Magazine Month

November was a catch-up month for me and my last few issues of Chess Life. I played through every game and quiz in the July, August, September, October and November issues. It took about 5-6 days per issue and as usual I was able to make a little more progress on weekends than during the workweek. I eagerly await the Decmber issue and I'll try to tackle and finish that prior to mid-month.

I also managed to get through the roughly 268 pgaes of "How to Think Ahead in Chess" by Horowitz and Reinfeld. I bought it off a clearance rack in half price books for a buck and never really thought I'd actually read it. At heart it's a basic repetoire book based on the Stonewall Attack, the Sicilian Dragon and the Lasker variation of the QGD. For a book originally published 59 years ago in 1951, the surprise is that the Lasker is relatively the same. The Sicilian Dragon is somewhat recognizable. I hadn't seen anything on the Stonewall Attack since high school but I've been dabbling with the Dutch Stonewall with roughly identical themes. Under the eveything old is new again theory, I rolled out my attempt at the Stonewall Attack in my first game at the Austin Kids tourney today and managed to win in spite of it. I won my first two games against a 1365 and 1799 before losing in the final round to a 1950 player.

I'm making my New Year's plan for chess in 2011 and hope to finish roughly 18 books along with the 12 monthly issues of Chess Life next year. Right now I'm prepping for the Austin Club Championship on Jan 7-9th and the Temple Tourney on Jan 22nd. Happy Holidays to all!