What an exciting week it has been in the world of chess! The Sinquefield Cup is over, the contracts have been signed for the World Championship in November, and the world’s strongest players are making their way around the globe competing in some incredible high-profile tournaments. In addition to all of the professional chess going on around the world, things have been pretty busy here at Off My Chess as well. I am pleased to announce that the first edition of Off My Chess Quarterly was released this week. OMC-Q is a quarterly magazine published for free here on OffMyChess.com. The magazine’s intent is to highlight some of my most instructive games for low-ranked amateurs throughout the quarter. Additionally, it contains reprints of select articles posted on the blog throughout the last quarter. This quarter’s magazine features the Life of a King review as well as product reviews for Chessmate and Plycounter.

Life is still a challenge these days as the family and I continue to get settled in from our move. Much of my chess playing in the last week or so has been dozens of live blitz on Chess.com (as usual). My ELO spiked at 878 before resting again around 850-860. My goal is to break 900 this week, so I have been religiously studying my openings in Chessbase with high hopes for some improvement.

And last, but certainly not least…this game. It was a heartbreaking defeat and probably had more to do with my state of mind than my chess playing ability. I was terribly distracted when I played this game and could feel my mind drifting into other things as I moved the pieces.

I heard a comment this week where a chess player said that chess is the only sport in which it is considered acceptable to resign. I thank God for that in situations like the one above.