In chronological order.
How many Terminator movies can you watch in a single day? Well, if you are a geek like me and happens to be stranded at home feeling a bit sick, you can watch all of them. At the time of this writing, there are only six Terminator movies out there, so I was able to fit the whole 722 minutes (that’s a bit over twelve hours) into my totally not busy schedule for the day.
The Terminator (James Cameron, 1984) started everything. A near-unstoppable cyborg assassin (Arnold Schwarzenegger), is sent from a future dominated by machines, to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), the mother of the future leader of the human resistance, while a guerrilla fighter (Michael Biehn) also travels back to protect her. We had seen time travel before, like for example in Time After Time (1979). We had seen computers declaring war on humanity, like in Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970). We had even seen determined killer androids, like in Westworld (1973). But all those elements combined into a cohesive story and presented in a gritty narrative made The Terminator an instant science fiction classic. The Terminator itself became an iconic figure, representing the cold, unfeeling nature of machines contrasted with the resilience and ingenuity of humans.
The Terminator does more than just tell a standalone story. It lays the groundwork for a complex mythology that would be expanded (and eventually ignored) in the subsequent films. The concept of Skynet, the self-aware AI that decides humanity is a threat, and the nuclear apocalypse known as Judgment Day, are pivotal in defining the thematic core of the series.
Like many time travel movies, it invites some questions regarding the logic of causes and consequences, and the possibility of paradoxes. If the Terminator succeeds in killing Sarah Connor, John Connor will not be born and will not become the leader of the resistence, and there will be no reason to send a Terminator back in time. Then, with no Terminator traveling to the past, who killed Sara Connor? Also, ironically, if Kyle Reese is not sent to stop the Terminator, he won’t father John Connor, which means it’s the Skynet mission to prevent John Connor’s existence what makes his existence possible.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron, 1991) picks up years after the events of the first film. A more advanced Terminator, the liquid-metal T-1000 (Robert Patrick), is sent back from the future by Skynet to kill John Connor (Edward Furlong), the future leader of the human resistance. He is supposed to be 10 years old, but he looks like a 14-year-old juvenile delinquent. To protect John, the resistance reprograms another Terminator, a T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger), and sends it back in time. The film explores Sarah Connor’s (Linda Hamilton) struggle to prevent Skynet’s creation and stop Judgment Day, the apocalyptic event in which Skynet becomes self-aware and triggers a nuclear holocaust.
The depiction of the characters one decade after the first movie is convincing. With the knowledge of what’s going to happen, Sarah Connor becomes a self-reliant paranoid survivalist. And her son, growing up from foster home to foster home, is a precocious proto-nihilist rebel. But what makes the sequel memorable is the return of the Terminator now as a heroic figure, this time sent back to protect John Connor.
In Terminator 2 we get a more detailed explanation of how Skynet was created. A company called Cyberdyne Systems reverse-engineered future technology found in the remnants of the dismantled Terminator from the first movie, and used it build Skynet. Sarah Connor is determined to prevent that by destroying the Terminator parts. No future technology, no Skynet, no Judgement Day. But if she succeeds in stopping that future from happening, who sent the Terminators in the first and second movies? And if she fails and Skynet is created, that’s a classic closed loop time travel paradox: Skynet exists because of the technology that only exists due to its own future existence, being at the same time the cause and the consequence.
The new model of Terminator is visually striking but also raises some questions. First, we know that the time travel machine only allows for live tissue to go through. Kyle Reese was human and the T-800 model was fully covered in live human tissue. But if the T-1000 model is all liquid metal, how was it able to travel? Second, while the T-800 has a power source (and even an alternative battery), the T-1000 doesn’t (it’s all liquid metal). Quite a lot of energy is spent running after the protagonists, changing shapes, or even taking a walk, but that mass of mimetic polyalloy is not receiving energy from anywhere. It just spends it, never acquires any. That’s never explained.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (Jonathan Mostow, 2003) is much weaker than the previous two movies. Nick Stahl as a young adult John Connor is very unconvincing. He has a passive or reactive role, lacking decisiveness and leadership qualities. That’s not someone capable of organizing a weekend camping trip, much less of leading the human resistance against the machines. And we are missing Sarah Connor in this movie, because she apparently has died.
