Jim Tressel resigned as the coach of the Ohio State University football team yesterday. In January, 5 players of his team were suspended for trading their memorabilia for tattoos and Tressel said he knew nothing about it until December of 2010. In March, with Yahoo Sports ready to publish an expose, Tressel admitted he knew about in April of 2010 but decided that he was protecting his players by keeping quiet. At the time, he was suspended for 2 games and fined $250,000 of his 3 million dollar plus salary. Eventually Tressel was suspended for the same 5 games as his tattoo-receiving players. But with a new Sports Illustrated expose uncovering 10 years of players receiving free tattoos and the revelation of quarterback Terrelle Pryor being investigated by the NCAA for receiving cars and other benefits made him too much of a liability to overcome the one national championship and several big ten championships he led his team to.
Tressel losing his job is well deserved. When faced with scrutiny, he chose to lie about his actions and turn a blind eye to the actions of the players he was in charge of. But he shouldn’t be the only one heading out the door. OSU athletic director Gene Smith gave Tressel a vote of confidence just 2 weeks ago. Either he knew what was going on and tried to ride it out or he was unaware how corrupt the cash cow of his 110 million dollar athletic empire was. Either way, he should be joining Tressel on the unemployment line. And OSU president Gordon Ghee should also be gone. 3 months ago he was quoted as replying when asked if he considered firing Tressel, “No. Are you kidding? I'm just hoping the coach doesn't dismiss me”.
In his resignation letter Tressel said, ''We know that God has a plan for us and we will be fine,'' referring to himself and his wife, Ellen. I hope that God’s plan for Tressel doesn’t include more lying and turning a blind eye to the rules violations of the players of the school so desperate for victories that they give Tressel another chance.
Today is the first game of the NBA finals and it is a rematch of the 2006 finals between the Miami Heat and the Dallas Mavericks. I’m rooting for the Heat because I like their president Pat Riley. I’ve admired Riley ever since took over the Knicks in the early 90’s. He didn’t have the talent he had with the champion ‘Showtime’ Lakers of the 80’s, but he assembled a cast of tough guys like Xavier McDaniel, Derek Harper, Doc Rivers, and John Starks to go with Charles Oakley (the toughest guy in the NBA at the time) and Patrick Ewing and came within a whisker of beating up the league and winning the championship in 1994. He turned around the Heat franchise, but never came close to a championship until he assembled a veteran-laden roster around Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O’Neill and won the title in 2006. Riley worked the same formula this year, surrounding Wade with LeBron James, Chris Bosh, and a cast of bargain basement veterans to get to the finals. I don’t care for James very much, but I like Riley and would like to se him get another ring as a chief executive.
Lost in the rise of the Heat and the Mavericks is the sad finish to the coaching career of Phil Jackson. Jackson won a record 11 NBA championships with the Bulls and Lakers over 20 years, but couldn’t get this year’s Lakers to play at their peak for more than 2 weeks straight this year. When the team had a chance to take home court for the playoffs, they lost 5 in a row and after scraping by the pedestrian New Orleans Hornets in 6 games had to face the Mavericks. The Lakers lost a big lead in the first game and were blown out in the second game and lost the next 2 games in Dallas to force Jackson to suffer his first playoff sweep in his last playoff series.
I don’t think Jackson will coach again at the age of 65, but I wonder if a team will take the gamble and entrust their franchise to a man who led his teams to 11 NBA championships and owns 2 more rings as a player. As a player, Jackson was a typical 70’s player who smoked pot, but as a member of the champion New York Knicks, was afforded the celebrity to make his habits known and celebrated. It kept him from getting a head coaching job in the NBA for many years despite winning championships as a coach in the minor league Continental Basketball Association. Even when he was winning NBA championships, Jackson came in for ridicule on account of his adherence to Zen philosophies. If Jackson doesn’t get a chance to run a team, I’m very interested to see how he will perform as a TV analyst. Will Jackson be as outspoken as he appeared to be as a coach or will he succumb to the temptation to sucking up to any organization that may hire him?
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
A Tooth for a Tooth
You may have noticed from some of my previous posts that I notice when gum is on sale. That’s because I’m an inveterate gum chewer. Whether I’m sitting at my desk breaking my head over a complex programming problem, sitting across the chess board in a battle of the minds, or in the middle of a monotonous hour commute, chomping on 3 or 4 sticks of gum help me to relax my mind and get in the proper rhythm to deal with the situation in front of me.
