Centaur Chess

Archive for the ‘Chess Books’ Category

Chess, while an incredibly intense game for those involved, can often bore spectators to tears. Many times, with no limits on what is happening, players can take hours trying to decide the best move to make. This is usually unfeasible for any normal game and for certain Chess tournaments, is forbidden. In this case, each player generally has a certain amount of time to make a move in every turn. However, other variations of Chess do exist which also place time limits on the length of the game. All of these new variations can be quite a challenge to players, some vastly more than others.

One of the most difficult Speed Chess games which can be played is called Bullet Chess. In this game, each side has only one minute to play their entire half of the game. At the end of one minute, if neither side has won, the entire points on the board are totaled up and the player with more points in considered to be the winner. The rankings for points are generally determined by using the standard points systems for pieces, with Pawns being worth one, Knights and Bishops worth 3, Kings are generally given a rank of 4, Rooks are worth 5 points, and the Queen is worth 9. At the end of Bullet Chess, if neither side has captured the King, this system is generally used to determine which side accomplished more.

Other forms of Speed Chess are not as intense, however. The form that is generally referred to as Blitz Chess allows players to take up to 5 minutes to play their half of the game, so while still an intensely fast game, there is a little room for some strategic planning that Bullet Chess normally does not allow. Blitz Chess is often found at many different Chess tournaments, as it is a highly-paced, intense game that still requires the playing out of strategy and tactics. Fast Blitz is a combination of Bullet and Blitz, generally giving each player 3 minutes to finish their half of play. All of these styles push players to their limits and learning to do well at these often takes time.

One very unique form of Chess that is gaining popularity is actually called Chess Boxing. This innovative hybrid sport actually takes the game of Chess and blends it with the sport of Boxing, having the players compete against each other in alternating rounds. Born in early 2003, the game was based on fictional accounts of the sport written by Enki Bilal, a French comic book writer. Iepe Rubingh, inspired by these accounts, organized a competition enacting it out.

Players for the game must both be talented boxers and Chess players, for the game moves quickly from one round to the other. This game usually begins with a 4 minute round of Chess followed by a 2 minute round of Boxing, then switching back and forth until a victory is declared. Only one minute is granted between the rounds, forcing all of the players to remain in top condition, both physically and mentally alert. While this version of Chess is rare, it can be exciting to watch and even to play for players who feel up to the challenge!

It was only fitting that I would play chess with my daughters. Long before I became a father in 1999, chess was a big part of my life. My brother and father taught me when I was 5. Since then, I’ve played with friends, family members, even strangers (in a park in Boston, where I lost, badly).

Now I play chess with my daughters. I taught my oldest, Mikayla, when she was 6. She has already beaten me once. Liz, now 5, started learning when she was 3. When the baby, Erica, is older, she and I will also play. The reasons are simple: I did it as a boy, it’s cheap, and it stimulates the imagination. It’s an elegant hedge against TV on a cold winter night.

When the temptation might be to hunker down and watch a movie, my push for chess is my way of resisting the urge of the tube. Last year, I was given Dr. Meg Meeker’s book Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters. This book cautions fathers on the rancidity of the culture that awaits girls, and instructs on how fathers are uniquely positioned to help.

Our oldest girl is 8. So far, so good — but we have a lot ahead of us. Even now, she faces questions that I don’t recall being discussed when I was 8. A dad tries to find strategies to help her blossom, without hitting her over the head with it.

The book, which doesn’t mention chess per se, makes two important points. First point: A girl needs Dad time. She needs to bond with Dad, to know he is there for her, and to be assured of his love for her. When life gets hard — not if but when — she can go to him and she knows he will listen. Today’s bond helps weather tomorrow’s problems.

The second point: Protect her from herself. Wise decision making — maturity — is the final thing that develops in the mind. Teens can rationalize anything for fun. They have the ability to wreak adult havoc but lack the logic to consider consequences.

With this book read and these two points understood, I revisited my stalwart friend and ally, chess. In fact, chess, it turns out, is the perfect companion for raising daughters. It rewards long-term strategy, stimulates the executive decision part of the mind (precisely what Dr. Meeker says develops last), and it helps build a bond. So it brings the question: Could chess be a helpful aid in raising kids?

