Analog-Theater 2.0

It’s no secret that I like chess. I started playing chess when I was a kid. My brother taught me how to move the pieces and some basic opening strategy. As a child, I played against my father and my sisters. When we moved to New York, I met my Uncle Doug and started playing against him. He beat me every time. Afterwards I would swear to myself that I would win next time.

The first tournament I played in was the 2006 Virginia Open. It was a five round swiss style tournament. I lost all five rounds and got a rating of 600 (which is low). Since then I’ve played in three other tournaments. I lost my first twelve games. Slowly my rating has been dropping lower. I am now rated 584.

During the 2008 Tournament I lost the first four rounds and realized something. I’m sick and tired of losing. Losing sucks! Some of my loses were against players rated far higher then me and were learning experiences, but in general losing sucks.

I’ve decided that I’m not going to lose any more. Of course it’s easy to say that. I can even swear on anything I want, but if I don’t do anything about it it’ll never happen. Now I need to come up with a training program to make that desire a reality.

I’ve been going over some books for motivation. The two books I’m reading right now are The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin and Hikaru No Go by Yumi Hotta and Takeshi Obata.

In the Art of Learning, Josh discusses how he became a champion chess player and martial artist. He started his chess training with end game strategies. He also mentioned the playing style of some top ranked grand masters. One of them caught my eye because its the same style that I’m developing, that was GM Michael Short.

Hikaru No Go is a manga series about a kid who starts playing go, a Japanese board game which is thematically similar to chess. His main rival, Akira, is a the son of a champion go player. The series shows both of them trying to become better. Akira plays a game against his father every day. Part way through the series, Hikaru starts playing a game every night against his ghost tutor. Along with that, both of them are part of study groups and review old games.

Elsewhere I have read that there is a correlation because bodily and mental health. So, to get my mind in shape I also have to get my body in shape.

Having said all this, here my plan. I’m going to start getting up early and working out for forty-five minutes. Also, I’m going to eat more fruit and vegetables. This should help me get into good shape for when they take my picture holding the trophy.

Then I will study something. I will start with the end game lessons on Chess Master, as well as the other lessons. Once I finish the lessons I will start studying GM Short’s games and books like Improve your Chess.

After finishing my studies, with the lessons still fresh in my mind, I will play a game against my computer. Chess Master offers opponents rated all the way from 23 to 2980. I will start playing against a 600 and work my way up. I will play each opponent until I beat them and then move on to the next one.

Also, each morning I will read a chapter of Hikaru No Go for encouragement.

A self-help guru once said that to help you achieve your goals, you should have something to help you visualize your goals. I put up a flier for the 2008 National Open with a picture of Gata Kamsky, the highest rated player in the US and who is playing there. Every day when I get up I’ll see the flier and know what it is that I’m aiming for.

All of this is fine and dandy, but its not enough. I need to play as much as possible. I have some vacation time that I have to use or lose. I’m going to try to take off some Saturdays to play in the Kingstown quad (in March and/or April) and for the local anime club meetings. Last time I went to an anime meeting I took my chess set with me and played several games. Robert also said that he will help me practice. I actually went to his place Sunday night and played him. I won of course.

One thing that I think I’m missing is spiritual help. God knows us and answers our prayers. He knows that I want to become a better chess player and if I have faith and be obedient, I’m sure that he will create opportunities to help me improve. The scriptures say “Prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”

I’m almost a week late with this post. Last weekend I went and saw Cloverfield, the new movie by J. J. Abrams (the creator of Lost, the most addictive TV show ever).

There was a lot of hype about this movie. I was waiting for its release ever since I saw the teaser trailer when I went to see Transformers. Since then there were trailers, TV ads, and websites advertising the movie. The problem with hype is that movies frequently don’t live up to it.

