what type are you?

I'm universal.

What I love about it is how the guy and his hilarious acting fulfil exactly the function of a font: adding ornament /style/ form to meaning.

After you do the quiz, listen to the other fonts; I think they are fantastically beautiful.

last round at amateur team

I am going to show you hopefully all my games, but let's start with the last one, which I happily won. It's so important to win your last game.

Chen, Jasmine --Vicary, Elizabeth

1. Nf3 d5

2. g3 Nf6

3. Bg2 c6

4. d3 Bg4

5. c3 Nbd7

6. Nbd2 e5

7. Qc2 Bc5

8. e4 dxe4

9. dxe4 O-O

10. O-O Qe7

So I felt pretty good about the opening so far, meaning felt pretty good that I had remembered it correctly, and this queen move was the first thing I was unsure of. I had some memory of ...Qe7 and ...a5. Also I figured I should maybe keep c7 available for my bishop in case of b4 and Nc4. But maybe I'm wrong and it should go on c7.

11. Nc4 Rfd8

12. Be3

So I wanted to play ...b5, but I expect white will first take on c5, and then retreat the knight to e3. I definitely would prefer to recapture on c5 with the knight, so I am proud to have found the correct move order:

12...Bxf3!

13. Bxf3 b5

14. Bxc5 Nxc5
15. Ne3 g6

16. Bg2

I decided here that white's bad light squared bishop means I should be playing on the queenside, because I will essentially (I hoped) be a piece up there. Also, my knght wasn't doing anything on f6. Also, white probably played Bg2 to play f4 next, and I intended to meet this with ...f6.

16...Nfd7

17. f4 f6

18. f5 g5

19. Rad1 Nb6

20. b3 a5

I'm not exactly sure what's I'm planning to do on the queenside, I just figured I'd figure it out when I got there.

21. Qe2

21...a4 and I think that attitude is fine, because 21... b4 seems to be almost as good: 22. cxb4 (22. c4 a4) 22... axb4.

22. b4 Nb7

23. h4

I had thought Qe2 was intending Qh5-h6 and Ng4, which I didn't really care so much about. After all, what's she going to attack me with besides the queen and the knight?

So 23. h4 surprised me, probably it shouldn't have, but I thought it wasn't very good, maybe it's even bad. Isn't g3 going to be weaker than h7??

23...gxh4

24. Qg4+ Kh8

25. Qxh4 Rg8

26. Ng4 Rg5

I was kinda pleased with my position here. I know I am going to get attacked, and in general I often underestimate the danger to my king, so I was a little worried, but I felt like I had a lot of moves to improve my position, and that cheered me up. Nothing like having things to do to keep you happy, you know? I wanted to play: Rag8(-g7), Nc4, Nb7-d6 (-e8 if needed), and either Qa7-e3/f2 or Qf7-g8 (after Ra8-g8-g7).

27. Bf3 Rag8
28. Rf2 Nc4

29. Re1 Nbd6

30. Rh2 R8g7

31. Kg2

Find the winning move for black!

two of my favorite former students: Shawn Martinez and Angel Lopez, playing in the last round on board one. how proud I was!

answer: 31... Nd2!! 32. Be2 N2xe4

I didn't play that (I had decided much earlier never to take the e4 pawn and did not revisit my decision), but instead played

31... Ne8

32. Rh3 Qa7

33. Rd1

find the win for black!! (this time I did too)

33... Rxg4! 34. Qh5 Ne3+
35. Kh2 Nxd1
36. Bxg4

now there are a few wins here. Simply 36... Nd6 is great and after 37. Bxd1, 37... Qf2+ and 38...Nxe4. I played a more checky one:

36...Qf2+
37. Kh1 Qe1+

Now I have to be careful, because white has some tricks too. For example, if I play something careless like 37... Qf1+ 38. Kh2 Nf2?? 39. Qxe8+ Rg8 40. Rxh7+! Kxh7 41. Qh5+ Kg7 42.
Qg6+ Kf8 and I am losing!!

