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I looked at Donnie's blog to see how the LEPer tourney ended and was surprised to see myself on his zombie blog list. Not so much surprised about the fact that this blog here hasn't seen much activity lately, but more surprise because of his predictive powers. It is amazing what a small egg can do! This also bring us to the reason for taking a break from chess blogging: I lost all hope of becoming a decent chess player myself after losing every single game in the LEPer tourney. Therefore, I decided to create a chess player that beats ALL of you! On August 31, Sciurus Jr. uttered his first victory cry - I am a dad now. No kidding, my wife and I are having a baby and there is simply not much time for chess right now and even less time to write about it.

For now, I would like to thank all of you for reading my unqualified thoughts on chess. Special thanks go to everybody who bothered to leave a comment, played chess with me, and of course to all the chess bloggers out there. Without you I probably would have given up playing chess a long time ago. It was (and is!) great fun to 'meet' chess bloggers online to have a nice game of chess. I even had the honor to meet a few of you in real life and to play a couple of over the board games. I definitely plan to continue playing chess, but I won't have time anymore to write about it, play as often, or even spend time solving tactics puzzles.

Last but not least, there are rumors out there that the greatest loser of the LEPer II tourney - me - is too proud to accept the Mc D. coupon. While I am ready to admit that I don't want to be seen alive in a Mc D. 'restaurant' (my stomach revolts when I use the terms Mc D. and restaurant together). Well, I might have lost all my games but I had fun playing them! Anyhow, Donnie, I accept the coupon of shame and will donate a price for the next LEPer tourney!

One of the first things I learned about chess is that every chess player seems to worry a lot about openings. As an aspiring beginner, I wanted to play something simple and slightly off-beat, unlike 1.e4 where pretty much everybody throws his favorite anti-X line against you or plays the first 30-something moves from memory. Therefore, I decided to play the Colle-Zukertort system as White and have been playing it almost exclusively ever since. This opening system has enabled me to play quite a few exciting kingside attacks. But of course, any chess opening is far from simple and your opponents usually have plenty opportunities to steer the game in other directions. And with good chances to storm the black castle, quite a few of my opponents stubbornly refused to play into my favorite Zukertort main line, choosing "anti" Colle setups instead. Unfortunately, the Colle-Zukertort is rarely played at the grandmaster-level and thus receives little attention, frequently leaving the fans of this system on their own to find good moves (One exception is Susan Polgar, who used to play the Colle-Zukertort and published a DVD on the Colle-Zukertort System. The DVD nicely explains the basics, but does not cover anything beyond the main line.).

But this has changed now. With Zuke 'Em-The Colle Zukertort Revolutionized, David Rudel published a nice book on this opening system. This book is special for two very different reasons: Firstly, the Colle-Zukertort setup forces White to play e3 relatively early on, which blocks the path of White's dark squared bishop. Black can try to exploit this in several ways, which usually meant trouble for me in many of my own games. David Rudel is proposing several highly interesting alternatives for White in these cases (More about this below).

Secondly, almost all chess book authors are titled chess players. David Rudel, however, is "just" an amateur chess player. You might ask now "hey, why should I trust the analysis of some random dude who writes a book?" Well, first of all, if you read this you already spend quite some time reading the writings of a less-than-average chess player - me! While GMs certainly have superior analysis skills, they do not necessarily explain their thoughts on a level accessible to amateurs. I played through several of the annotated games in this book and read most of the analysis. While reading, I often asked myself questions like "why can't I play Ne5 right now?" Quite often, David Rudel literally asks this questions himself in the book and provides an explanation. Of course, he cannot answer all possible questions in the book. Unlike what chess publishers want to make you believe, you still have to think yourself even if you buy the latest books. But for sure, you will find much less of the useless "obviously, White wins here" statements in this book than you will find in most opening books written by GMs. But if you need more reassurance on the analysis, the book comes with good reviews from GM Aaron Summerscale, an authority on this opening, and Jeremy Silman (see here for Silman's review).

One of my main problems playing this system has been the line 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. e3 g6 where Black plans to fianchetto on the kingside. David Rudel calls this the sneaky Gruenfeld, and sneaky it is, indeed, because with the move e3 White's bishop is already locked in and Black's setup makes the White's standard Colle-Zukertort plan for attacking on the kingside tricky at best. This is an important problem for White because he will face it quite often (at least I see it all the time) and Black is doing pretty well with this line. David Rudel proposes quite an interesting line for White, starting with 4. c4!?. I did not yet have the chance to try this in my games, but certainly look forward to include this in my opening repertoire.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed reading this book and will definitely integrate some of the suggestions in my opening repertoire. The only downside I found is the cover - why do chess books, particularly the ones covering openings, always employ so strange selling tactics? If it is the "revolutionized" Colle-Zukertort in this case or the "killer" chess opening repertoire of Aaron Summerscales book on the same opening, I would prefer if chess publishers would keep it a bit more down-to-earth when it comes to choosing a title or cover image. Aside from that, the book is fun to read - I really enjoyed the lively question and answer style much of the analysis is written in! Furthermore, you can discuss the Colle-Zukertort in the Zuke-Dukes forum run by David Rudel. In the age of the Internet, I wish that more chess books would offer a place where reader can discuss the analysis. Disclaimer: I received a free review copy from the author.

The tournament of LEPers is in full swing and I have to say that I am already having fun despite having lost the first round. It was nice playing live chess again and 'meeting' other chess bloggers is - well - priceless. After some lively discussion of lease conditions with my landlord I arrived late for my game against Chessaholic. Luckily for me the game started relatively quiet, even though it seems that both of us had no clue about the opening (I only very recently started to experiment with the english opening). In the end, I messed up and allowed Chessaholic to get two connected passed pawns, leaving me no chances (aside from the draw by repitition I overlooked...) in the end, see my analysis below. Anyhow, I try to focus more on the good things lately: I got an enjoyable hour of chess and met another fun guy I am looking forward to meeting again for a game or two. Next round this week against Blunderprone.