2 weeks ago, while I was chewing away in the afternoon, I found myself with an unfamiliar crunching sound in my mouth. A piece of a filling had broken off and shattered into my gum. I’m in no pain so I’m not in a hurry to get the filling repaired, but I know that a trip to the dentist is in my future.
My teeth have been less than perfect since I was 8 years old and broke my front tooth and chipped a half dozen others meeting a car face-first. My folks lost the half of my front tooth and never got any of them repaired. I never needed braces and I’ve had my share of cavities but except for my wisdom teeth being removed, I still have all my original teeth. I’ve always wondered about these older people I see who have a big mouth full of perfect looking teeth. I just figured they took care of them better than me or the people I see that don’t have a lot of teeth. I’m pretty naïve. I never considered that people wore hairpieces or dyed their hair or had false teeth, but now I understand that these people with the perfect teeth were probably just wearing dentures or false teeth.
When I worked the midnight shift at a factory, we would gather together in a local bar for a couple of morning beers. The bartender would occasionally draft a mug of beer, take his teeth out of his mouth, stir the beer, put it on the bar, and offer it for free to anyone who wanted it. As disgusting as this may sound, the closer we got to payday, the quicker the offer was taken up.
My grandfather Matthew had dentures. I only know this because once when we went to visit him in the hospital (he was 95 and it was a couple of weeks before he passed away), he had lost his teeth and it seemed the entire hospital was looking for them. It turns out they had come out while he was eating and were found in the trash bag used to clean all the food trays. I remember getting his teeth when I got his personal effects from the hospital and I think I have them somewhere in the house, but I couldn’t find them. Hopefully they won’t scare Matt or Ben when they start going through our effects someday.
On Easter Sunday, Kathy’s mother (Mary) and her husband Mitch came to visit us. Both had recently gotten dentures. Mary looked completely different with a full set of teeth. She said she couldn’t have any jellybeans because they would make her dentures stick together. Our neighbor Don, also came over. Don is in his late 70s, spends a lot of time copying movies to DVDs, and occasionally comes with us to movies. I remember when he had come over for Christmas I noticed that I never realized what good teeth he had. Seeing Mary made me realize that Don didn’t have great teeth. Don had dentures.
Feeling particularly impish, I asked Don if he could eat a jelly bean with his dentures. When he said he could, I asked him how and he told me the trick was to eat it from the back part of the dentures so you could twist your jaw to unstuck your teeth, if necessary. I think Mary was paying attention so I didn’t ask him to repeat himself. Then Don mentioned how he had his last 3 teeth taken out so he could get his dentures. I remember my Aunt having a bridge to fill in a couple of missing teeth, but it never occurred to me that in order to get false teeth you can’t have any real ones. In reality, you can, but it gets very expensive to get new teeth every time one of your real ones falls out.
This made me ask Mary if she had any teeth taken out for her dentures and she said she had taken 5 of them out. Mitch said he waited until all his teeth fell out before getting dentures. I had to ask if this meant there was a point where he was eating his food with only one tooth and he said it did. Now this is a meat and potatoes farmer, so I had to ask how he could eat meat with one tooth. He told me you could eat most everything without any teeth, you just needed to gum it a lot. We did agree that it would be very difficult to eat an apple or corn on the cob with one tooth.
Our Easter conversation gradually steered itself towards other topics, but I’ve been thinking about dentures a lot more since I broke a piece of my filling chewing gum. I don’t want to wait for my teeth to fall out OR have a bunch of them ripped out. It is an awful choice to have to make and even the best dental plans don’t cover all the cost of dentures. I tried to find a denture savings plan on the internet, but came up empty. This could be a new product for financial planners. I even have a slogan – “Don’t plan for a toothless retirement!”
.
2 weeks ago, while I was chewing away in the afternoon, I found myself with an unfamiliar crunching sound in my mouth. A piece of a filling had broken off and shattered into my gum. I’m in no pain so I’m not in a hurry to get the filling repaired, but I know that a trip to the dentist is in my future.
