Current Skill You Are Developing

[guids]

What books would you reccomend to "think" chess. I played in HS, few tournaments etc, but I never really found anything to teach me why Im memorizing all these openings, or how to think about the game, ie is there a Psychology of Poker for chess?

[Slap My Jack]

Social skills.

Results have been mixed, but I think I've stagnated this semester. Most of all the guys I know are tied up in relationships. The one single guy I knew who would reliably go out decided to go abroad for his semester.

Last week I was eating lunch outside and a girl asked if she could sit with me. The end result is that I feel sorry for her experience.

Anyone recommend a good approach to move up in the stakes fast while building my skills? I transferred schools so my social pool is relatively small.

And Muay Thai boxing (kick boxing). I haven't sparred yet. I am still just learning the basics while strengthening the muscles used. I train through the mixed martial arts club on campus.

[viciouspenguin]

i think around 5-10 yrs ago there was a book written about psychology in chess. dont know the title or author, didnt read it.

as for how to "think", one thing that helped me a lot was discussing chess with a stronger player. i was coached for maybe 8 yrs. also i think waht you're asking about is "positional play." while tactics is hardcore calculation, positional play is intuitive chess - where you kinda "know" you want x piece on y square, or just knowing how to create/attack pawn weaknesses, or that you want to put pressure on z square, put your pawns in x-y-z formation against your opponents opening choice, understanding where you want to be and how to get there by making quiet moves, etc.

instead of memorizing opening theory, someone like yourself should work on understanding openings and knowing why you make certain moves. for example, in the english opening often times you want to have a c4, nc3, bg2 setup. why? to control the d5/e4 squares. there are a lot of books on positional play. TAGs in chess are positional players, while LAGs are tactical players. postiional players are generally stronger in the endgame against tactical players of the same rating, and are often able to grind down weaker opponents. tactical players play openings which lead to higher variance positions. tactical players tend to upset stronger players more often, and get upset more often, while positional players are more solid

[mmbt0ne]

Running, which you can conveniently follow at f2f2s.com!!

[Borodog]

West Coast Swing; in particular I'm working on differentiating my West Coast from my Lindy Hop. They are closely related; WCS is a derivative of smooth or "Hollywood" style Lindy (hence the name), and every pattern is essentially transferable between the two dances. However, the look and feel are extremely different. If you don't differentiate the two, your West Coast looks like bad Lindy or vice versa, depending on which end you're coming from.

I'm also constantly working on my Lindy, as well as Salsa (since most of my private lessons have turned out to be Salsa, even though I consider myself a swing dancer and instructor [img]/images/graemlins/shocked.gif[/img]).

[wacki]

Shooting 4"x0.5" discs flying at 100 mph with a 40 cal long barreled revolver.

[tdarko]

Cycling. When baseball is over I am going to do triathlons. I am learning technique and building up to a very basic skill level and when I am done playing I have access to some of the best triathlete trainers around being in Texas but first I want to have a certain skill set and not be a novice when I started training. Right now I am probably in between novice and intermediate, my fitness level is pretty good but I am still learning to get quieter and quieter with my upper body. I still have a lot to learn about saddle position, I still find my upper body tense for a lot of my ride, and my saddle adjustments fore and aft are still awkward and could be so much smoother. There is so much more, these are just very basic cycling 101 things newbies need to be able to do.

Swimming I plan on starting sometime this week or next. There is a great aquatic center in Plano about 2 minutes from my house and early morning swims are going to start my day pretty soon. Swimming is also great for my shoulder--baseball.

[NT!]

i have been playing bass like a [censored] lately, i am getting really good again, too bad i am not trying to get bitches to sex me or anything because i TOTALLY COULD even though i'm a dumb [censored] chud

also i have been learning how to provide clinical services to elementary school children, that is surprisingly fun and interesting, kids are [censored] up man

[NajdorfDefense]

Silman's book is fine for rank beginner's. Avoid Reinfeld and Schiller like the plague.

I think the advice to study ANY opening book until one has a firm grasp of middle and some grasp of endgame is really bad advice. Once the tactics and how to win won games are mastered, booking up on 1-2 opening lines as W/B is trivial.

Naj

5...a6, obviously. [Polugayevsky variation, however.]

[tdarko]

NT,

Your post started out pedal to the floor and ended up a nice casual Sunday stroll through the hill country.