TheChessDad.com

Michael Jordan and his high school coach

Recently, I read a moving article from Sports Illustrated about Michael Jordan’s  high school coach (“Did This Man Really Cut Michael Jordan?“), coach Herring. It’s he who placed Michael on the Junior Varsity team when Michael’s a sophomore and  too short to make the Varsity team.  But Michael made the Varsity team the following year and coach Herring picked him up every day at six o’clock and took him to the gym to help him work on his abilities.

What a poor old coach considering Coach Herring’s, for close to 30 years, unemployed/unemployable  and even found himself homeless at sometime. Sad but true,being a former high school coach of a later superstar. You may not be able to enjoy any financial rewards or even a proper recognition besides being thanked and remembered for your passion to the game and your sacrifices.

I like the following sentences, are they irony or a metaphor?

If life is a cycle of giving and receiving, of storing up goodwill in the hearts of those around you, of doing kindness for the sake of kindness but also for yourself, for your reserved fund, in case one day you need to make a withdrawal, when you’re old or sick or poor or maybe all three, then for the first 31 years of his life Pop Herring built about as much wealth as a man could. And then he lost most of his earning capacity, almost overnight, and what he had left were those investments is that they usually come with risk. Your never know which ones will pay off. You can put in and put in and put in, and you still might get nothing back.

But you should know, still keep “investing”, even your kids are now not good enough to be placed on school varsity team, as Michael Jordan did when he’s a sophomore in high school.

Why did I found Reapot (www.reapot.com)

I copied my story from the company website (www.reapot.com):

Back in January 2011, our founder, Zeke, went to a chess tournament in Chicago. There was a book vendor there selling chess books and other chess equipments to people at the tournament.  While Zeke was browsing chess books, a guy came in and asked the vendor,

“Do you accept used chess books? I have a lot at home.”

“No, I just sell new chess books except a couple in Like New condition.” The seller replied.

Overhearing the conversation, Zeke thought to himself: “That guy must want to sell his used chess book to the vendor instead of letting those chess book sitting in some book shelves collecting dusts.”

“I have spent hundreds of dollars buying chess book last year alone. Like many other chess players, we love to collect chess books. In fact, however, some books had been read only once, many are not finished. On the other hand, chess books are expansive; it would be a shame to waste the chess books collecting dusts,” Zeke continued with his thought. “It would be a good idea if I can supply a platform so that more people can read chess books and put his/her used chess book in good use.”

So Reapot Inc. was founded —based on that idea.

The mission of Reapot is:

Reapot.com is an online chess book rental store. As customers, no matter you are chess players, chess parents, chess educators, chess organizers or just hobbyists in chess, you can rent all chess books you want from Reapot.com. We hope we can help to nurture your passion and fulfill your goal in life by supplying an affordable, convenient and innovative service.

“Rent all the chess books you want! And receive free months by buying or donating chess books.” is acclaimed on Reapot website. After you join as a member (not as a free guest), you can rent as many chess books as you want (although there is a limit on how many books you can rent each time, there is no limit on how many times you can rent). You can buy the books you rented and/or donate your own chess books to receive free months.

Please check Reapot (www.reapot.com) out, even you don’t want to rent books right now, you can still build your wish list of favorite chess books with a free guest account . Please let me know if you agree with the ideal and practice of Reapot.

CCSCSL Thanksgiving Open

Several friends have told me how great the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis was and I should visit it with Abe sometime. Weeks ago, knowing Thanksgiving Open would be held over the Thanksgiving weekend there, without hesitation, I registered Abe for the tournament. I am excited to go see the club except one concern: it does not have free parking. (There is free street parking nearby, but my parallel parking skill is poor. In addition, what if all street parking is full?)

It turned out that CCCSL is indeed great:  it is well lighted, comfortable, and with lots of fresh air.  Look at the following picture showing one play room upstairs: the solid wood table, the wood pieces and the chair. I bet you would love to play a game or two here if you know a little about chess. What else can you ask for a chess club? Besides, there are seven grandmasters playing in this tournament. As a participant, you may not play with any of them, but at least you can watch them playing if you want.  I‘d say, for chess players, it is a dream to play in the tournament here.

