Chess

I love chess, and now play every day with people all over the world. The world has really changed since I was born.

I love the Petrov's Defense: Urusov, Lichtenhein Defense. I just beat someone in 5 moves. I have tutored kids. I love forks and pinning a piece protecting the king.

My rating went down when I got Covid. I wonder if it's also documenting my cognitive delays. I also had difficult breathing but I just kept pushing and pushing walking and I think that's gone away.

1079 was my peak rating, and I sunk to 862 rating. The flat line is when I was doing blitz instead of rapid because I wanted to speed up my game a little by playing games with less time.

Sometimes my desire to play is stronger than my desire to protect my rating. I think that accounts for the dip at the end there. 

I don't play after 5pm, usually even after 330, because I get tired at night. When I don't care about my rating and want to play in the evening I do. My rating is so low, I know it's silly to worry about it, but I don't want it to go any lower.

I used to beat my friend most of the time. He asked me to think out loud to learn what I knew. So we played a lot of games thinking out loud. Now it's more like 50/50. 

I see relationships as best if you kind of do this in real life, and don't use hiding as a way of sneaking a win all the time. That feels dishonest. 

I see psychotherapy as a kind of thinking out loud about working with the mind.

Lots of times when someone spikes a comment at me, I think "check" or "Checkmate". Debate feels like a kind of chess game to me. Drama in TV shows is seeming more and more like a chess game to me.

The various sects of Buddhism are different styles of playing chess. Same board, same goal, different methods within the context of the rules.