The movie was filmed in the same style as the Blair Witch Project. For those unfamiliar with that movie, the whole film looks (on purpose) like it was taped by a guy carrying a camcorder, so you get the camera bouncing around a lot and sometimes it takes a second for the camera to focus when its pointed as something far away. I am not entirely against this style of filming. It does draw you into the movie since it gives you a first person view. The downside is that its very jerky and constantly moving around so you don’t get a good look at whats going on. On top of that, the character they have carrying the camera, Hud, is an idiot. I instantly did not like him. The main character, Rod (played by Michael Stahl-Daved), needs a new best friend. During the party at the beginning of the movie Hud is attracted to Marlena, but does not get the clue that she is not interested in him. Then he finds out about Rob having sex with his girlfriend and tells everyone about it.

For most of the movie is about Rob, Hud, Marlena, and Lily running around New York city trying to escape the monster and rescue Beth.

Honestly, I was disappointed with the movie. There was virtually no character growth. Only Rob was anywhere close to three dimensional. Hud was annoying. The camera was jerky at all the wrong moments. And I hated the ending. I won’t say why because that would ruin it for you. My rating for this movie is a C-, or on the banana scale 2 and a half bananas.

Cloverfield wasn’t the only thing that opened recently. They opened up an Arby’s near my regular job. We’re so happy now. They have really good sandwiches. I love their Chicken Bacon Swiss. Also, corporate owned Arby’s, not franchises, are installing larger soda machines which now include Sobe, the greatest drink there is.

After some more research, here is what movies to look out for.

January 25th: Meet the Spartans. A comedy lampooning everything from the 300 to You got Served to Deal or No Deal.

Jumper comes out on February 15th, 2008. It is based on a novel by Steven Gould. Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Hayden Christensen and Rachel Bilson.

Return to the prehistoric era on March 8th, 2008 with Camilla Belle and Steven Strait in 10,000 BC.

May 1st, 2008: X-men Origins: Wolverine starring Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in a prequel to the X-men movies.

May 2, 2008: Iron Man starring Robert Downey, jr as Tony Stark in another Marvel Comic series turning into a big screen blockbuster/disappointment.

The Chronicles of Narnai: Prince Caspian will be released on May 16th, 2008. Starring William Moseley and Ben Barnes.

May 22nd, 2008 will give us the long awaited Indiana Jones movie. Finally the eternal question will be answered, can Harrison Ford pull it off?

On Friday, June 13th M. Night Shyamalan’s new film The Happening will be released.

June 25, 2008: Is the estimated release date for the as yet unnamed X-Files movie.

July 11th, 2008 is the release date for Hellboy 2: The Golden Army.

July 18th, 2008 is the slated release date for The Dark Knight staring Christian Bale and Heath Ledger, may he rest in peace.

Sometime in July, 2008 Alice will be released, based on American McGee’s macabre video game. Possibly starring Sarah Michelle Gellar.

August 1st, 2008 it’s not over, but that goodness Brendon Frasier is here to save us from the mummy again in the Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

Dragonball returns to torture the wold on August 15th. This will be the live action version of a painful anime. You have been warned.

Criminals beware, on September 12th Frank Castle is back in Punisher: War Zone.

November 7th, 2008 Daniel Craig returns as James Bond in Bond 22.

On November 21st, 2008 Harry Potter returns to the big screen in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

Behold the minor changes to the scheme here. I am working on losing some weight for a photo op, so I can put a cool picture behind the title. I have a nice fully clothed, eye catching idea. I just want to look better before I do it. I think I’ll even use styling gel so that my hair obeys my commands when I do it. A friend of mine suggested that we title the columns, not just the post so that everyone will know at a glance who is writing what. I created a test page and Robert didn’t say that he didn’t like it, so I decided to add the code to my half. He is more than welcome to follow suit. He is also welcome to join me in the photo op. Most likely, this change is just one of many as we prepare the website for the great multitudes that will come out of the wilderness to our promised website.

As you might have noticed, my working title is Jared’s Chess, Movies, and Video Games. After five and a half seconds of thought, I came up with that. The reasons are: first my name is Jared, second I will be writing about chess, movies, and video games, and third I couldn’t think of anything else.