My teeth have been less than perfect since I was 8 years old and broke my front tooth and chipped a half dozen others meeting a car face-first. My folks lost the half of my front tooth and never got any of them repaired. I never needed braces and I’ve had my share of cavities but except for my wisdom teeth being removed, I still have all my original teeth. I’ve always wondered about these older people I see who have a big mouth full of perfect looking teeth. I just figured they took care of them better than me or the people I see that don’t have a lot of teeth. I’m pretty naïve. I never considered that people wore hairpieces or dyed their hair or had false teeth, but now I understand that these people with the perfect teeth were probably just wearing dentures or false teeth.
When I worked the midnight shift at a factory, we would gather together in a local bar for a couple of morning beers. The bartender would occasionally draft a mug of beer, take his teeth out of his mouth, stir the beer, put it on the bar, and offer it for free to anyone who wanted it. As disgusting as this may sound, the closer we got to payday, the quicker the offer was taken up.
My grandfather Matthew had dentures. I only know this because once when we went to visit him in the hospital (he was 95 and it was a couple of weeks before he passed away), he had lost his teeth and it seemed the entire hospital was looking for them. It turns out they had come out while he was eating and were found in the trash bag used to clean all the food trays. I remember getting his teeth when I got his personal effects from the hospital and I think I have them somewhere in the house, but I couldn’t find them. Hopefully they won’t scare Matt or Ben when they start going through our effects someday.
On Easter Sunday, Kathy’s mother (Mary) and her husband Mitch came to visit us. Both had recently gotten dentures. Mary looked completely different with a full set of teeth. She said she couldn’t have any jellybeans because they would make her dentures stick together. Our neighbor Don, also came over. Don is in his late 70s, spends a lot of time copying movies to DVDs, and occasionally comes with us to movies. I remember when he had come over for Christmas I noticed that I never realized what good teeth he had. Seeing Mary made me realize that Don didn’t have great teeth. Don had dentures.
Feeling particularly impish, I asked Don if he could eat a jelly bean with his dentures. When he said he could, I asked him how and he told me the trick was to eat it from the back part of the dentures so you could twist your jaw to unstuck your teeth, if necessary. I think Mary was paying attention so I didn’t ask him to repeat himself. Then Don mentioned how he had his last 3 teeth taken out so he could get his dentures. I remember my Aunt having a bridge to fill in a couple of missing teeth, but it never occurred to me that in order to get false teeth you can’t have any real ones. In reality, you can, but it gets very expensive to get new teeth every time one of your real ones falls out.
This made me ask Mary if she had any teeth taken out for her dentures and she said she had taken 5 of them out. Mitch said he waited until all his teeth fell out before getting dentures. I had to ask if this meant there was a point where he was eating his food with only one tooth and he said it did. Now this is a meat and potatoes farmer, so I had to ask how he could eat meat with one tooth. He told me you could eat most everything without any teeth, you just needed to gum it a lot. We did agree that it would be very difficult to eat an apple or corn on the cob with one tooth.
Our Easter conversation gradually steered itself towards other topics, but I’ve been thinking about dentures a lot more since I broke a piece of my filling chewing gum. I don’t want to wait for my teeth to fall out OR have a bunch of them ripped out. It is an awful choice to have to make and even the best dental plans don’t cover all the cost of dentures. I tried to find a denture savings plan on the internet, but came up empty. This could be a new product for financial planners. I even have a slogan – “Don’t plan for a toothless retirement!”
.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Higher Education
My son Matt graduates from Marshalltown High School Sunday and my mother-in-law is coming from northern Iowa to see and my father-in-law is coming from South Carolina to see and my sister-in-law is coming from Missouri to see. For the most part, I enjoy my in-laws, but the prospect of having everyone come over has put Kathy into high gear doing yard work and housework and everything else that goes into having a lot of visitors. I’m doing my part by staying out of the way. My father-in-law, sister-in-law, and their families have not met Daisy and Baxter and I’m looking forward to showing them off. The in-laws always got along great with Queenie and Tuffy and should enjoy having some young, energetic pups around.
