As we say goodbye to 2021, we beckon a new 2022 hopefully with the impending end of the pandemic.
I take this opportunity to wish my graduated students Damien, Leonard, Sun, Isaac, JingYi, Kuan Lei, Angela, Omar, Lana, Matthew and Luke, Yu Xiang and Yu Xuan,You Rui and Kexuan all the best in their future and thanks again for the time you have given to chess.
Now on board I welcome Avery,Armaan, Marius, Theodore, Lucas, Fred, Timothy and Zachary on your chess journey!
COVID has dealth a big blow to the Over the Board chess competition scene and no longer will we get to see huge numbers for our competitions. However, the Youtube has sproud more Chess content than ever with reputable GMs giving free chess content and all it takes is for someone to filter the gold from the weed. I am currently doing that in aid of my current students, encouraging them towards self-learning the basics which I find are more than adequately covered by the selected videos. That will leave their time on game practice and analysis which cannot be replicated anywhere. So the ball is in the students' court and their progress is now dependent on their diligence in self-study with my guidance.
After intense effort I had managed to close my chapter on chess set collecting and documented my efforts into the posts in Tools of a Chess Addict. One off my bucket list.
RESOLUTIONS?
I for one hardly keep any so I don't impose one on my students. If there is 1 I can impose, it would be to play online 1 game a day which is so crucial to chess improvement. Playing synthesizes all the knowledge learnt over the lessons and ensures their retention. It is sad to spend all the time on lessons only to forget them through lack of practice.
For myself I would want to add quality to my teaching by zooming in on topics like visualisation and calculation rather than just imparting chess knowledge. This is one area where the students fear to tread as it is difficult and painstakingly slow - particularly in endgames. However, judging from the latest trend in games, there is no longer the lure of quick opening kills but the exploitation of bad endgame play through good endgame understanding and precise calculation. The emphasis of solving tactical puzzles gradually shifts to tackling simple conversion of technical wins.
In view of the complexity of this work I need to pare down the number of students in my fold. This decision impacts me financially but as we age another year, our sense of mortality compels us to spend our remaining time wisely. So engaging quality students who are keen and serious will make teaching more meaningful.
GOALS
Apart from attempting minor weight loss through intermittent fasting and trying to play the C major scale in bass, my personal chess goals would be to finish reading all the books I had acquired in 2020-21. That will imply being more disciplined in my daily routine - cutting down on frivolous Youtube videos and watching the dreadful news. The main problem spending time at home is the temptation of being a couch-potato whiling away precious hours - this has to stop.
Since handing over the SCF work to a new committee, the weight is off my shoulders and with the newly freed time I can start planning on future travel projects within the VTLs - especially to visit my cousins in KL whom I had not met over the 2 years. Hopefully the international tournament scene warms up over the year - I do miss the time when we mill around the halls analysing games with my students and tucking in to some great food in cities like Penang, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Taipei seems a nice place to go if they do organise the Eastern Asia in 2022.
In 2021 hope did not materialise, let's see.
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