The new Terminator model, the T-X (Kristanna Loken), is too powerful to be credible. It can do everything the T-1000 could do, plus it can create machines with moving parts, sophisticated electronic devices, remote controls vehicles, and even has an internal mini-lab for DNA testing. Power source? T-800 says she’s driven by a plasma reactor. It looks more like magic. Claire Danes as Kate Brewster, future wife and fellow resistance fighter of John Connor, is a nice addition. But the few good moments here are actually provided by Arnold Schwarzenegger as a new (and funny) good Terminator.
Terminator 3 negates the plot achievements of Terminator 2. Sarah and John believed that by destroying Cyberdyne Systems and the T-800’s arm and chip they had averted the creation of Skynet. But here we learn that Skynet’s development seems inevitable, regardless of Cyberdyne’s destruction. And the proof that Skynet is alive and well in the future is that it keeps sending Terminators to hunt John Connor and his associates.
Terminator Salvation (McG, 2009) is the first film in the series to take place completely in the post-apocalyptical world that follows Judgement Day. After unborn John Connor, child John Connor, and youngster John Connor, it’s logical this time we get adult John Connor. Christian Bale is very good in the role. Anton Yelchin as young Kyle Reese is also a good surprise. Bryce Dallas Howard replaces Claire Danes as Kate Brewster, now Kate Connor. Sam Worthington is Marcus Wright, a human-terminator hybrid experiment. Schwarzenegger, governor of California at the time, allowed his CGI image to be used so the original T-800 could be in the story. Overall, the movie feels like a big improvement after the weak Terminator 3.
Time travel is just hinted here, and only because we already know about the Kyle Reese versus T-800 battles from the first movie. It focuses instead on the ongoing clash between humanity and Skynet, emphasizing war, survival, and moral ambiguity. It’s possibly the darker film in the series. One of the more compelling aspects of Terminator Salvation is Marcus Wright’s journey. Marcus, who is revealed to be a cyborg, grapples with questions of identity, free will, and what it means to be human. His internal conflict drives much of the emotional weight of the film, adding some complexity to a narrative that otherwise focuses heavily on action. It’s unclear, however, why human-machine hybrids aren’t used more widely by Skynet, and why Marcus is the only one we’ve seen.
Terminator Genisys (Alan Taylor, 2015), the fifth movie in the series, makes some unexpected choices. It ambitiously revisits and reinterprets the franchise’s mythology, especially the first two iconic films, while disregarding the later sequels. By doing that, it basically reboots the series by offering an alternate timeline that alters key events from the original films.
The movie opens with familiar territory: the year is 2029, and the human resistance, led by John Connor (Jason Clarke), is on the verge of defeating Skynet. Skynet’s last-ditch effort is to send a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) before she can give birth to John. In response, John sends Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back in time to protect her. However, when Reese arrives in 1984, he finds that the timeline has been altered: Sarah Connor is already a skilled fighter and is protected by an aging T-800, affectionately called Pops (also played by Schwarzenegger). This sets off a series of events involving alternate timelines, new villains, and the discovery that John Connor himself has been turned into a machine by Skynet.
Surprisingly, there are many things that work very well here. The opening sequence is a direct homage to The Terminator, with shot-for-shot recreations of iconic scenes, such as the arrival of the T-800 at the Griffith Observatory. The movie taps into nostalgia by revisiting familiar moments and offering new spins on key events, like Sarah Connor’s first encounter with the T-800. Schwarzenegger returning as the T-800 brings a new twist, as he is now playing an older version of the character, the Pops Terminator, with a blend of action prowess and humor. His interactions with Emilia Clarke’s Sarah Connor (a good choice for the role) provide some of the film’s more heartfelt and comedic moments, especially in the dynamic of their surrogate father-daughter relationship.
The new takes on established characters (for example, Sarah Connor is no longer the vulnerable, unsuspecting woman from the first film, but instead she has been raised by the T-800 and is fully aware of her role in shaping humanity’s future) and the idea of a fractured timeline (events from the original films have been altered) bring a much needed freshness to the series.
The new logic of time travel, however, raises new problems. For example, if the timeline has been altered, why does Skynet send the original T-800 back to 1984 when the Sarah Connor of that timeline is already prepared for him? The film never adequately explains why Skynet and the resistance continue to send agents back in time despite the timeline having already changed. If Skynet is aware that the timeline has been altered, why does it still use strategies from the original timeline?
Despite what some people may consider cheating (ignoring the events of Terminator 3 and Terminator Salvation) and despite the plot holes (how many movies about time travel avoid those?), Terminator Genisys can be quite entertaining.
Terminator: Dark Fate (Tim Miller, 2019) feels like a bad joke. After the alternative view offered by the previous movie, this one goes with “forget everything not made by James Cameron and let’s pretend this is the third installment of the franchise”. Not surprisingly, Cameron is the producer and one of the story creators. The film begins with a shocking and controversial twist: John Connor, the leader of the future human resistance, is killed by a rogue T-800 Terminator shortly after the events of Terminator 2. That reduces the importance of the character’s story arc, which was central to the original films. Killing him off in the opening scene not only feels disrespectful to the character but also undermines the emotional investment fans had in his journey. The whole “John Connor must live because he will lead the human resistance against the machines” becomes irrelevant. Why would they do that? It feels like a bad decision fueled by the desire to pander to a woke audience: let’s kill the white male hero and replace him with a hispanic female protagonist. I like stories with strong female leads, but not when that requires disrespecting the legacy of an established plot line.
In conclusion, and in very simple terms: The Terminator (1984), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Terminator Salvation (2009), Terminator Genisys (2015), all good. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), Terminator: Dark Fate (2019), not good. But I’m sure sooner or later there will be more Terminator movies. Like Schwarzenegger would say, “I’ll be back”.
Lists can be used for many purposes, some more practical (like a shopping list) and others more literary (like Vladimir Nabokov’s inventory of tourist attractions in Lolita), some more serious (like the articles of the United States Constitution) and others more lighthearted (like Benjamin Franklin’s 228 synonyms for drunkenness). Lists can also be an entertaining format to communicate tastes and preferences, and these are the ones that always intrigue and entertain me. Here are the main reasons why I enjoy making lists of favorites and looking at other people’s lists of favorites. Organized, of course, as a list.
01 – To reexamine and challenge my own preferences.
It’s too easy to categorize a book or a movie based on our first impressions and then leave it there forever. But our relationship with cultural artifacts changes over time, as we learn new things and generate new ideas, and revisiting previously labeled and catalogued works may reshape our perception of them.
For example, perhaps you first read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road when you were a teenager, while living with your parents, and then you rediscovered it as an adult, after you made a long trip by yourself and had a few adventures of your own, and it was almost like a different book. Or perhaps you watched Jack Clayton’s The Innocents when you were younger and thought it was a boring movie, a horror story without horror, and then saw it again many years later and discovered that it’s actually a subtle tale of fear and uncertainty, much better than the cheap scares you get from most contemporary horror movies.
Cultural artifacts may also change themselves in relation to the context that surrounds them. Reading J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings before watching Peter Jackson’s trilogy of the same name is definitely not the same experience as reading it after you’ve seen the movies. George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four has always been influential since its publishing in 1949, but the experience of reading it is fundamentally different when you know your government is practicing mass surveillance on its citizens and trying to mislead the media and manipulate public opinion.
Making a list is an opportunity to review my categorizations, reevaluate them, sometimes revisit some favorites to see if they are still favorites or perhaps to replace them with new discoveries.
02 – To reshuffle ideas and reorganize memories.
I have been making lists for many years, and I must confess that once in a while I look at an old list and have no idea why I included or excluded something from it. Yes, any list of my favorite foods would include sushi, and there it is, but where is the paella? I love paella, how could I forget the paella? And was I drunk when I listed Philippe de Broca’s Le Magnifique among my top movies from the seventies? I don’t even remember it that well. Time to shake and reorganize these lists. Perhaps I will watch Le Magnifique again, possibly followed by paella and a good Rioja.
03 – To present ideas in a quick and simple way.
Many of us, perhaps too many, seem to want to know everything but would not take the time to learn anything. Because there are other things to do and we don’t want to miss them. Combine TL;DR (too long; didn’t read) with FOMO (fear of missing out) and you have someone eager to consume information in the smallest portions available. Lists can provide that ideal format, very short and direct, a promise of immediate knowledge.
