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.

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?

Abe, I felt, was curious to everything on the trip, the farmers’ market was definitely different there:

Abe is at a farmers' market

The land was poor, so were the people, but kids could still be happy. Not supposed to be?

I would think Abe was happy too most of the time. I took a picture when he was playing basketball with his little brother.

Abe is playing basketball with his little brother

No court, no hoop, no problem. “I love this game”. Not supposed to be?

It is winter time, it is cold outside. But we found some people are playing “chess” behind a wall on street.

Some people are playing "chess" on street in winter time (zoom in)

Let’s zoom the picture out to the street view.

Some people are playing "chess" on street in winter time (zoom out)

When Abe was bored with everything else, he played some chess games with the computer during the vacation. No one asked him, another not supposed to be.

Abe is playing chess with the computer

The next day, last Sunday, there was another chess tournament nearby in the afternoon, “Do you want to go?” I asked Abe. “It was up to you.”His mommy added.  Abe replied “No” the night before, “Yes” in the morning and then “No” again at the noon. I guessed that he was too tired and needed a break. Maybe we can stay at home and watch a movie together.

The DVD was borrowed from library last week.  It’s named “Like stars on earth — every child is special”. Since the movie was about a kid, his parents and one of his teachers, I thought, the whole family might enjoy it, probably, at Saturday night. Actually, we watched it at Sunday afternoon.

The movie lasted almost all the afternoon — it ran more than two and a half hours. In addition, there were some conversations in foreign language. I was surprised to find out Abe and I finished the whole movie, with some help of English subtitles. “It is a long movie, but very moving.” I said. Abe nodded. The story showed LOVE was the utmost force in discovering the talent of a seemingly retarded kid with “dyslexia”. I also got moved by some song like “Perseverance will bring the applause of the world” even you are misunderstood at the beginning.

After dinner, while Abe was playing Wii games, I asked him to do his homework.

“Wait, Daddy forced me to watch a movie all afternoon.” he must thought now Daddy should not force him to do another thing.

“But you don’t need to finish it if you don’t like it,” Mommy replied.

“I have to; it was such a heartbreaking movie.”

I was asked by the organizer the night before the tournament, if Abe could play the double round robin section— a little stronger than the single round robin section—due to some conflicts. My intention for the tournament was to see if Abe could play slow. A little stronger did not matter, or quite the opposite, maybe it’s a little better if Abe took opponents more seriously and hence slow down his games. I felt Abe has passed the stage that he would be very upset to his losses to stronger opponents. In fact, Abe performed better on those occasions. So “No problem.” I said.

The round robin tournament was held in a very nice hotel near our home. There were six people in Abe’s section, everyone plays with each of  other opponents, so five games in a weekend, then switching color, five games in another weekend of next month.

The tournament was held in a well-lighted room in a nice hotel. I could watch Abe's games through the big windows

Abe used more than half of times allocated (Game in 90 minutes if ignoring the time increments) in 4 of the 5 games. I was quite happy to his performance in general. He slowed down and took time to think. He scored 1.5 points out of 5. Considering his opponents are all higher rated than him, it is a fine performance. We even had a small celebration, not for winning or drawing his games, but for he played slowly. I told Abe “Hope it  remind you to slow down.”

Today I heard that Vietnam top player Le Quang Liem (2694) lost to Botswana player Kheto Phemelo (2266) in the first round of Chess Olympiad. The reason that a 2200+ player could win over a 2700 player will be scrutinized by many. I think since anyone can make mistakes in chess, it is important be patient to take advantage of your opponent’s mistakes. “You could play better when you slow down.” as I told Abe many times.

He did so poor in the Illinois Open held in the labor day weekend, after a couple of losses, I told him, “I don’t care you win or lose, I will be satisfied if you take your time.” One day on the way to lunch, I explained to him ” when I say take your time, I mean take your time to think or to take a nap if you want to as long as you don’t snore.”But he only took my advice for one game, he blitzed his game again the next one and lost. After the game, I told Abe, “You made me angry! You blitzed again.”