I’m not the only one to have this thought. Leopold Lacrimosa is a Scottsdale, Arizona chess coach who also runs the American Chess Coaching website. He observes, on the ChessCentral site, that a child who takes up chess “begins to develop logical thinking, critical thinking, decision making, [and] problem solving.”

In July of 2000, Dr. Peter Dauvergne, a professor at the University of British Columbia, Canada, and a visiting lecturer at the University of Sydney, wrote an article for the University of Sydney entitled “The Case for Chess as a Tool to Develop Our Children’s Minds.”

Indeed, a casual internet search of “chess children development” yields well more than a million hits. And how interesting it is, amid the unrest in Russia, that Vladimir Putin sees as his most serious threat, chess champion Garry Kasparov.

Closer to home, chess serves as a means of bonding with my daughter, and a way to show my daughter how to think long-term. Moreover, it provides a vital contrast to the culture at large. Consider the culture. Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, for instance, are young women whose current life situations scream “didn’t think ahead.” And yet, it’s hard to blame the fallen divas. When Lindsay Lohan was younger than even Liz, a beer commercial explicitly told us not to think. “Why ask why?” Yeah, why think? Just do it.

‘Have you done your homework?’

‘In a minute. I’ll do it in a minute.’

How many times and in how many homes does the refrain ring out each night?

Getting a child to do homework – without nagging – is one of the main problems of parents with school aged children For many parents, it is a nightly balancing act between helping and supporting their child – and standing over them.

How Can Parents Help?

* Set a regular time for homework. This immediately eliminates the most common homework hassle. You and your child might decide it will be after school and a snack, or before school when they are fresher. Once that homework time comes around, cling to your cannons and send them off to do it.

* Help them stick to it. A few subtle reminders such as ‘Do you want help with the African project now?’ are better than the more blunt ‘Time for homework now.’

* Provide an area for study. Some kids can concentrate in the busy family room, – just don’t turn on the TV or all eyes go to the flickering screen and the brain quickly follows. Other kids like the seclusion of their bedroom, usually with the radio blaring. (Take solace from recent findings – IQ is raised higher by listening to rock music than to classical music.)

* Brainstorm Ideas. Make it a family game. If the project is to design a toy with wheels, it could be a billy cart. Or, with a few zany ideas from you it could be a Ferris wheel, a merry go round, a wheel of fortune…

* Help them locate information. Show them the library is not the only place with information about Cairns. The travel agent, Uncle Pete who lives there, the neighbours who holidayed there are all great sources of facts and fun.

* Discuss problems. Two brains are always better than one. Four or five brains all firing at once are fantastic.

* Teach time management skills. Show children how to break up a major assignment into smaller chunks of work. Make a list of things to be done, suggest deadlines and always allow extra for the trivial finishing touches that take up so much time.

* Never actually do the work yourself. It might be difficult to see the headings crooked and the lines smudged, but grit your teeth and let it go. Homework is about learning, not perfection.

And if They Still Don’t Do Homework?

‘That’s the school’s problem, not the family’s,’ says Rhonda Fitch, a psychologist with many years dealing with school children and their families.

‘Fights about homework can be very detrimental to family relationships. If the homework isn’t done, let the children go to school without it – and experience the logical consequences of their actions.’

For long term problems, she suggests talking with the teacher. Perhaps the homework is too hard. Or too easy. Perhaps not enough feedback is given.

Frequent, friendly talks can provide valuable information about how the child is working and forge strong links between children, parents and teachers. But in the end ‘it is more important to be a parent to your child than a substitute teacher,’ says Rhonda.

Am I Doing it Right?

Research has shown that one of the most important things to come out of homework is the quality of time parents and children spend together – not the actual work.

You were your child’s first teacher. They learnt to walk and talk didn’t they? They learnt to negotiate and share, they understand the importance of helping others, of telling the truth, of loving and giving. After that, helping them with long division should be a cinch.

Besides, you don’t have to know all the answers. If you’re a bit hazy about why the Wall of China was built, there’s nothing wrong with saying ‘I’m not sure. Let’s see if we can find out.’

That way homework becomes a journey of discovery, a search for knowledge together.

SIDEBAR: The School’s Role

It is up to individual schools to set homework guidelines and amounts. The majority of parental complaints to schools are about not enough homework set. However recent research casts doubts on the assumption that homework increases a child’s learning performance.

Schools’ guidelines should include the following:-

* If children are to value homework, it must be valuable. ‘Busy work’ will soon be recognised – and just as soon not completed.

* Homework should be linked to classroom activities. If ‘Animals’ are studied in class, a grammar sheet on England is not particularly appropriate.

* Homework should always be assessed and meaningful feedback given. Written comments tell a child more than a mark out of ten.

* There should be a reasonable time period set for completion. Homework due in ‘tomorrow’ does not allow for other events in a child’s life.

* Schools should remember that learning takes place in many different environments. After school activities such as chess, tennis, woodwork and music lessons, all extend children in a broad and healthy way.

(c) Jen McVeity, National Literacy Champion.

Listening is as much a key element of a meaningful conversation as is speaking. We go to a party, get introduced, listen to what people are saying and then engage in conversations on a particular topic that both or all of the participants are interested in. We add our ideas, thoughts and opinions on topics that are being discussed in real time.

Twitter is no different. Think of Twitter as a real world conversation – because that’s what it is. Sending out an unsolicited tweet that your company is offering a special deal has about as much impact as interjecting in a cocktail party conversation about politics that you love chess.

How do you listen?

Unless you want to sit in front of the computer and watch 100’s of tweets scroll across your screen, the main way you listen to the conversation is through searching Twitter for posts that are of interest to you.

Searching is your entry into the Twitter chatter, and an invitation to join the party. There are quite a few ways to search, Twitter Search and Twitter Troll just to name a couple.

The next question is what are you searching for?

You are searching for people discussing things that are relevant to you. Searching for your name, company name, products you sell (or would like to sell) and industry chatter are all a great way to start.
These are the conversations you want to join. These are the people you want to interact with.

Respond:

Once you have got the essence of the conversation, and hopefully have a good idea of general mood, enter the conversation by responding to the posts.

Be careful again not to barge in, but add to what is being discussed. This should be very easy since you’re following conversations of importance to you and your business, and your know-how in the area being discussed will have something to add.

When responding your first order of business is to ask yourself “where can I help?” Helping could mean passing along specialist advice, addressing an disappointed customer, or giving an outlook of the topic at hand.

If you find a client who is unhappy with you, your business, or your merchandise this is low hanging fruit in establishing the sincerity of your company. Address these issues up front, and honestly. Take liability and make any wrongs right. You’ll go a long way in restoring the relationship with those customers and attracting new ones due to your stellar customer service.

Back to the conversation you were responding too. Much like the cocktail party, you are integrating into what is being discussed. Establish a presence in the discussion by being on topic – and always add value to the discussion before expecting the discussion to add income for you.

Engage:

The third and final step in the process is to engage. By now hopefully you’ve followed the right conversations, and woven yourself into the discussion by responding and adding value. The last step is to engage others in the dialogue.

Remember as you have been listening and responding, others have been listening and responding to you. It’s a good time to engage your audience. Get them involved. Start new conversations with them by asking questions, soliciting feedback, or asking for advice and opinions.

Full Circle:

Since this is an iterative process, it repeats itself. Listen-Respond-Engage.

The more you do it, the more credibility you gain, the more you learn about your market, and the more you put yourself in the path of prospective clients. At this point you’ll start to see the true benefit from using Twitter for business.   As an active Listener – Responder – Engager you will be able to occasionally share the “Hot Deal” or “Once in a lifetime offer” with your followers and have them actually respond to it.

You’ve build the relationship with your customers where it is appropriate. You can sometimes “help them” by “helping yourself” as well.

Interest, Application and Goals. These three basic but essential strategies are important when it comes to teaching the next generation of students. Educators have to up their game in order to engage this group of students.

One of the best ways for children to learn is when their interest is captured. Notice how children are very motivated in winning when playing games like Monopoly and Chess, or how an entire class of rowdy students become quietly enraptured by a rare video screening session.

Imagine if you could use Mathematical games in class to motivate all your students, including the weaker ones, into learning Maths of their own accord. Word-game sessions can similarly be organised to encourage the learning of the English Language, when students are allowed to pit their language skills against each other before the eyes of their respected teachers. Games such as Hangman can be organised for the entire class with a little preparation, and you can get free samples of Mathematics games which may be played with students at www.shimes-education.com/extra_info_pages.php?pages_id=43

Good videos for class instructions may be hard to come by, but you may surf YouTube and bookmark interesting videos which you may use for the next science lesson such as http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r2YRkTSAG4.

Making subjects applicable to the lives of students makes learning liveable for the less motivated students. A lesson in Science on nutrition may be started with an announcement that “students who wish to grow as tall as Lebron James or girls who want a good figure should study this topic intensively!” Children have the most diverse dreams you can imagine and by reinforcing the message that they can learn it from the books would motivate a fair bit of self-learning.

Helping students set meaningful goals would give them a strong sense of direction and focus. This is needed most of the time as not all lessons may be 100% engaging to every single student of the class. Take the time to set personal goals with each of your students. These goals should put a smile on their faces when they think about it. A hard-working student may ‘Aim for 80 marks and above in all major tests’. A less academically inclined student may ‘Aim to be a pilot when I grow up’, which a teacher must explain, involves getting rather good grades in school. Have your student design an A4 poster of his/her dream or goal and have them paste it on their bedroom wall. Such ‘vision boards’ have proven to work miracles for adults, so can they for children.

PvP is not just a side-quest part of the game in World of Warcraft. Some players just dabble in it, getting some honor points and arena points to land trinkets and basic gear upgrades. Others spend hours every week tweaking and perfecting their characters to a level high enough to actually dominate the game. Whatever you choose to do, you’ll need to spend some time determining what it takes to be the best when you step into that battleground or PvP arena.

•    Having a Strategy Every Time – PvP is like a chess match. If you go in and wing it, you’ll never come out a winner. You need a good strategy and that means studying your opponents. Watch videos, read about certain classes, and prepare for arena grounds or battlegrounds carefully.

•    Plan Ahead – Secondly, plan a strategy for how you’ll handle each class. If you are a Rogue, determine which classes you’re most likely to handle and then adjust your strategies to match how you’ll fight those classes.

•    Know Your Group and Practice Often – Get a group together early and practice often. The only way to be truly effective in PvP is to have a well tuned and highly prepared group of players who know how each other play extremely well. Without that practice and that knowledge, you may as well PUG it out, running around randomly hoping to get lucky. Against good teams, you’ll be toast in a matter of seconds.

Like a general preparing for battle, you need to not only know what you’re facing, but have a strategy for every possible outcome when you step onto the battlefield. Spending hours and hours running the same content and messing up in the same way is pointless.

Well, if you want to get out of that rut – to be the best – to completely dominate anyone in your line of sight – get over to Best World of Warcraft Guide Revew site and check out WOW Leveling Guide and WOW Gold Guide Now. This is the real deal folks. You don’t have time to waste.

Fantasy Football (FF) is a game where fans arrange themselves into a competitive league. Their team wins or loses based on the number of points earned, and the real-life production of the NFL players on their team dictates those points. Most FF leagues employ a head-to-head (H2H) format, and they are generally comprised of 10-12 teams. Beyond that, there is a great deal of diversity in the popular configurations, and these differences demand individual attention to the fantasy football strategy employed.

Redraft

The redraft league is the standard fantasy football league, and most fantasy football strategy centers on it. Scoring will vary from league to league, but the core is the same: draft a team from scratch, and pit that team against another each week. The draft is normally serpentine in format, meaning that if you select first in a 12-team league, you will select again at pick #24, and then again at pick #25.

Tip: The “golden rule” of redraft fantasy football strategy is RB-RB, meaning select a RB with your first two picks. This is not bad advice, but it has led to an obsession that often causes more valuable QBs and WRs to drop in the second and third round. Don’t be afraid to be that guy or gal who bucks the trend.

Auction

In an auction league, each team has a salary cap, perhaps $100, and each player has a minimum salary of $1. In turn, each team nominates a player, and then teams take turns bidding on the player until no team wishes to place another bid. At that point, high bidder wins the player. The auction format adds a great deal of nuance and sophistication to the draft.

