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Trials of a woodpusher: Adventures in chess, backyard gardening, and maybe whisker chopping

CBLindsay said:
So what you are saying is, as long as you are bring as gift (such as slices of some guys soap that smells like cookies) you aren’t really a stalker? Good to know...good to know.
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Well, there was no contact. He just left them at the door. When should I check my LARGE porch for soap? 😂 😂 😂
 
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CBLindsay said:
So what you are saying is, as long as you are bring as gift (such as slices of some guys soap that smells like cookies) you aren’t really a stalker? Good to know...good to know.
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Shhhhh, I have a camera...it’s not stalking...LOL! Yes...leave some guys soap...it’s all good.
 
@woodpusher if I can ask a chess question. My 10 year old and I have started playing a game of chess every day. I end up beating her of course but I try to stretch it out the best I can. I figure if I get her use to the pieces movements I'm doing ok. Of course she gets frustrated in losing. Any tips on helping a beginner or someone teaching a beginner.

Sorry if this is a derail of your thread.
 
The Monkey said:
@woodpusher if I can ask a chess question. My 10 year old and I have started playing a game of chess every day. I end up beating her of course but I try to stretch it out the best I can. I figure if I get her use to the pieces movements I'm doing ok. Of course she gets frustrated in losing. Any tips on helping a beginner or someone teaching a beginner.

Sorry if this is a derail of your thread.
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Sorry, dads have to win...tis dad law.
 
Dad would NEVER let me win when I was learning, but oh how sweet that first victory was! Way better than finally winning at "H-O-R-S-E"!
 
An excellent question, John. To help me gauge an applicable response level, are you both casual play-at-home "it's just a fun game" players, or does she play at the school club? I'll try anyways....

side-switching : twice a game, let her switch sides. Once she starts to win, drop that to once per game. You can also avail yourself of the switch-side option to put her in a position where she should be able to execute the win.

FRITZ & CHESTER is an excellent 3-pack of software which I found both fun and informative. Trying to beat the engine at the last challenge is not easy.

Another option where you can both play the same side in co-op mode, is to logon to a site (or download stockfish for your phone) , play vs the computer at a low level, and discuss what move you should make (why is this move good or why don't we try this?), playing it out on a real board, but at 10, she's probably more computer savvy than we are. I really like this option as it makes her talk about what her thinking process is, you'll probably learn stuff as well by doing this.

The key is to keep it fun.
 
woodpusher said:
An excellent question, John. To help me gauge an applicable response level, are you both casual play-at-home "it's just a fun game" players, or does she play at the school club? I'll try anyways....

side-switching : twice a game, let her switch sides. Once she starts to win, drop that to once per game. You can also avail yourself of the switch-side option to put her in a position where she should be able to execute the win.

FRITZ & CHESTER is an excellent 3-pack of software which I found both fun and informative. Trying to beat the engine at the last challenge is not easy.

Another option where you can both play the same side in co-op mode, is to logon to a site (or download stockfish for your phone) , play vs the computer at a low level, and discuss what move you should make (why is this move good or why don't we try this?), playing it out on a real board, but at 10, she's probably more computer savvy than we are. I really like this option as it makes her talk about what her thinking process is, you'll probably learn stuff as well by doing this.

The key is to keep it fun.
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Thanks. We just started playing this past week. This is just for fun at home. I haven't played since high school so it has been a long time.
I like the swap sides idea. I'll also check out the computer stuff. Right now I think she just likes having dads undivided attention.
 
As reported on Friday, recurring power blips Thursday night toasted my wonderfully powerful* WIN XP machine (purchased 2018/08/31 based on the case sticker), which contains my correspondence chess work in addition to the databases I have built for it over the past 10 years. Managed to get the system to boot, and the RAID'd files are intact but I can't use the PC for anything (even notepad fails to start), so a new machine is in the process of being built.

By mid-week, I should have it for use:
- ASUS Ryzen 7 3700x (8 core, 16 thread)
- CPU liquid cooler
- 64GB RAM
- 500GB SSD (my Chess DB is just over 300GB right now)

Will be quite a bump over my old system in processing speed. Everything is about speed, and the liquid cooler is because I run 7/24 x 365 at 100% CPU busy.
 
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