Tuesday, February 10, 2009

I wish I'd studied chess as a child

Got my butt kicked twice at the club last night, from two brothers - one aged 9, the other 8. Arrgh.

Must... improve.

9 comments:

From the patzer said...

It's painfull. But you will get over it. They improve more rapidly then us old geezers. You will have many lessons for the youngsters.

likesforests said...

It's amazing watching someone who's lived eight years beat someone who's played chess sixteen years.

BRF Fågelsången said...

Loosing is never fun but loosing to a youngster might be a loss vs a future GM!

Chessaholic said...

CT: yes, and if all else fails, we can always claim we have more "experience" :)

likesforests: I know, the math just seems wrong!

farbror: lol... I guess that's one way to find a silver lining.

Glenn Wilson said...

Make sure you get them to sign your scoresheet before they are famous GMs!

Chessaholic said...

Glenn - glad to see you're still lurking, hope we'll see you post again some day :)

Polly said...

As George Bernard Shaw once said "Youth is wasted on the young." I didn't even know what chess was when I was 8 years old. To think that if I played an eight year old in my first year of tournament chess, I still would have been 10 years older.

The funny thing is I'm 1-0 against IM Justin Sarkar because I beat him when he was about 10 years old and had a 1400 rating. When Hikaru Nakamura was 7 I would play blitz with him. I actually won. Now I get crushed.

Chessaholic said...

Polly: ha! at least you have something cool to say at a cocktail party... "nakamura? oh yeah, I've beat him". :)

BlueEyedRook said...

I didn't really get into chess until Grad school. sigh.

Needless to say. I regret it.

It's hard though for kids with so many distrations -- especially now adays (video games, sports, girls/boys, etc.)