I am excited that Campfire Chess will be celebrating its one-year anniversary in less than a week, but that does nothing to stem the tides of my late fortunes on the chessboard. Put aside the fact that despite the prevalence of chess news and information that has been published in the last few months, I have not been regularly available to consistently post updates and game annotations. In the midst of all of this, my already abysmal blitz ELO on Chess.com has taken an enormous pounding this last few weeks: dropping from 920 to 750 in just a few days. My mind has been so distracted with other things that even those 722 and 800 ELO players seem to be an immense challenge lately. For example, this horrifying gem:


Basic principles, which I have studied and digested for so long, continue to elude me. At this point, I have resigned myself to having a mere slump and have re-engaged in meaningful study of grandmaster games and I have started reading Artur Yusupov’s incredible Boost Your Chess, vol 2., which was originally written for his personal chess students. The scene has been difficult for me for some time, so the struggle is nothing new. The lack of advancement, however, is… That is why I hope that over the next few weeks that I am able to conquer this slump and find my way back into some moderate chess success, resume writing regularly, and finally make my way downtown to the San Antonio Chess Club. For a nice laugh to end the night, here is another atrocity from my growing collection: