Doe Mountain Calm Before The Storm

Memorial Day 09

I had an American moment today as I was waiting for a friend to pick me up from a trail head. My keys were in the center compartment chillin with some tapes, along with the shiny spare tucked inside a leather wallet. And the doors were locked. I don't know how they became locked. Lets just say it happened. So sitting on the trunk of a dusty green car, Ipod battery fatigued, at a mountainous beginning to endless trails I had no choice but to soak it all in. And it couldn't have been a more American scene without Abe Lincoln walking out of the woods swinging a Happy Meal. It didn't hit me until a spankin new car with a "Women for Obama" sticker drove up to the trail blasting country music and sporting a curious dog looking out the back. The music really set the scene. A lone dirt road with a crooked reddish "Dust Abatement" sign resting half on some rocks. At least a half dozen small stars and stripes flags sticking out of the ground, waving in the wind in front of an oddly formed middle class subdivision. Rain on one side of the sky, creeping closer and sun on the other, like clouds had never existed. A large white cross maybe ten feet high, to one side, oddly placed and for no obvious reason. No one else was really around, except for the woman and her dog walking past the log fence and bypassing the trial to walk straight up a small rocky hill. I'm pretty sure that's what its all about and I may have just written a country song.

US Chess Championship 09 Finale

Hikaru Nakamura

St. Louis, MO, May 12, 2009 -- Defending champion Yury Shulman, of Barrington, Ill., and Varuzhan Akobian, of North Hollywood, Calif., broke from the pack to take the joint lead of the 2009 U.S. Chess Championship at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis.


Saint Louis, May 13, 2009 -- After five rounds of the U.S. Chess Championship, Michael Brooks of Kansas City, Mo., has an impressive three points, putting him just one point out of first place. Brooks, of Kansas City, has defeated two grandmasters with ratings higher than 2600, including the seventh- and 15th-ranked players in the country.


St. Louis, Mo., 14 May, 2009 -- The leaderboard flipped Thursday in the seventh of nine rounds of the 2009 U.S. Chess Championship held at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis. At the end of the day, the three top seeds coming into the tournament, and a 17-year-old rising star, shared first place.


Saint. Louis, May 16 -- After eight rounds of tense competition at the 2009 U.S. Chess Championship, two young players enter the final round tied for the lead and the title.


Saint Louis, May 17 -- Hikaru Nakamura, 21, of White Plains, N.Y., won the the 2009 U.S. Chess Championship after winning in the ninth and final round at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis.

It's like water boarding, if by water you mean bacon.

My current game. I am white. Place your bets.

1.d4 d5
2.Nf3 Bg4
3.h3 Bh5
4.c4 c6

US Chess Championship 09

Their is a St Louis Tourny going on for the US Chess Championship. Yes, yes their is. Here is the site: http://www.saintlouischessclub.org/About/Profile

And here's a round up of the goings on so far:

ST. LOUIS, May 5, 2009 -- Two-time American Women's Chess Champion Jennifer Shahade helped kick off festivities for the 2009 U.S. Chess Championship in St. Louis with a marathon afternoon of 25 simultaneous contests against members of the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, host of this year's U.S. Chess Championship May 7-17 in the showpiece, new $1 million facility.

ST. LOUIS, May 7, 2009 -- Aloha Mischeaux, a finalist in the fourth season of the popular American Idol TV show, kicked off the 2009 U.S. Chess Championship in rousing fashion with a stirring rendition of the national anthem at the opening ceremonies for the tournament at the Saint Louis University Museum of Art on Thursday, May 7.

Saint Louis, May 9, 2009 - The defending champion of the U.S. Chess Championship, along with the top two rated players in the United States all were victorious Friday in the first round of the 2009 championship at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis.

St. Louis, MO May 10, 2009: It's the big clash of the contenders and rivals in round three of the 2009 U.S. Chess Championship at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis, with the early top board pairing of the defending champion, Yury Shulman from Illinois, and the #1 seed and favorite for the title, Gata Kamsky from Brooklyn. The top two are on full points and leading the chase for bonus $64,000 Fischer Memorial Prize for any player with a perfect sweep of 9-0. The prize is in recognition of the phenomenal feat of the late American world champion Bobby Fischer, who won 11-0 to take the 1963/64 title - the only player in the long and distinguished history of the U.S. Championship to win with a sweep.

Colle Zukertort Revolutionized

I recently read Zuke 'Em The Colle Zukertort Revolutionized by David Rudel and I have to say, this is a book for us. Not the masters or the grand masters but us, the silent swarm of class, coffee house and club players that stealthily infiltrate society. The cover is odd no doubt, but don't be put off by it. It represents a new style in chess analysis and writing. Openness perhaps even on a daring scale. A lot of people don't respect the Colle of any variation. You may be one of them, I don't know. But Zuke 'Em acknowledges this lack of respect and goes one step further. We know the system has problems, but hey, lets address them, lets take a sparkling new unconventional look and see what we come up with. And we'll find some things. Like many of the toxic beliefs against the system are unfounded. And that black knight is going to c6 regardless of the cunning plan you've been working on for the last two hours.

As someone who has used the Colle for many years. Starting with the Koltanowski and slowly transitioning into the Zukertort by what seems to be an evolution of necessity. They're are a few articles in the book I found invaluable. Or at least I hope that whey will be. Chapter three dips into every piece on the board and notes what its good for and what its probably going to do. Chapter six covers Bf5. How I loathe Bf5. More importantly it reads like chess players think which is why it isn't sitting on the shelf, in the half read chess book section.

P.s. The answer to number 4? Because shes a lesbian.