My brother Eddie (the only living relative from my side of the family – except for me, that is) is not coming from New Jersey to see the graduation. I don’t think he saw mine and I don’t think I saw his or my sister’s. My parents came to my high school graduation, but they were already gone by the time the ceremony was over and I never saw them there. I didn’t give it a second thought and visited a friend who didn’t graduate and instead of crying in our beer, we got wasted drinking it. I expected to graduate high school, although I made it a lot more interesting than it needed to be. In my senior year, I went to school the first day, got in a fight and got suspended for 3 days. I came back a month later, took all my tests, got in another fight and got suspended again. I showed up a month later on the last day of the marking period, took all my tests and passed everything, including a couple of honors classes. The problem was I had to make up all the gym classes I missed and had to show up at 7 in the morning 3 times a week for the rest of the school year to make them up. New Jersey education at its finest. The classes were so challenging that a hung over kid can show up twice in first 3 months, sleep through the classes the rest of the year, and not only pass all the classes but make the National Honor Society, but DON’T miss the obligatory 45 minutes of running once around a track or basketball court and spending the rest of the period pretending to lift weights or pretending to do anything or you can’t graduate. I made up the gym classes, got through the graduation, and spent a year flipping burgers, washing dishes, and doing factory and guard work until I felt like going to school again. I never got a yearbook, went to a reunion, or even thought fondly for a second about high school. I don’t even think that I wasted my time going there and not trying my hardest. I was just part of the crowd. I think everything happens for a reason and since I have a great wife and kids (and beagles) and enjoy life, who’s to say that I’d be any happier if I’d went all out in the name of academic achievement.
Graduation or not, I’m proud of Matt and always have been. He is as smart as anyone who ever went through the Marshalltown school system, but unlike the fellow in the prior paragraph, he has pushed himself to excel instead of taking shortcuts. He wrote a game that was voted the best in the state at the IT Olympics, led the school math club to a top 5 state finish to compete in the regionals in Missouri, won 4 high school state chess championships and came within a whisker of winning the chess championship of the entire state this year. And aside from all that, he has his own mind and makes good decisions. He’s avoided all the mistakes I made and if his brother doesn’t beat him to it will be the first Anzis to graduate from a 4-year school.
As one of 8,000 National Merit Scholarship Finalists, Matt was pursued by a lot of colleges. He is going to Iowa State on what is going to work out to be no tuition but having to pay for room and board. A lot of other schools offered staggering sums of money in scholarships, but since these schools have staggering squared tuition rates, he would have to pay much more to attend these schools than Iowa State. No one ever tells you how much everything costs; they just talk about how much they can save you if you choose their school. I think a lot of these college recruiters just got off the used car lot, but in my opinion Matt used good judgment by going to a top shelf school where he should be able to get a 4-year degree debt-free. Daisy and Baxter will be delighted when he comes to visit and we will all feel better knowing he is just a car ride away in case of a problem.
When I was in junior college, I ran for student government president as a project for my government class and somehow won. Shortly afterwards, I received a letter in the mail that informed me I had been selected to be in the prestigious book “Who’s Who in American Junior Colleges”. I was told the book would be in all the Junior College libraries and I could have my own copy for $99.95. This is 1982 dollars I’m talking about. I didn’t buy the book and never even looked in the library to see my name in print. Matt also received a similar letter for ‘Who’s Who in High School” or a similar title. I forget how much money they wanted for the book, but was glad to see no one wanted it.
Matt received an invitation to a dinner held by the Marshalltown Chamber of Commerce a couple of months ago. The dinner was to honor the top 5% of the students in each of the area high schools. It sounds great and the student’s dinner is free, but if a parent wants to attend, the price was $25. Kathy went and I passed to stay home with the beagles. They told me the principal of the high school came up and mumbled something about each student’s college plans instead of talking about their high school accomplishments. Matt told me later a friend asked him where I was and he said I was saving 25 dollars.
If experience is the best teacher, I’m a poor student since I’ve sent in yet another nomination to the Chess Journalists of America awards. I wrote last year how I finished with the lowest score of all nominees for my blog post on the 2010 Okoboji Open. This year I submitted my blog posts on my visit to Zanzibar Coffee Adventures and the 2011 Okoboji Open for the best feature award used those 2 for a nomination for the best chess blog along with my posts on my free chess tournament on National Chess Day, the Iowa State Fair speed chess tournament, and my first West Des Moines youth chess tournament of 2011. The entries cost me $31 for which I’ll receive in return a magazine next year letting me know that nominations for the 2012 awards are now open. So I saved $25, but spent $31 and didn’t even get a meal out of it. I can’t explain why I paid to submit these entries. Even though I feel I’m a much better writer this year than last, there is virtually no chance someone not in the ‘Chess Life’ elite can win an award. Maybe I’ll get some publicity for my blog, but I’m thinking I’ve shortchanged the colleges, Who’s Who book publishers, and Chamber of Commerce dinner organizers. These are people who know there’s a lot of ‘stupid’ money out there and they are just trying to get in ahead of the Chess Journalists of America!