One chess play room upstairs of CCCSL

I also went to the Chess Hall of Fame across street of the chess club during the tournament. I was surprised to see many exciting chess sets such as the one shown below.

One chess set in the World Chess Hall of Fame

Abe’s little brother had a game with Mommy in the skittles room downstairs while Abe is waiting for his next round.

Abe’s little brother had a game with Mommy in the skittles room

I had no trouble to find free parking at a nearby (one block away) street. There’s enough space so that parallel parking’s not required since I did not mind parking a little far away.

I have been back from the trip for several days. I felt the Saint Louis trip more worthwhile as time goes by. It does not matter how you did at the tournament. You are glad you played the royal game at a cool chess playing facility, not at a stale room of some hotel.

On the way back, Abe said the trip was not worthwhile. I suspected he thought he did not have a good tournament, he had some homework waiting for him and the trip was a long drive. But I’d guess he will change his mind later.

A Chess Dad’s view on keeping chess teenagers to chess

I have heard or seen many teenagers who quit chess when they are in middle or high schools.  These promising young chess players stop their chess improvements at early ages, which are usually best time for people to achieve their full talents in chess. On the other hand, in middle or high schools, there are so many school work or after school activities waiting for kids. Everything is time consuming. Most kids picked up chess when they were in elementary school or earlier, there’s little or no homework and school’s easy too, they had all the time they’d like to put on chess. Now, suddenly, the kids have no enough time to spend on chess practicing and playing.  By and by, the big kids may lose interest in chess (because of less practicing, less playing and less improvement in chess) and start to pursue something more popular. Usually this new interest needs total commitment, kids and parents may have to spend all their time and energy on it and quit chess along the way.

To make the chess more competitive among all choices teenagers may face, I would think the following improvements are needed, so chess teenagers still keep an interest on chess and keep playing in chess tournaments:

• Emphasize Change. It will attract more younger kids to play chess when educators or parents know that chess is beneficial to the development of intelligent, chess can help the kid’s performance in school and beyond. Now for bigger kids, this emphasize may not work anymore, on one hand, they are already very smart in school and do not new incentive to be any smarter, on the other, there are many popular activities to choose. So I think the new emphasize should be “chess is a royal game”. Many people like it because they are up to the challenge.
• Since “chess is a royal game”, chess scene should be clean and fair. People with more love and put more work in chess should be able to achieve more success or recognition among chess community.
• Since “chess is a royal game”, many, if not most, people should hold chess in high regard. There should be a large fan base to follow chess.
• More colleges – hopefully, large or small, public or private, could supply chess scholarships or some kind of rewards for chess achievements at the admission process. So kids and parents can have additional incentive for continuing involvement in chess in high school.
• More sponsors to chess professionals. These chess professionals could put more time on chess, less time to worry their lives.

How do you think?

Found it!

Yesterday, waiting outside the chess playing hall at a chess tournament, I looked outside of the window and thought: “Fall was not bad and it’s a nice day outside”. When Abe showed up after finishing his game, I asked him, “Did you see any birds outside?” I asked him this question because I missed their existences just out of the window until a minute ago.

“Where?” It seemed Abe did not see any birds on his first try.

“Over there,”

“…Oh, I found it.”

“Just like chess, if you try and try, you may find something (you are looking for).”

By the way, Abe had a lucky day— he scored 3.5 points out of 4.

Today, I asked him what he did differently in that lucky tournament.

“I thought more,” Abe replied.

A bad tournament

Last Saturday, Abe had a bad tournament; he scored 1.5 points out 4. On the way to home, he said his face was so red (so he could not think calmly). I replied “Maybe you are over-excited (to rush)”.

He had so many school activities this year. Every day, before dinner, he just got home and had no much free time; after dinner, he would do his homework for an hour or more. If he had some time to spare on chess studying before going to bed, I felt I was lucky to ask him.

Maybe there is always time to spare on chess if he looks for it — only if he likes it. Right now, once he finishes his homework, before putting the folder and books aside, he’ll turn on TV and play video games on it. Since according to him, playing video games is a type of relaxation he likes, studying chess is a type of work he’d rather avoid doing, it is reasonable to have some relaxation after doing home work. I cannot define what relaxations are for him.