I think I started to ask him to slow down more than a year ago, at least from this post in January. But Abe’s bad habit’s not been fixed. Fixing the old habit might take much longer than a year. Back home, Abe said to me, “I am sorry (I did not listen your advice to slow down), but you have to deal with it.”

At the end of the camp, I found Abe got the first places in both blitz and puzzle solving in his group, but he did poorly in the tournament of regular games. He said he lost 2 rounds to lower rated players on time. I told him it’s OK: “Let’s worry about it later”. I felt in recent tournaments, he started to slow down his games. Instead of finishing a game quickly, he could use most of the allowed time in some games. He started to calculate deeper, think more about chess variations. Now, I would think it was a good thing even he could lose on time.

Last weekend, immediately following the chess camp, Abe played in Class B section of  Chicago Class 2010. He had 2 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss, so not bad at all.  One of funniest things in the tournament was he told me the reason he lost round four was because “I played too quick.” It’s a surprise to me, in many of the previous tournaments, I told him to slow down again and again but appeared to no avail at all. This time, he admitted his mistake before I had a chance mentioning it . Maybe it was a new development? Maybe it was because of last week’s chess camp?

Whatever the reason is, let’s just hope for the better of his future games.

Unlike Agassi and countless other tennis prodigies, Federer never had to deal with pressure from an ambitious parent…His Swiss-born father… and his mother, who is South African, …played recreational tennis at the firm’s small club close to their house… “We’d spend weekends on the tennis court”…”Roger had unbelievable coordination at very young age… We noticed this, but we didn’t push him. All the major decision of his spots career he took himself.”

It was Roger’s decision, at twelve, to quit playing soccer and to enter the program at the Swiss National Tennis Center, in Ecublens, two and a half hours by train from home…he stuck it for out for three years…

Upon reading this article, I felt that

• Roger got immersed in the tennis environment by joining tennis-enthusiasts parents.
• Parents are the big support along the way.
• Right Coaching, right parents. It does not matter that the guidance is from coach or from parents or both.
• Hard working. Roger mastered it from a very young age.

In order to verify those observations by reading more details of Roger Federer’s growth, I borrowed the book from the local library:  The Roger Federer Story: Quest for Perfection. You may find the following excepts from the book fascinating:

…Little Roger hit his first tennis ball over the net at three-and-a-half years old. At four, he could already hit twenty or thirty balls in a row…

…He played soccer, handball, basketball, table tennis and tennis and, at home, he even played badminton over the neighbor’s fence…

…For hours, Roger hit tennis balls against a wall, a garage door, in his room against a wall or even against the cupboard in the house. Pictures and dishes were not safe and his sister’s room wasn’t spared either…

As usual, Abe was in charge of the remote control. I was glad that he mostly chose the Soccer World Cup, which I was more than happy to watch together. In addition, Abe and I watched a very moving documentary film from ESPN: The Two Escobars. The film was about soccer and crime, honesty and lying, a people’s struggle and a nation’s struggle. After watching it, I said to Abe “A player needs to play with heart at every chance, never gives up.” Abe nodded. Except we all agreed it was a very good film, I did not know what else proper to say at the moment. I would highly recommend it whether you like soccer or not. You may want to check this review if you want watch it on TV or preorder the DVD.

We drove back on Wednesday afternoon, made home at about 4:30 pm. Abe’s basketball game (the first one of the summer league) began half an hour later. Upon his insistence, Abe and I had to leave at once for the game. We were glad Abe’s team won the game from behind. Abe looked a little tired, but made some defense plays.

Wow, what a team effort. Great game, everyone!

I do not know the reason behind the story. In fact, I do not want to know-it must be a very sad story. It happened, to a young graduate, how sad it was, how shocking were the parents of the kid upon hearing the news. Hope similar cases would  not happen to other kids! But, today, the very sad story happened in New York to a bright high school student.