My brother Eddie (the only living relative from my side of the family – except for me, that is) is not coming from New Jersey to see the graduation. I don’t think he saw mine and I don’t think I saw his or my sister’s. My parents came to my high school graduation, but they were already gone by the time the ceremony was over and I never saw them there. I didn’t give it a second thought and visited a friend who didn’t graduate and instead of crying in our beer, we got wasted drinking it. I expected to graduate high school, although I made it a lot more interesting than it needed to be. In my senior year, I went to school the first day, got in a fight and got suspended for 3 days. I came back a month later, took all my tests, got in another fight and got suspended again. I showed up a month later on the last day of the marking period, took all my tests and passed everything, including a couple of honors classes. The problem was I had to make up all the gym classes I missed and had to show up at 7 in the morning 3 times a week for the rest of the school year to make them up. New Jersey education at its finest. The classes were so challenging that a hung over kid can show up twice in first 3 months, sleep through the classes the rest of the year, and not only pass all the classes but make the National Honor Society, but DON’T miss the obligatory 45 minutes of running once around a track or basketball court and spending the rest of the period pretending to lift weights or pretending to do anything or you can’t graduate. I made up the gym classes, got through the graduation, and spent a year flipping burgers, washing dishes, and doing factory and guard work until I felt like going to school again. I never got a yearbook, went to a reunion, or even thought fondly for a second about high school. I don’t even think that I wasted my time going there and not trying my hardest. I was just part of the crowd. I think everything happens for a reason and since I have a great wife and kids (and beagles) and enjoy life, who’s to say that I’d be any happier if I’d went all out in the name of academic achievement.
Graduation or not, I’m proud of Matt and always have been. He is as smart as anyone who ever went through the Marshalltown school system, but unlike the fellow in the prior paragraph, he has pushed himself to excel instead of taking shortcuts. He wrote a game that was voted the best in the state at the IT Olympics, led the school math club to a top 5 state finish to compete in the regionals in Missouri, won 4 high school state chess championships and came within a whisker of winning the chess championship of the entire state this year. And aside from all that, he has his own mind and makes good decisions. He’s avoided all the mistakes I made and if his brother doesn’t beat him to it will be the first Anzis to graduate from a 4-year school.
As one of 8,000 National Merit Scholarship Finalists, Matt was pursued by a lot of colleges. He is going to Iowa State on what is going to work out to be no tuition but having to pay for room and board. A lot of other schools offered staggering sums of money in scholarships, but since these schools have staggering squared tuition rates, he would have to pay much more to attend these schools than Iowa State. No one ever tells you how much everything costs; they just talk about how much they can save you if you choose their school. I think a lot of these college recruiters just got off the used car lot, but in my opinion Matt used good judgment by going to a top shelf school where he should be able to get a 4-year degree debt-free. Daisy and Baxter will be delighted when he comes to visit and we will all feel better knowing he is just a car ride away in case of a problem.
When I was in junior college, I ran for student government president as a project for my government class and somehow won. Shortly afterwards, I received a letter in the mail that informed me I had been selected to be in the prestigious book “Who’s Who in American Junior Colleges”. I was told the book would be in all the Junior College libraries and I could have my own copy for $99.95. This is 1982 dollars I’m talking about. I didn’t buy the book and never even looked in the library to see my name in print. Matt also received a similar letter for ‘Who’s Who in High School” or a similar title. I forget how much money they wanted for the book, but was glad to see no one wanted it.
Matt received an invitation to a dinner held by the Marshalltown Chamber of Commerce a couple of months ago. The dinner was to honor the top 5% of the students in each of the area high schools. It sounds great and the student’s dinner is free, but if a parent wants to attend, the price was $25. Kathy went and I passed to stay home with the beagles. They told me the principal of the high school came up and mumbled something about each student’s college plans instead of talking about their high school accomplishments. Matt told me later a friend asked him where I was and he said I was saving 25 dollars.
