The Abysmal Depths of Chess

Employers eh?   Strange bunch of chaps. They hire you to do a job and then they set about systematically putting obstacles in your way to ensure you can’t actually do that job. One day I must find out why they do it this way. All of which is my way of explaining that my month of immersion is much closer to coming to an end than I would have liked.

The big news of the week is Say Chess ’s new idea for a  Tactics Tracker  club. More of that later after I’ve had a moment to reflect on how going back to work has changed things.

Good news.  Parkrun - a weekly free 5k run held at 700+ different locations in 20 countries around the world -   is coming back to Britain . Or maybe it isn’t . The clowns and jokers that constitute Her Majesty's Government continue to make a total fecking horlicks of COVID. Not a surprise, I suppose, but still hugely depressing. Still, it’s probably a good time to do Couch to 5k  again  anyway. It’s free, it’s proven effective and it gifts me a neat little lead in to a few thoughts on the difference between chess players and runners. What’s not to like?

I am immersed. Not as much as I would like to be, perhaps, but as much as I can be in the circumstances. More importantly, I’m more immersed in chess than I was when I posted IMMERSION part 1  seven days ago.

When you realise that you've got a lot of free time coming up and nothing specific to do with it ... you might as well throw yourself into chess, right?