Chess in Israel

Yesterday's loss , suffered on a Monday night, stung for three reasons. One, I seized a decisive lead on move 32 and held it to the end, only to time out with 0:00.7 left on my opponent's clock. Two, I missed an obvious fork on move 33 that would have utterly devastated my opponent. Three, a win would have elevated me to a rating in the 1280s, just a couple wins from the coveted 1300 mark; instead, the loss set me back to the 1260s. White, rated 1293 to my 1275, opened with 1. d4, and I replied with 1...Nf3. Then came 2. c4, to which I replied 2...d6. Chess.com classifies my opening up to this point as the Old Indian Defense, and the game analysis suggests I should have fianchettoed my kingside bishop early. This is puzzling, since I was transposing into the Czech Pirc -- but fianchettoing the bishop to threaten White's dominance of the center is an idea to keep in mind for the future.

Since resolving to master the refutation of the Englund Gambit, I have faced 1...e4 as a reply to 1. d4 no less than eleven times: on 21 August , twice on 22 August ( 12:46 , 14:20 ), twice on 24 August ( 15:30 , 15:43 ), on 25 August , on 27 August , on 1 September , on 4 September , on 5 September , and most recently on 6 September . Of those encounters, I emerged the loser on six occasions. Turning to YouTube for instructional videos on the Englund refutation, the first one I watched was promisingly titled "How to crush the Englund Gambit" (2021), by Chess Expert Aleksey. At under eight minutes, it was conveniently succinct, but it suffered on account of the narrator's spasmodic throat-clearing throughout the video. Then I watched "BREAKING THE BAD Chess Tricks!! | Destroy your Opponent when He plays Englund Gambit" (2018), by AshvinChaunhanchess. At close to twenty-one minutes, it was a more thorough examination of the gambit, and the narrator's In...

When bassist Geddy Lee was interviewed by John Stix for the magazine Guitar for the Practicing Musician in 1991, he made frequent reference to the notion of groove in order to communicate the experience of recording Rush 's latest album. "[W]e were playing real well just grooving together," Lee observed, indicating that the recording process for Roll the Bones was less methodical and more intuitive than for previous albums. Groove was deemed such a central theme that the interview was titled "It's a Groove Thing." Groove is commonly invoked in the context of music because music is fundamentally an emotional experience. When players settle into a groove, the implication is that they and their instruments are being guided less by their mind and more by their gut. Groove is also invoked in the context of sports, because sports is fundamentally a physical experience. When atheletes find their groove, the implication is that they have achieved a level of in...