Since chess is the first subject in my list, all me to give you some updates. Round 8 had finished at Corus. Here are the current standings:

Group A
• 1. M. Carlsen 5½
• 2. V. Kramnik, L. Aronian 5
• 4. T. Radjabov, V. Anand 4½
• 6. S. Mamedyarov, M. Adams, V. Ivanchuk, L. van Wely 4
• 10. J. Polgar, V. Topalov, P. Leko 3½
• 13. P. Eljanov, B. Gelfand 2½

Group B
• 1. S. Movsesian 6
• 2. E. Bacrot 5½
• 3. N. Short 5
• 4. P. Harikrishna, D. Stellwagen, J. Smeets 4½
• 7. I. Nepomniachtchi, E. L’Ami, M. Krasenkow 4
• 10. Y. Hou, H. Koneru, I. Cheparinov 3½
• 13. G. Sargissian 2½
• 14. W. Spoelman 1

Group C
• 1. F. Caruana 6
• 2. D. Reinderman 5½
• 3. P. Negi, A. Braun, J. van der Wiel 5
• 6. F. Nijboer, E. Grivas 4½
• 8. M. van der Werf 4
• 9. A. Ushenina, P. Carlsson 3½
• 11. S. Li, I. Krush 3
• 13. Z. Peng 2
• 14. D. Ruijgrok 1½

If any of you have read other chess blogs, then you probably heard about the match between GM Short and GM Cheparinov that was suspended over a handshake. There is a video of it on youtube. Cheparinov refused to shake Short’s hand. The tournament director ruled the match a forfeit, but after Cheparinov gave a written apology, they let them redo the match. FIDE has come out saying now that if you refuse to shake hands, you lose.

Item 2: movies. I’ve decided to do a regular feature, Dinner and a Movie. I might also bring back Lame Movies (I still have a list of them, but I don’t want to watch them). I saw Cloverfield recently and need to type up my thoughts on that. I’ll tell you this much, I was not impressed with it.

Finally, video games. Just to make sure everyone knows, next week I’m going down to Raleigh, NC to interview Raychul who does the Spike and Raychul podcast which is about video games.

I think that about covers it. Good night and good hunting.

This weekend has been fairly busy. Lots of news. First, and not most importantly, I heard about the new Soul Caliber 4 game coming out. Check out who’s making an appearance.

In other news, here are the standings after the second round of Corus. Honestly, I’m surprised. I thought Anand, Kramnik, and Topalov would be doing better than this. This is only the second round, there is still a chance for them to get their game in gear.

Group A:
• 1. L. Aronian, M. Carlsen 2
• 3. T. Radjabov 1½
• 4. V. Kramnik, M. Adams, V. Ivanchuk, J. Polgar, P. Leko, L. van Wely 1
• 10. S. Mamedyarov, P. Eljanov, V. Topalov, B. Gelfand, V. Anand

Group B:
• 1. P. Harikrishna, D. Stellwagen, J. Smeets, I. Cheparinov, E. Bacrot, N. Short 1½
• 7. S. Movsesian, I. Nepomniachtchi, G. Sargissian, M. Krasenkow 1
• 11. E. L’Ami, H. Koneru ½
• 13. Y. Hou, W. Spoelman 0

Group C:
• 1. S. Li, F. Caruana, A. Braun, J. van der Wiel 2
• 5. D. Reinderman, P. Carlsson 1½
• 7. M. van der Werf, E. Grivas 1
• 9. Z. Peng, I. Krush ½
• 11. A. Ushenina, F. Nijboer, P. Negi, D. Ruijgrok 0

I saw the series premiere of The Sarah Conner Chronicles. It sounded interesting when I first heard about it, but I didn’t have too many expectations except for Summer Glau who played River in Firefly and Serenity. All and all I was impressed by the show. The story is staying true to the first two movies. Sarah and John are trying to stay out of sight from the authorities and are scared of terminators showing up at any moment, which sure enough they do. John meets Cameron who turns out to be a terminator sent back to protect him. I won’t spoil it any more than that, but you should check it out.

I was talking to a friend of mine about what I could do to make this site better. Robert and I have a few test pages up where we’re looking at other color schemes and logos and such. One of the things that my friend suggested was being more specific about our target audience. I have been jumping around with movies, books, video games, chess, anime, news, travel, and my life. From now on I’m going to start narrowing down my focus. Chess is something I will definitely keep.

Speaking of chess, the Corus Chess Tournament is this weekend. I had almost forgot about it with my own stuff going on. This is one of the first big international tournaments of the year. There have a very nice line up. There are three grandmaster divisions.

Group A (name, country, rating)
• GM Viswanathan Anand IND 2799
• GM Vladimir Kramnik RUS 2799
• GM Veselin Topalov BUL 2780
• GM Shakhryar Mamedyarov AZE 2760
• GM Peter Leko HUN 2753
• GM Vassily Ivanchuk UKR 2751
• GM Levon Aronian ARM 2739
• GM Boris Gelfand ISR 2737
• GM Teymour Radjabov AZE 2735
• GM Magnus Carlsen NOR 2733
• GM Michael Adams ENG 2726
• GM Judit Polgar HUN 2707
• GM Pavel Eljanov UKR 2692
• GM Loek van Wely NED 2681

Group B
• GM Ivan Cheparinov BUL 2713
• GM Etienne Bacrot FRA 2700
• GM Sergey Movsesian SVK 2677
• GM Gabriel Sargissian ARM 2676
• GM Pentala Harikrishna IND 2664
• GM Nigel Short ENG 2645
• GM Michal Krasenkow POL 2636
• GM Daniel Stellwagen NED 2625
• GM Humpy Koneru IND 2612
• GM Ian Nepomniachtchi RUS 2600
• GM Erwin L’Ami NED 2581
• GM Jan Smeets NED 2573
• WGM Yifan Hou CHI 2527
• IM Wouter Spoelman NED 2424

Group C
• GM Fabiano Caruana ITA 2598
• GM Friso Nijboer NED 2578
• IM Arik Braun GER 2536
• GM Dimitri Reinderman NED 2533
• GM Parimarjan Negi IND 2526
• GM Efstratios Grivas GRE 2509
• GM Shilong Li CHI 2502
• GM Pontus Carlsson SWE 2501
• GM John van der Wiel NED 2490
• WGM Anna Ushenina UKR 2484
• WGM Irina Krush USA 2473
• GM Zhaoqin Peng NED 2461
• IM Mark van der Werf NED 2389
• Dennis Ruijgrok NED 2329

It looks like everyone is going to be there except for Gata Kamsky. Maybe next year I can see about going. I guess that I should focus on my upcoming Virginia Open. That is next weekend. Wish me luck.

I was just reading that the movie The Golden Compass was not doing as well as anticipated in the US, but it was doing okay world wide. The international box office gross is over $240 million. The US gross is only $51,379,000. The budget for the film as $180 million. After a visiting a few sites about movie distribution and how much of the gross the company gets, I have learned that more or less half the gross goes to the makers of the movie. Since we haven’t even started with DVD sales, this movie should make a good profit. I plan on getting the DVD myself when it comes out.

Now, I have just listed these numbers for a reason. Michael Lynne, the co-head of New Line Studios said that they were not sure if they were going to do the sequel, The Subtle Knife, due to the US box office sales not meeting there expectations. They are going to wait a little while before deciding. All of the actors from the movie have agreed to do the second film, and the third film too I think. We need to organize and tell New Line studios that we want them to make the sequel. Everyone needs to dig deep into their pockets and find the money to buy another ticket. See this film a second time. Remember, every ticket counts.

I just wish more people read this and would do what I told them. I can’t wait to have the influence of other websites.

Someone told me that today is New Years day. I guess that would explain the parties last night (which I didn’t bother going to since I wanted to go to bed early) and the fact there were no more pages on my page a day calender. Since it’s New Years, I guess I need to come up with resolutions. Let’s the usual resolution is lose 60 pounds. Read the scriptures from cover to cover. Make this website successful (ie. get rich). Increase my chess rating and/by winning tournaments. I think those are some good resolutions.

You might have noticed that I haven’t been posting anything new in the fiction section. An old friend of mine and I are collaborating on a piece. Hopefully we’ll be able to publish it, or at least an early draft, here. I’ll wait until we have several chapters written before I suggest it.

Now I need to work on getting this site 2008 compatible.