I know letting him to like chess is more important than looking time and asking him to study chess for a while. Last year, I could ask him to study chess for about 45 minutes every day— not any more.  If he can’t study chess frequently, he’ll have more bad tournaments in future unless he enjoys playing chess and has a more mature mind to play.

After last tournament I told him: “Mistakes are not problems, unless you repeat them.” I hope he’d bother to learn from those mistakes and grow more interests at chess.

Unexpected after playing a scholastic chess tournament

Abe cried loud before going to bed last night. He did not have a bad tournament and was one of the top finishers of the section. But he said he wanted to be the winner of his section. I remembered he never said wanting to be a winner of any chess tournament before.  The winner of each section in last weekend’s tournament had a cool prize—a netbook computer.

He said he was just lucky going this far in the tournament but he missed his chance to get the top prize. I told him that the same tournament: Susan Polgar World Open for Boys and Girls would come back next year. “You can have another shot next year.” I said, “But you’ll have to improve yourself, you cannot depend on luck alone.”

“No, I won’t, everyone else will improve.” Abe replied.

I knew I didn’t need to say much and Abe would figure out the answer.

“Let him cry a little more if he wants.” I thought.

Break through

Abe had a lucky day: he had several breakthroughs in today’s soccer game.  Here is one of them:

Finally he broke through

I put down my camera and tried to locate him: …he almost fell to ground… he kicked the ball… the ball looked going to the net before it hit the post…  screams burst from his teammates and others —what a pity!

6th Annual Susan Polgar World Open for Boys and Girls is only one week away!

If you have kids, who want to play chess in a scholastic tournament, you may want to consider this one. If the kid is just a beginner, it’s fine, he/she may get a free USCF membership, and this one is a good first one for the kid to treasure. If the kid is experienced, let he/she will have a lot of fun with other kids,  after this one, he/she may like chess more and have a stronger desire for later big tournaments.

The tournamnet is about one week from now, you can register online at http://www.polgarworldopen.com/

Soccer season

Abe was very excited when he was making the school JV soccer team last week. He had been talking about making the soccer team several times even before the school started. It’s all new to him, like games and practices many times a week, like traveling with other teammates and the coach in a school bus for a game out of the town, besides, he needs to get up early every morning for school, around 7 am. In fact, he got up that early last Saturday, I thought he’s over excited. He had no school on Saturday, he just went downstairs to play a new Wii game, something like Madden NFL, I bought for him recently.

Today after school, he had a game. Since he also plays in AYSO on Sundays. He had soccer games or practices in four consecutive days. Next week, he will have soccer games in four consecutive days. I worried a little about his stamina— “could he get hurt if he is too tired and lost his concentration?”. But as long as he is having fun and wants running in the field, I know I should not worry too much. In addition, I know he needs to build stamina and to learn from mistakes to grow up, and to some degree, playing sports will help him playing better chess.

Soccer game after school

School and Chess

Summer is over! Although not officially, but I can realize it since Abe could not sleep as late as he wanted anymore. In the last week or so, he had to get up at around 7 am. At evenings, he seemed had much more homework than last year and he also had to go to bed early. A busy school year ahead of him.

Abe went to several tournaments in the past weeks and had so so performances (or a bit worse) . I did not remind him anything like I usually did like “Fight to the end” or “Be patient” before games. I thought he had to learn his own mistakes himself. In addition, “New school year is coming”, negative comments, or not, will be pressure to him, he will surely have less time on chess because of the school, then he could performed even worse. It will be a vicious cycle. I do not want it, I do not want Abe to think chess is boring to him.

Best usage of cash prizes kids earned from chess tournaments

Last week, when I received the check for the cash prize in the tournament I mentioned, I did not tell Abe right away.

On one hand, I think I should give the whole cash prize to Abe since he earned it from chess tournaments. He earned the money and he should be able to decide how to spend it. If your kids play for chess, from time to time, on some lucky days, the kids may earn some cash prizes. The cash prizes make the kids excited. He or she might show off to the friends: something he or she truly “earned”. It is one of exciting moments in long hours’ chess playing.