If experience is the best teacher, I’m a poor student since I’ve sent in yet another nomination to the Chess Journalists of America awards. I wrote last year how I finished with the lowest score of all nominees for my blog post on the 2010 Okoboji Open. This year I submitted my blog posts on my visit to Zanzibar Coffee Adventures and the 2011 Okoboji Open for the best feature award used those 2 for a nomination for the best chess blog along with my posts on my free chess tournament on National Chess Day, the Iowa State Fair speed chess tournament, and my first West Des Moines youth chess tournament of 2011. The entries cost me $31 for which I’ll receive in return a magazine next year letting me know that nominations for the 2012 awards are now open. So I saved $25, but spent $31 and didn’t even get a meal out of it. I can’t explain why I paid to submit these entries. Even though I feel I’m a much better writer this year than last, there is virtually no chance someone not in the ‘Chess Life’ elite can win an award. Maybe I’ll get some publicity for my blog, but I’m thinking I’ve shortchanged the colleges, Who’s Who book publishers, and Chamber of Commerce dinner organizers. These are people who know there’s a lot of ‘stupid’ money out there and they are just trying to get in ahead of the Chess Journalists of America!
Sunday, May 22, 2011
The Ends of the World
I got to see this billboard on my way to work for the last 2 months.
I had forgotten all about the end of the world and I told Raj I was pretty upset about it because when I went to the gas station that morning, I filled up my tank instead of just getting enough gas to get me home. Raj calmed me down by noting that since the world was coming to an end, it really wasn’t going to matter how much gas I had left in my tank. He had a good point. We also discussed that since we get paid every other week and that we got paid last week, we had worked a whole week for free.
I didn’t really think the world was going to end on Saturday. After all, this has to be the fourth or fifth time the world was coming to an end that I can remember in just the last 10 years.
Y2K was the first time I had heard of the world coming to an end. As I recall, computers that control nuclear reactors were going to fail, leading to meltdowns and worldwide chaos. Radio shows touted the need to be prepared with generators, rations, and firearms. But Y2K came and went and there was no disaster, unless you were a Y2K conversion programmer who got laid off. In 1999, I couldn’t hire a programmer for less than one and a half times what I was making, but in 2000 the same programmers were calling me willing to work for a few dollars above minimum wage.
In 2005, all the planets in our solar system were going to align and many people were predicting all sorts of earthquakes, tidal waves, and other natural disasters that would cause the end of the world. While there have been Katrina and 2 huge tsunami’s since then, the world has for the most part stayed intact.
As a Yankee fan, I thought the world was coming to an end twice. In 2001, when they were trying to win their 4th World Series in a row, they were leading the Arizona Diamondbacks 2-1 in the 9th inning on the 7th game, but the unbeatable Mariano Rivera blew the save, the game, and the series. Then in 2004, the Yankees lost the American Championship series to the hated Red sox after leading the series 3 games to none with a lead in the 9th inning of the fourth game.
When I was growing up, the end of the world king was Nostradamus. Every year there would be books and TV specials showing how all his predictions had come true for every world event for the last 400 years. I think he predicted the end of the world to coincide with the death of Elvis.
peanut butter on bread
topped with slabs of bacon
but the end will come when
the King does not awaken”
Can it be a sign of the end of the world when gum is a dollar for 5-15 stick packs and grape juice is 1.29 for a half gallon?
Not so fast, it isn't grape juice, but grape juice cocktail. Another end of the world scam...
I'm sure there are some cicles where the proof of Arnold's infidelity is the end of the world.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
15 Minutes of Fun
At the end of March, I wrote about how much I disagreed with Bob Moeller’s article in the Oklahoma Chess Quarterly entitled “Stop Playing Trash Chess” in which he calls any chess game with a time limit of less than 15 minutes for the game ‘Trash Chess’. I mentioned that I was going to write a letter to the OCQ about this article. I had been hoping to at the least find out what other people thought of ‘Trash Chess’ and maybe get a few blogs out of the ensuing debate, but then I noticed a spike of blog hits with the search term ‘Robert Moeller obituary’. That got me doing my own Google search and Mr. Moeller passed away last week at the age of 79.
