Full Time - Day 31

A cold rainy toxic sky day, nothing unusual for the year 2019, which marks the year that is the beginning of the end of life on earth. If something positive can be said about it, from an individual perspective, it is that being aware of impending death I am reminded to live each day as mindfully and aware as possible, to take not a single conscious moment for granted.

Walked Navy Pier route in the early morning and then walked to the library for a productive 6 hour chess study session. A man named Jerome stopped at my table and asked to play a couple of games, I had played him last week, he thanked me after the game and said "that was great therapy, I came to the library to clear my head, now I can't remember why I was so angry". Today I asked him if he was having a better day and he said not so much, his 90 year old mother was giving him cause for concern. He sat down and these were the games -

game 1 -

Jerome/white  J/black  Sicilian Defense

1.e4 c5 2.c4 Nc6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Be2 e6 5.d3 Be7 6.Be3 O-O 7.Qd2 d5 8.exd5 exd5 9.
cxd5 Nxd5 10.Qc1 Nxe3 11.Qxe3 Nd4 12.Qc1 Bg5 13.Qd1 Bf5 14.Nf3 Nxe2 15.Nxe2
Qa5+ 16.Qd2 Bxd2+ 17.Nxd2 Bxd3  0-1

 game 2 -

J/white   Jerome/black  Philidor Defense

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bc4 Qe7 4. O-O Nc6
5. d4 Bd7 6. dxe5 Nxe5 7. Bd5 c6 8. Bb3 Be6
9. Nd4 Bxb3 10. axb3 Nf6 11. Nf5 Qc7 12. Bf4 O-O-O
13. Nd2 g6 14. Ne3 Nh5 15. Bxe5 dxe5 16. Rxa7 Kb8
17. Qa1 Kc8 18. Ra8+ Kd7 19. Rxd8+ Qxd8 20. Ndc4 Bc5
21. Rd1+ Kc7 22. Rxd8 1-0

Read First Steps : Caro Kann (Martin) -

g53 Stebbings/Trois; g54 Itkis/Van Wely (J)

Read Rubinstein's Chess Masterpieces -

g35 Rub/Schlecter g36 Schlecter/Rubinstein(J)

Read GM Performance by Polugaevsky -

g13 Pol/Rossetto; g14 Pol/Bilek (J)