Micro Drills Day 6

Day 6 of my micro drills but the first time I am doing them correctly. It took a little while to get used to, but the patterns were pretty much the same. My chess board is becoming a permanent fixture on the living room floor. I may need to start considering getting a table or something.

I was introduced to a chess group called The Grizzly Chess Club today. They are a group on MSN that gets together at the MSN Chess Zone to fellowship. (Side note: I really like the watch and teaching feature of Chess Zone but the interface is horrible. For example the Bishop looks like the Pawn. Using Winboard is much nicer.) I met McRad and Wild1 from that group and they were very helpful and friendly. They spent about an hour or so with me and analyzed my opening play and gave me tips on how to keep my tempo up. Great people IMO.

Bought a used copy of The Complete Chess Player by Fred Reinfeld for $1. It's pretty busted up but what can you get for $1 now days? I'm still looking for a used copy of Winning Chess Openings by Yasser Seirawan and 1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate, but am in no rush since I still have three books on strategy from the library and most of my time is taken up by the De La Maza program.

My girlfriend's cousin, who is 8, is getting pretty good at chess. I taught him how to play about a month ago and he hasn't played more than a dozen games or so but he is already starting to understand basic tactics. He memorized the first four moves of the Ruy and practices king safety. That's a heck of a lot more than I knew at his age. I'm a terrible teacher though so if he starts getting serious he will probably need real instruction. I also notice he doesn't like taking things seriously so he jumps around and sings while we are playing. He gets bored easily so we'll see how long he keeps interested.