Whatever the reasons may contribute to it, as a parent, how should you contribute to stop the happening of such tragedies? From now on, let your kids know:” Even when you have a setback, you have many many more chances to fight back. Whether it is your fault making the mistake, but that is your previous fault, you can forgive yourself; let’s not make a current or future fault. ” Maybe we should learn more from this moving story, maybe we should read it once again, if you can.

• had work
• confidence
• love, guidance and sacrifice from parents
• guidance and criticisms from tutors, even sporadically.

As Henry David Thoreau said in Walden: “However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The faultfinder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house.” I envy and congratulate Gary for his glorious hour.
I whole heartily recommended this great book to any chess parents, chess educators, chess players or someone may have an interest in it. I ordered my copy from the publisher’s website.

Then I was more surprised hearing the recommended message by the host to all parents:  stop calling your kid a genius and instead say, hey, good job for studying. Why? As a parent, do I have to agree with it?

The interview is short but fascinating. You could also be captivated with the followings:

• Mozart clocking 3,500 of practice by his sixth birthday.
• David Beckham kicking a soccer ball from the same spot for hours on end.
• If you don’t approach it with a voracious appetite, if you don’t clock up the deliberate practice, it’s not going to get you anywhere.
• We must praise young people for their effort and not for their talent, and try to embed the growth mindset.

If you want to read more about the interview about what lies behind success and excellence in sports and other endeavors, check here.

Last time, I asked Abe read one story in the book; he finished it in minutes and said he liked it. After last chess tournament, Abe said, to not be bored between rounds, he would like to read something short and funny. So we will bring this book to next chess tournament.

I asked Abe watching this show last Sunday:

He became an instant fan of the comedian: Joe Wong even I suspect that he may not understand most of the jokes, but “Who Cares?” I said to my self, “To make good jokes, you have to study the culture deeply.”

“Yes.” Abe affirmed it, to my surprise.

Back home, I found an easy explanation of the grammar from You Tube:

I would like to propose a rule that is slightly different from the teaching in above video:

When choosing between who or whom, if you can replace it with he, she, or they, use who; otherwise, use whom.

Some people may suggest if you replace the choice with him, then you should use whom, but, in my opinion, this part of rule may produce further confusion and is unnecessary.

Quite simple? I hope so.

I listed some sentences about chess using who and whom below, hope you find them helpful:

• Who is your opponent in this round?
• Whom did you play with in this round?
• Who is the highest rated high school student in the state?
• Whom did the state chess association select as the state representative for the national tournament?
• Who is the current World Chess Champion?
• Whom do you expect to be the next World Chess Champion?

Be calm,  it is normal,  and it happens to parents and teachers. Let’s read this story about a frustrated teacher and a stubborn student:

This is the third paragraph of chapter one of How to Survive in Your Native Land (I am reading the original 1971 edition) by James Herndon. Is it hilarious, is it? What would you do if you are the teacher in this case? What scenario you may encounter at home if you are the parent of Piston? Maybe you should be thankful that you have a kid that is less stubborn than Piston.

Always think a different way to communicate with kids about your idea, do not order your kids, be friends with your kids…?

Easy said than done.

How do you think?

Some interesting points and associated quotes are listed below; you can read the full article here.

• IQ of 120 is high enough:

In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell makes a similar point, noting that one’s IQ needn’t be super-high to succeed; it simply needs to be high enough. “Once someone has reached an IQ of somewhere around 120,” he writes, “having additional IQ points doesn’t seem to translate into any measurable real-world advantage.” In Genius Revisited, Rena Subotnik, director of the American Psychological Association’s Center for Gifted Education Policy, undertook a similar study, with colleagues, looking at Hunter elementary-school alumni all grown up. Their mean IQs were 157. “They were lovely people,” she says, “and they were generally happy, productive, and satisfied with their lives. But there really wasn’t any wow factor in terms of stellar achievement.”

