Temposchlucker

. . . . Yesterday this blog welcomed its 100,000th visitor! . . . According to Extreme Tracking, that is. I started with Extreme Tracking on april 10, 2005. But the actual kick off of my blog was on february 9, 2005. I managed to track down the 100,000th visitor as being Paco Vela , a bartender from Las Vegas. Please  say hi to Paco . The main goal of this blog always has been to keep track of my thoughts and to generate inspirational comments. I have never tried to generate traffic since I value quality above quantity. And about that I have not to complain! I've got lots and lots inspirational commands over the years and I want to thank you, my dear reader, for that. I know I haven't made this blog an easy read. I could have written it funnier and clearer, but I choose not to. I used it as a way to think out loud and to catch the most volatile of thoughts before they escaped into the oblivion I use to call my brain. The fact that thi...

I scored +3 =5 -1 in group 5 at the Tata Steel chess tournament 2012 and became shared 1st. With SB points taken into account I was the best. So I will play in group 4 next year.

. . . . In the comments of the previous posts we discovered already one big downside of pattern recognition. Patterns fight for their life in our unconscious mind. Their very existence obeys the laws of Darwin. The fittest will survive. When we see a chess position the patterns shout to us "use me! use me!". Every time a pattern is retrieved it becomes stronger while every time it is not used it becomes weaker. Until their shouting fades away into oblivion. When we encounter a new position, the patterns with the loudest voice manage to make it into consciousness. While the more modest patterns are overshouted by their cheeky brothers. When a pattern that is not the best fit overshouts a pattern that is the best fit, it takes time and energy from us away. Just like in real life where the biggest mouth with an unfitted brain has the biggest wish to rule the nations. We start to spend time to make the wrong pattern work. While the clock ticks away the seco...