient material, which was patently untrue. It was a perfect escape velocity game, since at the end I had only my king, whereas my opponent had two queens and a king. I lost three games in a row following the robbery.

neostreet: 1169 (31-38-6 (75))
monvieux: 1302 (259-203-11 (473))

In the sweetness

I've played online poker for play money for over six years. I've only played online chess for a week. Even in such a short time, however, I've noticed parallels between the two activities. The way you keep score in online poker is via the size of your play money bankroll. The way you keep score in online chess is via the size of your chess rating. I set myself the goal of winning a million play dollars playing online poker, and was able to achieve it in two years. In the four years since then, I've been able to amass an additional nine million play dollars. So it's pretty safe to say I have little left to prove to myself poker-wise. I no longer have the fire in the belly passion for poker that I used to have. I'll still play occasionally, for the sheer fun of it, but my new fire in the belly passion is for online chess.

If you play poker enough, there will be times when you feel invincible. I call such times being "in the sweetness". When you're in the sweetness, you can do no wrong. Here are the two most extreme examples of my being in the sweetness playing poker:

- on August 22nd, 2012, I won 580,200 play dollars playing sit and go no limit hold'em; in six tournaments, I came in first 4 times and second once (note that in sit and gos, only the top two places get paid)
- on July 2nd, 2014, I won 262,204 play dollars playing cash game no limit hold'em

Already, in just 9 sessions of online chess, I've managed to get into the sweetness. Last night, I was undefeated, drawing 2 games and winning 4.

neostreet: 1189 (30-34-4 (68))
monvieux: 1302 (259-203-11 (473))