Tip: Early in the process, nominate players that you DO NOT want, but would be comfortable purchasing for $1. A winning strategy is to pay 75% or less than the value that you project for a player. However, expect to pay 100% for your first two players, generally RB-RB, but perhaps RB-QB or RB-WR.

Keeper

In a keeper league, teams protect X number of players prior to the draft, and those players remain with their team for the following season. Keeper leagues generally allow teams to protect 2-4 players. Beyond that point and the league is more like a dynasty than a keeper league. Normally, a keeper league restricts the number of consecutive years that a team can protect a player.

Tip: Don’t be enamored with youth and potential in a keeper league. The best fantasy football strategy for keeper leagues is to evaluate players based on the next three seasons. Do not evaluate them based a longer period even if your league allows you to keep then for longer than three seasons.

Dynasty

A dynasty league is a lot like a keeper league. The differences are that it is generally more complex in terms of player contracts, and teams can protect far more than three players, often their entire starting rosters. A dynasty format changes the dynamics of fantasy football because in the latter half of the season, some teams will be more concerned with positioning for next season than actually winning this season.

Tip: As in a keeper league, evaluate in three-season chunks. In dynasty inaugural drafts, many veterans fall. Take advantage of this, and scoop them up. There will be plenty of opportunity to grab youth off the waiver wire.

IDP (Individual Defensive Player)

In an IDP league, the league assigns additional roster spots for defensive players, and the league uses these rather than a team D/ST (defense/special teams). The DB, DL, and LB players score based on their production just as the offensive players do.

Tip: Unless your league has very unusual scoring configuration, except for a handful of elite players, IDP players are generally not worth the value/pick at which teams draft them. The best fantasy football strategy for an IDP league is to focus on offense, and be willing to play the matchups every week rather than be married to any one IDP on your roster.

Overall Points

In the introduction, we mentioned that most FF leagues employ a H2H format. While this is true, there is another format called Overall Points (OP). OP leagues are similar to Rotisserie-style fantasy baseball. Rather than evaluate each team each week, the league evaluates all teams once at the end of the season.

Tip: Forget about bye weeks, matchups, and tough stretches. These aspects balance out over an entire season. Instead, draft based purely on perceived value.

Survivor

In a survivor league, the league removes the participant who scores the least amount of points in a week from the competition. This continues until there is only one participant remaining. Survivor leagues often involve selecting teams, but player-based survivor, such as the one at SuicideFantasyFootball.Com, are becoming very popular.

Tip: Play the survivor format like a game of chess: look ahead. The best play this week may be a better play next. Assign players values in three-week chunks, and then select accordingly.

I think that every forex trader will agree with me when I say, forex trading is the most frustrating learning curve I have ever had to achieve.  Anyone that can say they have had it easy trading forex from day one is either lying or I would love to hear from you. Forex trading I like to compare to chess, it doesn’t take long to learn but it takes a life time to master. That doesn’t mean you can’t be a successful forex trader with the right guidance.

One of the most important things to remember about a successful forex strategy is that a successful strategy for one forex trader doesn’t necessarily mean it will be successful for another. Everybody is different and everybody has different tolerance levels especially when it comes to losing money and winning money, I say winning money because that to can be as equally scary.

To develop a successful forex strategy that suits you is to start off using other people’s strategies, which you can pick up in forums and forex learning websites, then tweak these trading methods to suit your personality. Experience will also play a big part in your success, getting to know how each of the major currency pairs reacts and there general level of volatility is just as important. You may not use the same strategy for each currency pair.

Unfortunately it is a matter of trial and error and more tweaking to see if your method works, luckily many of the big spread betting platforms offer live trading demo accounts so you can practice without risking any real money. You are probably thinking, I want to start earning money straight away, this is where one of the main attributes of a successful trader plays its’ part and that it discipline.

One of the best ways to develop a successful forex strategy and earn at the same time is to join a forex trading club. A forex club is a group of traders that trade together over a webinar that is coordinated by a professional trader. This way you can get professional advice at the shared cost of the group.