38. Kg2 Qd2+
39. Kg1 Qe3+
40. Kh2 Nf2

and my point here is that after Rxh7 and Qh5, I will have Qh6, trading queens.
41. Rh4 Nxg4+
42. Rxg4 Qe2+
43. Kh3 Qxg4+
44. Qxg4 Rxg4
45. Kxg4 Kg7
46. Kf3 Kh6
(in fact, she played until checkmate)
0-1

amateur team east: round 3 photos

I'm 2-1 at Amateur Team East; I think my team is too. It's nice here. The chess is a little weird; I'm trying to get into it, but it's hard to make yourself concentrate when you don't know the person's rating and they are using descriptive notation. My big goal this tournament is to not eat at the hotel restaurant. Instead, I am living on peanut butter sandwiches and grapes.

some pictures of students, former students, friends and teammates: (more here)

Marta Szulc

Ana Izoria
Darrian Robinson

Justus Williams, Jehron Bryant, Nigel Bryant, Joshua Colas in back

Nigel Bryant

John Galvin

Alexis Paredes

fun things I've been doing recently

1. I got a great new game called Ticket to Ride. Originally Jonathan and I were going to spend a day by going to the big KMart at Astor Place, buying a board game, and playing it all afternoon, but then Jonathan didn't feel well, so it became an online game-ordering competition. We each ordered a game secretly and the best one wins. (with one extra condition that if we happened to order the same game we would immediately elope.) I forget what we bet, which is a shame.

After doing some research in Amazon's customer reviews, I made an excellent selection:

It's a simple-but-complicated game where you build railroads across America. 2-5 players, lasts 30 min-an hour (perfect!) It's almost as fun as chess!! Jonathan ordered Mousetrap. HAHAHAHAHAHA.

2. Bikram (hot) Yoga
I'm really bad at it, but it makes me feel strange and heavenly and fit and I like sweating more than I realized.

3. I'm taking drawing lessons from Jonathan. Yesterday I drew a container of salt, a bowl, and an axe!

4. I'm going to Arizona for 5 days after Amateur Team East to visit my friend Jean and do a teacher training workshop for 9 Queens.

No School Tomorrow!!!

All NYC Public Schools are closed Wed Feb 10 because of snow!!!

democracy is lame

What kills me about politics is how much weight everyone gives to opinion polls, even though what the man on the street thinks is absolutely random, and I think everyone would agree that everyone knows this. People no longer believe in global warming? How do you change your mind about that? People have opinions about health care but don't read the paper or listen to the news? The media needs to stop reporting on this entirely.

birth control pills

So I have an appointment with my gynocologist this morning and I ask her for a prescription for birth control pills. I explain that I had tried them before, twice, but they had made me feel asexual the first time and suicidal the second. So I was hoping she could recommend a low dose kind that wouldn't make me feel either way. She replies, "Unfortunately, all birth control pills make you depressed and lower your sex drive. That's just inherent in how they work. But I can write you a prescription for a low dose one."

I took the prescription, but then I thought wait a second, what??? Why on earth would I take a drug that would make me depressed and asexual? Basically nothing in the world is worth that?! Why do other people take it?

Then I google birth control pills side effects and read:

Side Effects back to top

As the body adjusts to hormonal changes created by The Pill, women often experience some minor side effects, including:

Irregular bleeding or spotting
Nausea
Breast tenderness
Weight gain and/or water retention
Spotty darkening of the skin
Mood changes

Side effects usually disappear after 2-3 cycles. If your side effects are bothersome after 2-3 cycles or if heavy bleeding occurs, continue taking your pills and call the clinic for an appointment to talk about your prescription.

Again, wtf?? Why are mood changes minor? It is really listed after water retention and spotty darkening of the skin?? What could possibly be more important than your mood? 2-3 cycles is 2-3 months! Imagine even being nauscous for that long.

Then I'm curious what the incidence of depression ("mood changes") is with oral contraceptives. I can't really find that, but I do find this:

However, new research from Australia’s Monash University may change all that. Professor Jayashri Kulkarni from the University’s School of Psychology, Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine conducted a study in March 2005 that compared depression symptom scores between users and non-users of combined oral contraceptives.

Results showed women using the Pill had an average depression rating scale score of 17.6, compared to 9.8 in the non-user group. The women involved in the study were aged over 18, not pregnant or lactating, had no clinical history of depression and had not been on anti-depressant medication in the previous 12 months.