• The marshmallow test, a compelling test, demonstrated self-discipline leads to better academic performance:

In the sixties, a Stanford psychologist named Walter Mischel rounded up 653 young children and gave them a choice: They could eat one marshmallow at that very moment, or they could wait for an unspecified period of time and eat two. Most chose two, but in the end, only one third of the sample had the self-discipline to wait the fifteen or so minutes for them. Mischel then had the inspired idea to follow up on his young subjects, checking in with them as they were finishing high school. He discovered that the children who’d waited for that second marshmallow had scored, on average, 210 points higher on the SAT.

• A interesting conclusion that self-discipline and the ability to tolerate delayed gratification, instead of IQ score or other intelligence test score should be a predictor of future success:

Maybe our schools ought to be screening children for self-discipline and the ability to tolerate delayed gratification, rather than intelligence and academic achievement.

So, if you want your kids to be successful in future, the best chance to achieve it is the kids should be mildly talented while having self-discipline and the ability to tolerate delayed gratification. Are your kids mildly talented? Probably yes.

Since the two brothers are not teenagers yet, I haven’t worried much about something associated with internet and teenagers like “multitasking”.

On the other hand, David has already learned how to use the mouse even he is less than three years old; Abe has spent too much time online: playing or sometimes doing his school projects. His school provides every student (in Grade 4 and Grade 5) a laptop. I believe that he may (or have to) spend more and more time online along his growth. Therefore, I think it is probably a good idea to know how to teach kids to deal with this digital age, before it is too late.

If you are one of parents who worry about your kids and this digital age, want to know what affects of digital age on the growth of kids, and try to find ways to deal with the problems, watch this video: Digital Nation from PBS. Usually, PBS videos are very interesting, filled with expert interviews, deep analysis and provocative thoughts. This one (about 90 min long) is no exception:

Abe did it again within the same weekend, unfortunately, it’s the bad thing I warned him against many times; He did another thing the third time since he started playing chess, hopefully, it could be a good thing. Part 1 is about the bad thing; part 2 is about the good thing.

This past weekend, Abe and I went to the Tim Just’s Winter Open XXIV, it was held in the same venue as the Nation Youth Action 2009 (see my post about it here). The tournament includes two sections: reserve section for players rated below 1800 and open section for other players. Abe played in the reserve section. I was told this tournament is one of the best local tournaments since the long time control: 90 minutes for the first 40 moves and then 30 minutes for the rest of the game, 5 seconds delay through the whole game, for example, for a game of 50 moves for each player, the time limit for each player is about 124 minutes. Therefore, the game could last up to a little more than four hours. The following two pictures shows some of the players in reserve section and open section,

some players in the reserve section

some players in the open section

It’s a pretty strong tournament; Abe’s first opponent was rated about 1780. Considering Abe’s rating was about 1400, I had no doubt Abe would lose his game. It turned out to be what I expected, about two hours in the game, Abe came out the playing hall, looked sad, I did not asked him the result since it’s quite obvious.

“I lost,” Abe murmured.

“OK, your opponent’s much higher rated than you are. Let’s go to lunch, next round is about two hours away,” I replied.

We didn’t want to drive far so we went to the McDonald’s about two blocks away.

After finishing lunch, I asked Abe how much time left on his opponent’s clock out of the first 90 minutes.

“About 10 minutes.”

“How much time left for you?”

“More than an hour.”

“ So you spent about twenty some minutes on the game, while your opponent spent eighty some minutes on the game, am I right?”

“Yes.” Abe answered with a smiling face as if he was glad at his “achievement”.

“Let’s say your opponent is about the same strength as you, you think 20-30 minutes, while your opponent thinks about 80 minutes, he will outplay you on the board. In fact, he is much stronger than you. You have to find a way to be better than yourself,” I replied. “Slow down and think deep, you could play better.”

“Maybe,” Abe still argued, “But I would be tired if I think that long.”

