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.

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.

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?

“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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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”?

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.

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

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!”

What an opportunity it’s to join the lecture by a world elite chess player who is, at the same time, highly successful academically in a LOCAL chess club! I might not understand her games in the Women’s World Championship, as a chess parent, however, I was eager to know her growth and advices on parenting chess kids.

Last Saturday, Abe and I went to the lecture. As it turned out, part of her lecture on the games in the championship was very enjoyable, even to me. I felt all the audience, both kids and adults, were engaged and amazed by her lecture. On advices giving to parents, she said, based on her own experience, parents might want to study together with kids at beginning. Later on, parents should put a faith that the kids can be on themselves and  let kids have more freedom. Lufei said, even now days, she still got many advices from his dad, she usually disagree on many of them, but some are useful. She said, her dad might be equivalent to a Class B player. I thought: ” His dad is much better than me, I probably is a class H player at my peak. Abe might disagree more than many of what I’d say later.”

A lecture by Lufei Ruan

On the way home I listed to Abe somethings I learned from the lecture such as “do not play passively” “Always try to win” and “endgame is important”; I asked Abe what I missed. “Do not create (too many) weaknesses.” he added.

Since Abe, based on a long term trend, is still on his improving stage, I do not want to put any additional pressure on his short term performance. It’s fine that he loses many games now in order to fix his weakness (such as the bad habit of playing too fast) and gain experience. It’s fine he keeps losing but keeps playing. I’d have a New Year’s Resolution if I can measure how much he increases his interest in chess and how much he slows down in his games, but I could not find any measurements. So I had to give up the thought of a New Year’s Resolution.

Another first, I was surprised to find out, was Abe achieved being one of last few players finishing the last round. He played for more than four hours in the game. After two hours and a half, I told myself  that I should be happy with Abe’s effort no matter what’s the result. After the game, I thought: “In almost all of previous chess tournaments, Abe always use less then half of the allotted time. Today, I would guess he left the game with only minutes on his clock, and he finally was patient enough to be one of the last few players finishing the round.”

Abe was one of last few players to finish the last round at 2010 Pan America Open

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

1st NA Amateur Closed was held at the North Shore Chess Center

Abe was playing in the tournament, so were two other kids of his age. I bet they had a good time (which is very important to their interests in chess). The three kids are playing blitz between rounds:

Kids play blitz between rounds

Before the last round, I drove the kids to a nearby park, so they played soccer for a while:

Kids play soccer in a nearby park

By the way, one of  the purposes of this tournament is to help people get a FIDE rating and thus create more FIDE rated players in Chicago.

You can find more about this tournament from http://www.nachess.org/naca-news/2010/11/ and  http://www.facebook.com/ChessCenter.

As Abe’s rating jumps and dives, I know that there are apparent weaknesses in his game, it needs time and experience to fix them. For example, as more than one person mentioned, Abe needs improve his endgames. But if not slowing down and not playing with strong opponents, as i understand, you might not have any experience playing the endgame. Abe slowed down a lot recently, and I prefer him to play with strong opponents, even most games results in losses.

In the past several tournaments, I said “good job” to him after each of Abe’ loses, he slowed down, put a good fight and I was happy for him.

Since the weekend’s free, we could enjoy things that would otherwise be too energy consuming before a chess tournament. Friday night, we went to see the homecoming parade in a nearby university. On the way to the parade, Abe’s brother was very excited and yelled OFFENSE DEFENSE all along, maybe he thought he was going to watch a sports game. Abe and his little brother, at least, enjoyed the parade by getting a lot of candy, the parade display was very creative, the  university students were dancing, singing and screaming. It was a big party. I think they tasted a little bit of college life.

On Saturday morning, we started to worry, maybe, it’s a bad idea to take this weekend off. It’s raining, we worried that the party in the afternoon would be canceled. I thought we would better to go to a chess tournament if the party would be canceled. Otherwise, what a waste to take this weekend off.

However, the rain stopped in the early afternoon, the block party started as planed, Abe played as planned, in a beautiful fall afternoon.

The next day, the whole family went to Abe’s soccer game. Abe ‘s team won the game.  “Abe Scored!” Abe’s little brother exclaimed, with proud.

I couldn’t agree more. “Win or lose, I don’t care. Just keep playing.” Yes, as a chess dad, I want to tell my son the same thing and, “If you win, it is good and you are lucky. if you lose, it is fine, you will learn more by analyzing your game.”

An interesting position in a chess game

The above picture showed that an interesting position was reached in a game of the tournament, Abe was playing white, he lost the game in the end. When I pointed him a late blunder analyzed by computer software, he replied,” How could I miss that, I must have messed up my notation.” — OOPS.