It really seems quite incredible to me that so many people take this drug.

please read the comments

Chess Movie

I don't know why I didn't embed this earlier. It's really very good I think. I love how it shifts perspectives so frequently. Also the Hasidic guy is fantastic.

CHESS MOVIE (working title) from Rescued Media on Vimeo.

a positional exchange sac from Danny Feng!!

from Danny Feng's (1797) annotated game against Brian Hu (2089) at grade nationals. Danny is black.

15...Rxd2! "I decided to sacrifice an exchange in turn for the two bishops and give him isolated e pawns."

16. Rxd2 Bxf4

17. Rdd1 g5!

"I knew I would have to get my counterplay or else I would have no compensation. I wanted to play Ne7-g6, Kc8-c7-b6, g5-g4, and win another pawn. The only open file is the d-file, but he can't really put it to good use. My bishop on e6 is the bad bishop. The pawn on e5 is also limiting the scope of my dark squared bishop, but the pawn shall fall soon."

18. Kf2 g4

19. hg Bg4

20. g3 Bxf3

21. Kxf3 Bxe5

oh my goodness!!! How many kids have the confidence and abstraction to sac the exchange like that and then think/talk about compensation and activating their pieces!? I'm so impressed by Danny.

ice, problems, elephants, pregnancy

hello again.


How's everybody? Once you fall out of the habit of blogging it's hard to get going again. You feel awkward, guilty, hypercritical. So we'll start with someone else's fun: the Detroit Ice House project.



They are spraying an abandoned house with water and letting it freeze to make a frozen house. The idea is to draw attention to the 80,000 houses in the area that are abandoned and dangerous.

The kids are doing well. They won the NYC Elementary and Junior High Championships. Isaac Barayev tied for first (5-0) in the Elementary but lost the blitz playoff. James Black came third with 4.5/5. In the Junior High, Jehron and Nigel tied for first with 4.5/5, but got 3rd and 4th on tiebreaks. The following kids tied for 5th-10th with 4/5: Justus, Azeez, Alexis, James, Shawn, and Miguel.

This week I've been making all my students do tactics packets during class-- I got this amazing book Junior Chess Training: Improve Your Chess by Julian Simpole. I haven't read the text so much, but I was doing the problems lying in bed one night and they were fantastically methodical-- for example, there are maybe 12 examples of when ...Qa5+ picks up a white piece on e5, or how you can play ....e5, forking the Nd4 and the Bf4 and when white plays Bxe5, then ...Qa5+. Great, great stuff. I couldn't wait to get to the photocopier the next morning.

It turns out that making all your students work independantly on tactics during class time (while you circulate, helping kids who get stuck-- this is not slacking time) is a very relaxing way to spend your day, but creates immense amounts of paper-correcting to do at night.

Some more great books I've read recently: Revolutionize Your Chess by Victor Moskalenko, Chronic City by Jonathan Lethem, and The Road by Cormac McCarthy. For those of you wondering "What is Elizabeth Vicary's favorite book?" the answer is The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami.

Other things... it's going very well with the boyfriend: he asked me to move in with him and I think I will. I've paid my rent through March, but after that, if it's still going as great as now ... I've lived by myself for six years now and it's lonely. also, I really like him. also, he's healthier than I am, so I'm hoping to become healthier just by hanging around him.

I'm thinking about having a baby as well (!). I had kinda assumed I never would, since I'm 34 and (until recently) was single and incredibly busy and not terribly motherly. But Jonathan wants a family, and I feel like I can't defer the choice much longer. I have no idea what it would be like. On the one hand, I read somewhere that having children lowers your overall happiness. and I'm not sure I have the instinct for it. also, I'm worried about the time/energy factor-- I'm still so into the 318 project: seeing how long I can keep the program going at the level it is now, and I don't want to turn into a bored housewife or a half-assed, distracted teacher. Also, what if the kid is annoying? But pregnancy would be very interesting, and it's not like my current lifestyle makes me so happy. Any thoughts? or better, let's make a poll!

I haven't been playing any chess at all, but I miss it and am very excited about Amateur Team East. After that... I guess I should think about the new Philadelphia exFoxwoods tournament. I'm probably happy about the move, since I have a free place to stay in Philly and I neither gamble nor drive. The only downside is that it's right before junior high nationals, so I might be wanting to work.

springtime.