On the other hand, from my experience, I think Abe might not spend it wisely if he spend all or most of the amount on his will. So I took some time to figure out how to “spend” the money. When Abe found out the envelope for the cash prize letter, he asked me “Where is the check? I want to have a look.”

I gave him the check and told him how to spend it. He said OK and run to show the check to Mommy and his little brother.

The next day, I and Abe went to a brokerage firm to open an investment account. We deposit most of his prize. I gave the rest to him. I told him, on future such occasions, I will give him one third of the cash prize he earned right away, and deposit and invest the rest. He will own the account and the money in it once he becomes an adult.

I know a little about investment as I know a little about chess, in fact I wrote some posts on them. I know it is very important to start early in the investment. I hope Abe can start early and learn a little on investment by opening his investment account. In addition, the whole thing might be one form of training on delayed gratification. It would be best usage for Abe’s cash prize earned from chess tournaments. Wouldn’t it?

Luck stroke again

Last weekend, Abe played in Chicago Class chess tournament.   I put him playing up one class since Abe, most often, plays better against slightly higher rated players —plays worse against lower rated players. I guess  his concentration plays a big roll in his performance. He concentrates more when playing against high rated players; he makes many careless mistakes when playing against low rated players. Moreover, even he loses to high rated players, he will learn more from the experience. I think it is good for his long term improvement.

So he played in the  Class A section, unexpectedly, he scored three wins and two draws out of the five games, tied for first in his section. Some people asked me why he did so good, I replied he was lucky. In fact, in the past, it happened to him that he lost all games in a tournament, he had his share of bad luck then.  While in this tournament, good luck had been with him.

Good luck or not, most players had a good time. I took a picture before the round two, as you can see, even those kids are having a good time (I think many are excited) waiting games to begin:

Kids are chatting before a round at the chess tournament.

“Played like a Child”

Over the long July 4th weekend, Abe played in the FIDE Continental America’s Amateur Chess Championship. He had a so-so performance with an even score (3.5 out 7).

2011 FIDE Continental America's Amateur Chess Championship

After the first day’s games (he scored 0.5 point out of 2), on the way home, he said he’s winning in the second game, then he made a mistake to take the opponent’s  strong piece: a rook in stead of a pawn. After that, Abe said it’s a drawn position. Looked surprised, I asked him “Played like a Child?”

I felt Abe’s not offended since Abe then mentioned Magnus Carsen commented his own lost game to Garry Kasparov “I played like a child” when Magnus was 13.

“I am still a child” Abe added.

Two days later, I have the computer analyzed the game. I asked Abe to have a look at the analysis result: The ending’s not a drawn position, he still has chance to win.

“Oh, the Opposition!” Abe exclaimed after looking at the 1st move.

I remember we watched a video together about pawn endgame (including the technique of Opposition) not long ago.

Is better to watch your kids playing in a tournament?

Abe played at Chicago Open last weekend. He scored one win, two draws and four losses. Yesterday, after looking at computer analysis showing he made mistakes here and there in his games, he told me he did poorly at the tournament. I think it’s a good learning experience for him. Since the slow time control, many of his games went into endgame, which he could seldom reach in previously tournaments. It looked to me his errors most arose at the transition from middle game to end game.

The chess playing hall is huge, chess players and chess parents are free to walk around to look other player’s games as long as they do not interfere with the players.

One thing funny is I could not watch longer than 5 minutes on Abe’s play in a stretch before I move ahead, mostly to GM’s tables. It is easy to criticize Abe’s lack of concentration after the game. But during the game, when Abe concentrated and tried hard to figure out his next good move, it is so hard for me to watch. It is so tense, I do not know much about chess, but I can count number of pieces and pawns of each side on board. Many times I worried if Abe is down  in material “Hope he can hold the game”; I also worried if Abe is up in material “Maybe the opponent set up a trap, sacrificed some material to go to the checkmate,  Abe will be in trouble soon”.  I do not know if Abe can see me, my presence might boost his spirit to fight on, or distract him. So I said to myself “Abe, try your best.” then I move on.

