Strikes and spares and I don't care!

As much as I love to bowl, I hate bowling poorly. Knowing that I used to be good at it, it's always tough at the start of the season. I didn't bowl at all since last May when the season ended, and I felt it. Man that ball felt heavy! I ended last season with something around a 180'ish average. Not great knowing that I used to be in the low 190's, but still not terrible. Plus, if I would have just stopped being lazy and gotten myself a spare ball, it would have been better.

The problem is... I'm still lazy! Having said that, I almost didn't go tonight. I got home from work and I was so wiped out I couldn't focus. I laid down for a few minutes, and woke up just in time to leave. I had to force myself to go. It was difficult to even walk around. Luckily, it did get better. I have to get to bed soon here, I don't want to be like this again tomorrow.

So, how did I do:

Game 1: 111 (ouch!)
Game 2: 165 (better)
Game 3: 171 (best)

and I have no idea how to bowl again! About half way through the second game Pat looked at me and said, "Here's what you've got to do...". After that, it got better. It's always the basics that I seem to forget. The biggest thing was that I was turning my wrist instead of lifting the ball and letting it do the work. Once I changed that I was more consistent.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to finally get some positions up from the weekends tournament. And this coming weekend should be another trip report. If I have Internet at the hotel I'll be posting as I go, otherwise the update will be on Tuesday when I'm back home.

I hope you had a great Monday!

Ed.

Wild Hogs

My mother came over today to show me how to make pizza and to watch a movie. Her real reason was that she wanted to play Wii Sports, but hey, I'm not the one living the lie! The pizza was easier than I expected. Will I do it myself? That is the question!

Wild Hogs - awsome! I've heard it had mixed reviews, but it was great to watch. I enjoyed it.

Tomorrow night the bowling league starts up again. I knew that I wasn't sure I wanted to bowl this year. I still have this WOW thing in my head. But I decided to anyway. I figured if I could say yes, that meant my addition to WOW isn't as bad as I sometimes think it is.

I hope you all had a great weekend!

Ed.

August PVCC Tournament

I went to the chess club Saturday night to play in their monthly tournament. It's an unrated event that costs $5 to play. This Saturday night we had 10 players, so 1st place was $25, 2nd was $15, and $10 went to the club. The players were:

1953 Edwin Borowski
1827 Paul Budney
1797 Tom Smith
1791 Bruce Arnold
1557 Eric Strickland
1513 Dave Hall
1488 Tony Hartai
1396 Frank Kolasinski
1393 Casey Dolan
1193 Paul Spatarella

And was run by Enrique McDonald, who also played the last round since Tony had to leave:
1425 Enrique McDonald

The tournament lasted about 4 hours, from around 7pm - 11pm. It was 3 rounds, with the first game being G/30, the 2nd and 3rd being G/40. I can't tell you how everyone did, but here are my results:

Game 1: Ed Borowski (1953) vs Dave Hall (1513) 1-0
Game 2: Eric Strickland (1557) vs Ed Borowski 0-1
Game 3: Ed Borowski (1953) vs Bruce Arnold (1791) 1-0

I finished 3-0, and won the event in clear 1st. The final deciding game for 2nd place was between Tom Smith and Paul Budney. A win for Tom meant clear 2nd place, a draw or loss meant a tie for second with 2 others. Tom lost, so Paul Budney, Eric Strickland, and Bruce Arnold shared 2nd place. Since Bruce had left, the prize was shared between Paul and Eric.

It was a good time, but wiped me out! I got home and wanted to do the BGs for an hour or two with the Guild (World of Warcraft). I was so tired that after about 45 minutes I had to go to bed.

Tomorrow, as they say, is another day.

Ed.

White to play and win

In my neverending battle to remove the rust from my chess game, the following is a position from my most recent ICC game. It was against a lower rated opponent, but I can slowly feel the rust coming off. Just over a week before the New York State Championship!!!

So... White to play and win. Can you guess the move?

Ed.

Relentless, the rest is optional

It turns out that somebody actually reads my blog! I know, I was pretty surprised myself. My good friend Sean Tobin pointed out an error in my post about checkers. At the end I had noted that chess was a draw. I, in fact, meant to say that checkers was a draw. I've corrected that error.

In appreciation of my avid fan and his relentless pursuit of the truth, I will attemp to predict the future. I forsee.... nothing. No, wait a minute... I see a book. A chess book. Yes, I see a chess book in your future.

Enjoy,

-Ed.

For the love of the game

The following picture is the final position in a chess game I played on the ICC tonight. What makes it amazing isn't necessarily the game itself. To me it was the fact that I really enjoyed playing it. It's been a while! So, who's winning?


In this game I'm playing white. Though I feel that ratings on the ICC have even less meaning than those of the USCF, my opponent was rated about 200 points lower than I. And when I say I, I mean me... the me that is out of practice because of a certain WOW addiction over the past 8 months. In the above position, my opponent resigned. There's too much pressure against the king.

Part of my renewed interest in chess has to do with a phone call I received yesterday. I've been thinking about playing tournaments all summer. In the end I decided WOW was more important. Last night Larry called me to ask if I was going to play in the New York State Championship. How could I say no? I have a storied history with that tourament, and even though I'm out of practice I couldn't pass it up. So now I have a few weeks to figure this game out!

Labor Day Weekend... here we come!

Take care, Ed.