Who are You?

I was curious as to who, if anybody, was visiting my blog so I put a live trafic feed at the bottom. I was surprised to see so many hits from all over Canada and even one from Finland! I was sure there was only three other people who read my site but when "The Big Ape" from Med Hat left me a comment I went to his blog and copied his idea using Feedjit. If you visiting don't be shy about leaving a comment.

On to chess. This week I played a number of games against Fritz lowered to 2000. Almost all the games were horrible. I think when there is no ego to protect then a person’s game suffers. I'm sure many of my blunders would not have been made against a human opponent because I would have been more careful, so as not to be embarrassed. When the computer beats me I don't feel the same crushing level of defeat that a human opponent can inflict. I find the same thing happens to me in online blitz games when I have no fear of losing face because I don’t know who I’m playing. Two weeks ago I played a series of blitz games against an opponent and after losing the first game badly I played several really good games and won in spectacular fashion. My opponent strongly suggested my play from game 2 on did not seem “natural” to him and that I had some outside “help”. If this was a face to face game I would have been highly offended but as I did not know him, other than that he was from the USA, I could have not cared less what he thought and so I just left. I should try to find those game if I can and look to see if my play was really as good as he thought.
Here is my last Fritz active game played while my son was doing his Judo class.


2008-01-01 Fritz.pgn


I think I played the ending rather well but I did miss a winning plan that Fritz revealed when I looked at it tonight.