Posts tagged: parenting

Lecture by Lufei Ruan

In case you do not know Ms. Ruan, she is the runner up in the 2010 Women’s World Chess Championship, and she is also a full time student pursuing her PHD degree in accounting at Carnegie Mellon University. What an opportunity it’s to join the lecture by a world elite chess player who is, at [...]

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Monday March 14th, 2011 in , , , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

A chess camp and a tournament

Last week, Abe attended a chess camp, the same camp he attended last month. There were quite a few grandmasters as instructors at the camp. The lectures in terms of depth and quality must be excellent since Abe told me they were all very good. The biggest benefit the chess camp brought to Abe, I [...]

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Wednesday July 21st, 2010 in , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

For better or for worse

Abe played in two tournaments last weekend — one on Saturday and one on Sunday, scored one point out of  three and two points out of four,  respectively. The performance was certainly not that good, however, it wasn’t as poor as his in recent weeks either. I had been telling him all the time: 1) [...]

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Tuesday June 29th, 2010 in , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

A story remembered

After reading this article (The Leap) from New York Magazine, I felt very very sad. I remember a similar case happened to one of my classmates when I was in the graduate school. After the first exam, at which I did poorly, so were most in the class—many failed, as told by the professor the [...]

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Wednesday June 16th, 2010 in , , , , , | No Comments »

Let it be

I was glad Abe was calm and in not a bad mood this raining Saturday. If you follow this blog, you know that he’s been in a slump in chess recently. In order for him to break out of the slump, I made the following plan: 1) He should play more games. 2) He should [...]

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Sunday June 6th, 2010 in , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Abe’s slump continues at Chicago Open

On the way to the parking lot from the playing hall, Abe said: “I am in a slump.” “You will get out of it someday.” “You know I have been on a losing streak since last tournament.” “It is OK.” I said. “But I learned nothing from it.” Pulling the car out of the parking [...]

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Tuesday June 1st, 2010 in , , , , , , | No Comments »

The worst day in a chess tournament

Last Saturday, Abe had the worst performance in any chess tournaments—lost all four rounds, scored zero point in the end. Before the tournament, he said to me, as usual, “I do not want to go. Do we have to go?” We did not have other engagements on the Saturday. He might just fool around— watching [...]

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Monday May 17th, 2010 in , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

From Chicago to Milwaukee

OK, I am kidding. I don’t mean to borrow the title of book:  From London to Elista, a chess book covers relative recent events. Abe likes it; he likes to read games, although he has not developed an interest in the anecdotes. Last Saturday, we went to Hales Corners Challenge XI in Milwaukee.  Abe was  eligible [...]

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Monday April 19th, 2010 in , , , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Parenting and the digital age

Thanks to the digital technology such as internet, David can watch many kids songs on YouTube for free; Every day, after school, Abe can’t wait to do three things on internet: checking latest chess news, following latest NBA news, and playing video games. Since the two brothers are not teenagers yet, I haven’t worried much [...]

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Friday February 5th, 2010 in , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Jeff Sarwer—From a child chess prodigy to a successful poker player

I know that many people have heard of Jeff, either by watching this video or reading this wonderful interview by Jennifer Shahade. I recently read the book “Searching for Bobby Fisher” by Fred Waitzkin. (Not the movie as I talked in other posts). Although this book is about the author’s son, another chess prodigy named [...]

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Friday January 15th, 2010 in , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

“A child is not a vessel to be filled, but a lamp to be lit”. – Hebrew Proverb

I am puzzled by this wonderful proverb. As a parent, I know I should give more freedoms to the kids. “Leave the kids alone!” Is it the right  approach to parenting? No. I don’t think so. If we just leave the lamp alone, it may never be lit. So the parents should generate a good [...]

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Sunday November 29th, 2009 in , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Andre Agassi: I did not choose tennis when I was young

Today, I heard an interesting interview of Andre Agassi on NPR (the website is here). Andre was a very famous tennis star. In fact, he was widely considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time. On the show, he said he did not choose tennis when he was young but his father pushed [...]

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Wednesday November 11th, 2009 in , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

Abe and me, the journey started

About three years ago, once I was roaming in the local library, I found the library would have a class named something like “Chess for Beginners”. So I brought Abe to the class; several kids showed up, along with their parents. The class was very basic, covering how to set the board and how to [...]

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Sunday November 8th, 2009 in , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Let’s talk about Josh Waitzkin

Recently I reread a very good article about Josh Waitzkin from Betsy’s blog “Chess Parents and Kids”(It is pity that Betsy left her blog at November, 2008. We would like to see her back). Many of you know  Josh was being featured in the movie “Searching for Bobby Fisher”, he was a chess prodigy and [...]

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Thursday November 5th, 2009 in , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »