I tend to do a lot of thinking and very little doing.  Some might call this being contemplative but it seems like contemplation is simply a gentler way of calling it procrastination.  What the difference actually is, I don't really care to define but it seems to me that the discrepancy all comes down to urgency.  If there is something that I need to do in order to keep others happy and they might be waiting on me, then it's procrastination; but, if I have been mulling over and using a lot of time on an idea then it's contemplation. 

One of my many mottoes in life is "work will set you free."  Those five words ring true for almost everything in life and how one lives his life.  How can I be successful in whatever I choose to do with my life without putting work into it?  How many people can you think of who are extremely successful but have put little or no effort into it?  Look at Gene Simmons as an example.  He is a marketing genius, knows six languages, is a millionaire, leads Kiss, and has locked down a Playboy bunny as a wife.  Did he hit the lottery?  There is something deeper here...

A friend once told me that "vitality" is one of the driving engines of history.  No historical figure has become an icon in the annals of history by lounging around with no life's work.  It might be aiming high to look for a place in history as if it's the only thing that matters.  I already know that I have missed my prime for being a genius.  Almost all geniuses have found their eureka before they were my age... through work of course.  Musicians spend their lives learning instruments, perfecting their play, and exercising their creativity usually to be branded lunatics by family.  Do you think chess grandmasters get that far by simply being talented and letting their lives take their natural course?  Of course not! 

Ok ok... so what of it?  In summary I can say this: Nothing comes of nothing, a little something comes from a little something, and a lot will come from a lot.  I was once "preached" to by a co-worker that things will happen if "it's part of God's plan."  Mom, if you're reading this, I'm sorry, but I simply cannot buy that.  The God's plan is a cop out and excuse for not working hard.  If God wants me to have something, He will give it to me.  Really?  There seems to be no way out of this arguement if you plan on being consistent.  Einstein came up with the theory of relativity both special and general... because of divine inspiration?  You'd be hard pressed to believe that it's not because he was a genius who enveloped his life around his work fully instead of this weak arguement.

The amount of dedication and discipline that one puts into life the more results will be yielded.  I believe my life to be a case in point.  High school demanded little work from me and little work it got despite being given good marks probably because my personality worked well with the teachers.  Getting a BA was extremely easy for me.  There were few times when I felt compelled to try my complete hardest.  There were times that I was stressed out but not because there was too much for me to do... I was stressed out that I wouldn't be able to get my discipline together enough to complete assignments.  I always did even if in the nick of time.  I only really editted one or two papers in the whole 5 years... because I didn't want to work.  I could put out a 15 page paper in a day with 20 sources and hand it in the next day to still get an 80.  Sometimes I got myself into trouble but always seemed to manage quite fine.  In the end, I thought I had faked my way through University only to find out that it's just easy to me.  What could happen if I actually gave my 100% into something?

I've ridden my career in water and sewer for 10 years and advanced quite well... but this can't be it.  I will not be an excavator operator my whole life.  Water and sewer doesn't challenge me enough for me to be satisfied.  I mean, I was newly promoted so I am a little excited to move up, but I don't want this to be my life's work.  I tried being a teacher and I didn't like that either.... but it's on the right track I think.  There is a coin flip to be considered here too (like with most things).  If you invest a certain amount of time into something, are you obligated to follow through with it even if you will be miserable?  It's like being pot committed in a poker hand... you gotta go all in sometimes because what else is there to do when you're the short stack?  Isn't that so true when it comes to my company.  Almost all of the workers there are middle class... but still short stacked.  I, like they, have no other plays except to invest their time and seeing where their cards ride out to. 

Well, eventually, I plan on folding and trying a new hand.  It's gotten a bit more complicated lately though since I am now married!  I feel like I've had my chance to make something out of my life but I've folded and gone another direction.  Now it's time for my wife to try a change in her life while I grind it out.  It might sound like I'm being pessimistic here but I really am not.  I'm excited for her and I hope it all works out in the end towards her (and ultimately our) happiness... because she was never given a chance to try this before. 

The question becomes, how can we make this work out?  The answer is "vitality."  Once again, work will set us free!  I will need to work hard to keep us afloat while she attends school.  She will need to work hard to get through school (hopefully at the top of her class).  I feel confident that if we both work hard, nothing will stop us.  Unlike poker, life isn't about bad beats with cards and gambling.  Life is about reaping the fruits of your labour.

...because on occasion they can kick your asses.

My final round was a real 4 hour grind session.  It was the final day of the tournament... so David and Kris were itching to get out of Dodge in a real hurry.  Kris lost his game in good fashion but probably took 2.5 hours to do it and I was more concerned about winning my game.  In preparation for my opponent, Nicka Kalaydina, I saw that she played both 1.d4 and 1.e4.  I opted to not prepare at all because I had literally no sample of how she would play.  In the end, she played 1.c4.  I continued with a nice Dutch-like set up without playing the overly commital f5 until she had played d3.  The d3 move signifies that it would take her two moves to play d4 which is probably the greater threat to my dutch set up (i learned that lesson against Kucjaz).  The opening went well enough until she created a ton of pressure along my a file which I was unable to prevent or counter.  I had good central control with my pieces but in the end I gave a pawn up for the initiative. 

Her queen required a good 3 or 4 moves to get back over to her kingside to defend so I thought i would try to take advantage of this.  I made the typical f4 push to try and crack her kingside open but she defended very very well.  I even played g5 and later g4 i think... with my pieces all lined up nicely at jumping into nice squares.  She defended these threats and took on a proper continuation... crash open the centre and go for a better endgame.  This is precisely what she did do and despite some inaccuracies I was unable to stop her.  Analysing this game with Rybka later, I was stunned by her accuracy and defence.  She was a monster on the board and walking away from the game 4 hours later I felt no regret for I feel like I played solidly and strongly... she just played better than I.  She had lost many points this tournament and only really beat players who were lower rated than her... the win against me was one which only slightly dulled the loss of rating for her... and affected me very little.

My play in the tournament with a score of 3/9 (two wins and two draws) gained me 38 points to a cool 1694 with a 1751 performance rating.  It's pretty good for me and I would love to have broken the 1700 mark but perhaps next time...

Thinking about the 4th round was a bit tricky because I didn't really expect to win this game.  Preparing for it was difficult simply because I hate playing against the English.  My opponent used to be a 2100 player who had sunk away into nothingness since (1900 =}) and had many games in the database.  Perusing his games I saw that he had employed many openings against strong players.  Against those like Sasata, Yearwood, and Grumic, he goes into 1. e4 on many occasions and moreso recently, but the bulk of his games were 1.c4 (English for non-chess players).  So I spent some time in Neil McDonalds's "Starting Out: The English" and found a line that I would be comfortable playing.  The typical set up is with pawns on h7 g6 f5 e5 d6 c6 b7 a7 (like a dutch) threatening to roll the kingside with f4 or whatever he would allow me to do.  McDonald warned in the book that by playing 1. c4 f5! (exclam for reasons you don't know yet!) I was commiting to something that works best if I know for certain that my opponent wouldn't play d4 thus transposing into a straight dutch.  I felt that I could take that risk and that I have talked with Steer enough to manage playing a Dutch alright if need be. 

As it turns out, Kuczaj did play d4 eventually and wound up kicking me around with many threats out of the opening which I needed to defend or else i would have been dropping exchanges left and right... I already had an isolated pawn afterall... at the beginning of the middlegame.  It wasn't nice and I knew it.  I needed to relieve the pressure on my queenside AND emancipate my pieces from the tyranny of their own pawns (at the sacrifice of a pawn if necessary).  At a critical moment in the game I found the right moves according to our Lord and Saviour, Rybka 3 multi processor.  Those moves allowed me to play the critical break f4! which I would not have been able to play had I not played f5 on the first move.  So, in retrospect I give 1.f5 and exclam!!!!!  His pieces were  discombobulated with a rook unprotected and the opening up of the King's pawns... thus making a knight sacrifice possible on g3.  If he takes the knight on g3 with his f pawn I get Qe4+ then Rxf1+ and finally Qxd5 which leaves me up the exchange and a pawn for no compensation.  He did not make the moves I had analyzed that he should make... which meant that he must have been doing something wrong. 

A sidenote:  Through the course of the game I could sense that my opponent was either extremely confident, deaf, or drunk.  I have a feeling that all three of these options coincided into one being and thus created the wet dream of every chess player: a choke artist.  I noticed also that my opponent was a smoker since he took three 10+ minute breaks during the game to go smoke his Benson and Hedges.  He is a slow walker too with the smoking area SO far away, this left my opponent with a lot less time than I had.  Perhaps he thought that letting me mull over the crushing position he had left me in would cripple me psychologically.  It did not... I was on to him (if there was anything to be on to).  I still had an hour left on my clock and he had roughly 20 minutes... at move 23. 