Mr. Moeller’s comments make a lot more sense to me now that I know how old he was. A common complaint of older players is that they don’t have the manual dexterity to play speed games. I do remember playing a national master ‘jgs’ on Chess Live. He was 84 years old, but played 2 minute chess with a second added back each move. He told me that he had to add the second to make up for his lack of mouse skills. ‘jgs’ has since passed away, but he never minded playing quick chess. When I was in my 20’s, the grand old man of New Jersey Chess was Edgar McCormick. Edgar was in his 70’s, was a former New Jersey champion and won the U.S. Amateur championship a number of times. He would frequent chess clubs and loved to play speed chess. This was in the days before electronic clocks. The mechanical clocks were fitted with a red flag that would rise as the minute hand got closer and closer to the top of the hour and then fall on the hour. When your flag fell, you lost the game. Speed chess with the mechanical clock requires nerves of steel since you never know exactly how much time you have left, and only have the inexorable climb of the little red flag as your guide.
I don’t want to seem to be picking on the deceased, so I ‘m going to pass on writing to the OCQ, but I will still be playing plenty of 1-minute chess. Last Tuesday, I had the chance to play a few one-minute games on the Internet Chess Club. My friend Dan Troxell has told me he really enjoyed going over the one-minute games. Despite the fact that Dan is a fan of the Boston Red Sox (who swept the Yankees this past weekend, by the way), I have a lot of respect for his opinions and am considering making a monthly feature of my more interesting 1-minute games. For now here are 4 games I played last Wednesday night. I don’t think they are any more or less trashy than some of my over-the-board efforts.
After waiting around for a few minutes without being matched up by the ICC computer, I decided to go for some ‘slow play’ and accepted a challenge for a 3-minute game. Switching from 1-minute to 3-minute play is challenging for me. I have to make myself stop playing frantic 1-minute chess and remember that I can take the occasional leisurely 20 or 30 second think, but also remember not to get to carried away in leisure or else I’ll run short of time or be 2 minutes behind my opponent.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m not sure I can have more fun in 15 minutes. I hope Mr. Moeller rests in peace and can take as long as he wants for his chess games in eternity. As for me, if I’m told I only have 5 minutes to live, I think I have a good idea how I’m going to spend at least 2 of them!
Mr. Moeller’s comments make a lot more sense to me now that I know how old he was. A common complaint of older players is that they don’t have the manual dexterity to play speed games. I do remember playing a national master ‘jgs’ on Chess Live. He was 84 years old, but played 2 minute chess with a second added back each move. He told me that he had to add the second to make up for his lack of mouse skills. ‘jgs’ has since passed away, but he never minded playing quick chess. When I was in my 20’s, the grand old man of New Jersey Chess was Edgar McCormick. Edgar was in his 70’s, was a former New Jersey champion and won the U.S. Amateur championship a number of times. He would frequent chess clubs and loved to play speed chess. This was in the days before electronic clocks. The mechanical clocks were fitted with a red flag that would rise as the minute hand got closer and closer to the top of the hour and then fall on the hour. When your flag fell, you lost the game. Speed chess with the mechanical clock requires nerves of steel since you never know exactly how much time you have left, and only have the inexorable climb of the little red flag as your guide.
I don’t want to seem to be picking on the deceased, so I ‘m going to pass on writing to the OCQ, but I will still be playing plenty of 1-minute chess. Last Tuesday, I had the chance to play a few one-minute games on the Internet Chess Club. My friend Dan Troxell has told me he really enjoyed going over the one-minute games. Despite the fact that Dan is a fan of the Boston Red Sox (who swept the Yankees this past weekend, by the way), I have a lot of respect for his opinions and am considering making a monthly feature of my more interesting 1-minute games. For now here are 4 games I played last Wednesday night. I don’t think they are any more or less trashy than some of my over-the-board efforts.
After waiting around for a few minutes without being matched up by the ICC computer, I decided to go for some ‘slow play’ and accepted a challenge for a 3-minute game. Switching from 1-minute to 3-minute play is challenging for me. I have to make myself stop playing frantic 1-minute chess and remember that I can take the occasional leisurely 20 or 30 second think, but also remember not to get to carried away in leisure or else I’ll run short of time or be 2 minutes behind my opponent.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m not sure I can have more fun in 15 minutes. I hope Mr. Moeller rests in peace and can take as long as he wants for his chess games in eternity. As for me, if I’m told I only have 5 minutes to live, I think I have a good idea how I’m going to spend at least 2 of them!
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