Many parents have the strong nerves to watching kids playing in tournaments (some tournaments allow spectators), I don’t.  I even don’t know it is good for the kids. Consider most chess parents are much worse than their kids in terms of chess playing strength. No matter you are a chess parent or a chess player, I’d like to hear your opinion on the question: “Is better for chess parents to watch kids playing in a tournament”?

Gelfand, a “local” hero, to challenge champion Anand

GM Boris Gelfand won the World Candidates Matches final in Kazan and will challenge the reigning chess world champion next year. I was so glad to hear the news.Why? Because he is like a local hero. Boris, when he was a kid, had a coach named Tamara Golovey, Tamara has a chess club in town, the chess club Abe had been to as I mentioned in this post.

You may want to check Andi Rosen’s beautiful article about Boris and Tamara on USCF website. I agree 100 percent with the article.  She is a second mother or grandmother to many local chess players — Abe included,

Two articles about then and now of Gata Kamsky

Gata Kamsky won the 2011 US chess Championship weeks ago, and advanced to the semifinals in 2011 FIDE  Candidates Matches for the world championship by defeating Veselin Topalov days ago. Maybe he will bring us another surprise later.

I found an old article about the teenager Gata and his father and a recent article about  his gracious moment at 2010 US Championship. Maybe you want to take a look at both articles.

Go Gata!

“Patience and concentration bring you good luck.”

That’s what I told Abe before the tournament last Saturday. It worked this time. Abe drew with a Master in the first round. After the game I congratulate him by saying “Good job. I was especially happy for you since you fought until the last second.” He literally had one second left on his clock after the draw was agreed upon by both players. If not the time delay, Abe would lose on time, even on a theoretical drawn position.

So Abe was very excited. He gladly promised to take a ten-minute walk  together outside after next round — We did not have time to take a walk right now since next round would begin in fifteen minutes.

It’s cloudy as we found after stepping outside the chess playing room, but still it’s Spring time.  The air’s fresh and grass green. Noticing not far in front,  a goose strolling leisurely across the side walk, wagging his tail behind him,  Abe said: “Maybe he is lost.”

“Lucky for him, at least he is outside.” I replied, even not sure what I meant.

2011 National Junior High

Last week, we drove to Columbus, Ohio for the 2011 National Junior High Championship. Abe played in the K-8 section and got a small trophy for tying with 20th place. He felt he was lucky with his parings as he got four points from much lower rated players and two losses were against much higher rated players. He found he missed his winning moves in one of the two losses upon re-reading his score book today. So he was not exceptional lucky all the way. “Maybe you played too quick to find the right moves?” I asked him.

One thing he’s improved, as I saw in the last two tournaments, is his concentration level. He probably learned his lessons from several of his recent very bad tournament performances. I asked him taking a shower and a nap in his hotel room between the rounds. We used to go back our hotel room watching sports news on TV. I thought the new change should help him at a higher concentration level during the games. In addition, our hotel room was about one mile away from the tournament site, we have walked back to hotel twice. Being able to walk outside in Spring  helped Abe having a good mood and being lucky.

We had a good time, so are many others, I believe. In the chess playing hall, one thousand kids competing under one roof!

About one thousand kids playing at the 2011 National Junior High Championship

Concentration

There were three junior events held concurrently at North Shore Chess Center last weekend. Most of the state top junior players competed there; it was quite a strong field.

Many top junior players in the state compete at the chess center

Abe continued his bad performance this month. In fact, Abe did not play that quickly in several of his games, while he lost them at the end anyway. As I thought the patience was very important in chess games, for a while, I’d been telling him that I would be satisfied “if he slows down no matter he wins or loses his game”. So, I tried to find some positive sides of his games and could not criticize his loss much.  However, I did notice that although he slowed down, he spent more time looking around at other games including setting his eyes long and often on his neighboring board. When I told him that, in several instances I watched, he had a better position or material advantage and later careless mistakes cost the games again and again, he seemed agreed. He said he was so easily being distracted.

“He must have been lack of concentration,” I guessed. “Maybe he was tired, he usually spent all of his energy in playing in parties or in playing video games.”

Next weekend, he will test his patience and concentration again playing in another tournament. “He must not get too tired before that,” I thought. “But it’s Spring Break next week!”