“For this morning’s game, maybe you can walk around in the playing hall or maybe you can take a one-hour nap, you will still have half an hour to finish your game,” I replied.

Abe’s next two opponents were both lower rated than him, he won the games quickly. So on the first day Abe scored two points out of three.

The next morning, Abe’s facing an opponent who was rated about 1600, I thought Abe might have a chance to score a point. But he lost the game, even in a quicker way than yesterday morning’s game. We waited a while before we went to lunch at noon− the final round was more than two hours away.

After finishing lunch, I asked Abe how much time left on his opponent’s clock out of the first 90 minutes.

“About half an hour.”

“Thirty nine minutes, to be exact,” I replied since I went to the playing hall and checked the game at the moment they were about to finish the game.

“How much time left for you?”

“About an hour.”

Abe did it again, I spoke to myself, he used only about 20-30 minutes while he was allowed to use more than two hours.

“Do not move that fast, fast means shallow thinking and more blunders, you will improve only if you can slow down.”

… Abe argued further with me…

Abe spent closed to one hour on his final game, he was down in material, but somehow, his opponent made a blunder and lost a winning game.

After that, we returned home for dinner. At dinner table, Abe grabbed a piece of paper out of his pocket,

“Every time I use a loose scoresheet instead of a scorebook, I will win.” Abe told his mom. “It brings me good luck.”

I thought Abe knew I did not agree and he knew I would say, but “Will Abe care what I might say? do I need to repeat another time? No, of course not,” I told my self. “I’d better shut up”. No matter what, after today’s hard learned lessons, may he start to slow down in his chess games.

“Yes, but only a little bit.” I replied.

“Teach him whenever possible.”

She told me not to worry about some experts’ view: Learning two languages at a very young age is confusing,

“The younger the better,” she said. “Foreign languages make kids smart… my son can speak four or five languages.”

His son must be super smart, I guessed.

Back home, I searched the internet and found some chess prodigies that might have foreign language skills:

• Ray Robson, GM, won 2009 US Junior Championship at fourteen. His mother is a Chinese American, I assume he can speak Chinese.
• Alex Lenderman, GM, won the U16 division of the 2005 World Youth Chess Championship, 5^th place in the recent World Junior Championship (with a very strong field). He is a Russian American. I assume he can speak Russian.
• Hikaru Nakamura, GM, won 2005 US Championship at seventeen and then won US Championship a second time in 2009. He had a Japanese father and then a Sri Lankan stepfather. I assume he can speak one foreign language.

Do foreign language skills really help people to be smart? And they have a very positive effect on chess players too? What do you think?

He started to read the chess book, at the same time, I started to read an article  from another book, minutes later, he said to me,
“I am done.”
“You must have not read it carefully, it is supposed to be a difficult book,” I replied, “I have not finished reading this interesting story yet.”
“Which story? Let me see how soon I can finish it.” Abe must think he is a super-reader, he will surely finish reading an article or whatever much faster than his dad.

“Sure, you can. But after you finish reading the article, I will test you some questions to see if you really read the article.” I guess it is not a bad idea to teach him some lessons.

“I may not remember every detail.”

“OK.”

I showed the story to Abe, it’s named The Mansion: A Subprime Parable written by Michael Lewis.

After Abe finished reading the article, I asked him the following questions:

• What is the story about?
• Do the kids like the house when they first see it? Why?
• What are the names of the three kids?
• Do the author think he has privacy living in the house, why?
• Why do they move out of the house?
• How much is the utility bill for the first month?
• How much is the water bill for the first month? Is it for drinking water?
• What is Quinn’s response when visiting William Randolph Hearst’s house?

See if you can answer them all and let me know if I missed some of important questions.

Abe answered most of my questions correctly or almost correct. So I thought the lesson he could learn was not about his reading, the lesson was about managing money:  Spend only if you can afford.

By the way, Abe said he used ten minutes reading it (The Mansion: A Subprime Parable). How about you?