From here on I played strong moves pinning his knight to his queen, threatening rook skewers and mating attacks at every corner.  My opponent should have been squirming in his seat but he just sat calmly (or oblivious to the things I planned to do to him).  He made a few more moves that seemed logical enough if not for my increasing pressure on his pieces and king... also threatening to free my light squared bishop who had been asleep the whole game.... he would be a monster on this board and I knew it.  Once my bishop was out, the rooks would be connected which is particularly dangerous for his rook in the middle of the board and his king exposed the way it was in a general sense.  My plan psychologically was to make him think like crazy over his position and use up his time but my plan didn't work!  Instead, he left the tournament hall for what I assumed was another smoke break... clearly I was stressing him out.  I wandered around a bit as his time was at 16 minutes and I had over an hour still.  I talked with Vlad a bit, and David Zhang, and then saw Trevor.  While I was talking with Trevor I spied out of the corner of my eye... my opponent sitting in the bar ordering food!  Bah!!  I kept an eye on him since I intended to follow him back to the board if he ever returned.  Perhaps he was forfeiting on time because he didn't want to play this position?  It's hard to say what he was thinking...  He returned to the board with 40 seconds left on his clock and made a move at the 5 second mark.  It was weird because I was watching him the whole time and he didn't once look at the clock.  I made a strong queen move immediately to dismantle his counterplay then continued to observe his face.  He looked at his clock again (move 30), didn't really react to it then proceeded to go into a deep think only to be interrupted by my hand in front of his face offering the handshake of a game lost on time. 

Loudly (deaf?) my opponent opined that he hated clocks.  I asked him if he wanted to look over the game and he said no.  As I was setting the pieces up again he asked "do you want to go upstairs to look at the game?"... I nodded.  It's the universal sign of affirmative... ears or no ears.  We left the playing area where I handed my carbon copy to the donation dish and wrote the result on the board... "Shall we go up?" I inquired.  "I think I will just go to my room." He said and slowly shuffled away. 

The moral of the story?  I think there are two.  First, if you feel like you are lost in the opening, find a plan to free yourself and get counterplay.  This can be quite psychologically damaging to any player because if he allows his advantage to be taken away despite playing well in the opening it may frighten him/her...  Second, if you feel that you are in the middle of a psychological head game judging by behaviour as well, be aware of the possibilities and do not let it bother you.  I felt like he wanted to make me squirm while he went for smoke breaks... and because I am younger perhaps I like to play my games more quickly.  Both assumptions were untrue.  I think it's best to counter the head games with strong moves and justify that your confidence will be stronger than any flimsy trick. 

Don't kid yourself.  I am reminded of a saying by the famous Stephen Colbert.  "If you have to ask yourself if you are part of a cult.... you are."  The same thing goes here.  If you have to ask yourself if your opponent is playing head games with you... he is.  In my experience chess players are not idiots.  If they do something, 99% of the time it is completely intentional (unless they have a mental illness that causes them to act involuntarily: the other 1%).  If my view of the nature of a chess player appears to be too cynical I still feel that it's important in chess to be aware of the possibility that head games are there. 

So far my cynicism and confidence in this tournament has served me VERY VERY well.  Take my game with Sasa Grumic for instance.  I didn't let his rating beat me... I was determined to make him prove that he is master strength.  I feel like I definitely scared him... and for the couple days after I blundered the simple mate for Grumic I flipped him off behind his back at every opportunity.  But, last night, I ran into Porper to discuss the round a bit for some light chatter when Sasa came to talk as well.  I wasn't sure what to say but in the end I decided to make amends with him by apologizing for bailing on the postmortem.  I told him that I was upset and so on.  He seemed taken aback but friendly by my candor.  It's good that I found out that he is a nice guy. 

Today David and Kris went to Elk Island with one of David's friends... I decided to opt out of this adventure.  While I know it will be a nice time, I feel the need to recharge my batteries with some music sans talking.  When I was in Spain with my sister and her friend, we toured around for about a week.  In the middle of the week she told me that she needed some alone time to regain her centre for a bit.  It wasn't something personal and I certainly wasn't meant to take it that way because I understood that solitude can be good for the spirit.  She is such a nice person but I think the fear of her losing her amicability for a moment because of exhaustion could come.  At the risk of avoiding even the possibility of a blow up, she took half a day off.  I thought that was quite honest of her... and thus I am taking a page out of her book for I know the consequences of spending too much time with the same person/people for 10 days straight. 

When I did shift work in Alberta with the pipeline crew we worked 10 days in and took 4 days off in between.  By the 8th day of each shift I was ready to start ripping heads off for the slightest indiscretion.  On a few occasions I did tear into people... it's healthy for me to do that sometimes or at least fantasize about it.  Usually I end up getting amused by what I would say and my mood turns around.  Other times I try to find solitude somewhere to work ahead and clear my brain out and put everyone back to zero.  You see, I operate on a demerit system.  Three demerits per week for most people and you may become a victim of my wrath.  SOME people get fewer demerits than others.  Some people start out on thin ice and there are 2 words between pleasantness and EQUILIZATION! BOOM!  If you have to ask yourself if you are one of these people and think about it considerably... then you are.

On the other hand, there are some people who get 10 demerits per week because we understand each other.  That is why they are my closer friends afterall. 

Ok, that's enough digressions for now.  I'll post more after the fifth round.  I am playing an Englishman who has no CFC rating but has a FIDE rating of 2100+ on 14 games.  I'm not certain of his strength but I feel like he will underestimate me based on my rating... and I intend on making him prove that he is 2100.