Or, perhaps to rebel against frenetic consumption, lists can be less direct and more convoluted, like this one. Unless you are only reading the headings and ignoring all the verbiage, in which case this list, to you, is also short and direct. But you would be missing all the fun.
04 – To generate conversations.
You may learn more about a person from their answer to “what are your three favorite movies” or “what are your favorite places in the world for a long weekend” than what you would get from more habitual queries like “where are you originally from” or “what do you do for a living”.
In some cases you don’t even need to see the contents of the list, as the choice of what to list can already be a powerful statement. The person making a list of “the healthiest ways to prepare your tofu” is probably a very different individual than the one telling you about “the most delicious ways to grill pork ribs”.
Great conversations usually happen when the lists are very similar with just one or two exceptions. If you like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, and you see them in my list of top crime writers, and also see Jim Thompson there, an author you haven’t read, you may want to learn more about him and perhaps try some of his novels. (Incidentally, Jim Thompson is one of the most interesting hardboiled novelists. But that’s a story for another time.) If you and your friend have both included John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Lester Young, and Stan Getz in your respective lists of top five jazz saxophonists, it may be interesting to see your friend try to defend Kenny G as his fifth pick. Even if we consider such defense an impossible task, the first four picks show that you already agree on many things in this particular topic, and the conversation should at least be amusing and stimulating. (Defending Kenny G as one of the best jazz sax players is as unwise as defending Jar Jar Binks as one of the best characters in Star Wars. Unless, of course, you embrace the non-canonical theory of Binks as the Sith Lord secretly controlling all events around him. Perhaps that’s the only way to defend Kenny G: call him Darth G.)
05 – To pretend we can bring order to chaos.
A list is in itself an attempt to organize things or ideas. Even unordered lists create a system with two categories, one of things that are in the list and the other of things that are not in the list. Lists help us create an appearance of order.
Establishing a set of internal guidelines can take this a step further and enhance the sense of organization. I like to work with a few self-imposed guidelines when creating my lists. For example, when listing favorite movies from a certain period or in a certain genre, I usually restrict it to only one title per director. Also, since the decisions about what to include and what to exclude are hard enough, sometimes I save myself from the extra distress of having to order the items internally. Instead, I list my selections in chronological or in alphabetical order. Guidelines like these can reinforce the sense of a solid structure with sturdy internal order.
It can be very satisfying to have these lists, categories, rules, selection criteria, with everything ending up neatly organized. But, of course, it’s all pretense. Life, as Shakespeare famously wrote, “is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. Hey, that’s a great quote. You should put it on a list.
Well, it didn’t take long. The first five games necessary for getting my rating on chess.com, all victories. The sixth game, a defeat. I was rated 1264 and got paired against a 1313 player. That’s what I expected from the beginning, advancing to a rating that reflected my abilities and then being held there by being paired against stronger opponents. So after fifty games my rating is not much different than after five games. I managed to cross the 1300 barrier, but was sent back down by a few defeats.
I am now at rating 1276, with 27 games won (54.0%), 2 drawn (4.0%), and 21 lost (42.0%). 100% win rate against opponents up to 1199, 48.1% win rate against opponents up to 1299, and 35.7% win rate against opponents higher than 1300. Average accuracy: 73.48. If I am to improve those numbers, I believe I need to do two main things. The first one is to learn more about openings. Many of my losses were due to a weak position after responding poorly to openings I didn’t know. The second one is to pay more attention and to play slower. I make silly mistakes because I don’t see some threats and move my pieces too fast before fully analyzing the position.
My next step is to be humble and study a book of chess for beginners. I chose Levy Rozman‘s new book How to Win at Chess, which is supposed to walk you from the very basics of the game to an intermediate level. I don’t forget that my current rating is already beyond my original goals, but I see room for some improvement. Let’s see whether a little study can make me a better player or if I’m already at my peak.
(This is the end of the post. What follows is just a list of notes for my own use, which you will probably find boring. Move on to the next post.)
*****
I will list below a long series of short notes I made about my first fifty games (well, the first five are here: Learning to play chess: my first five games). They are of little interest to most people, but I wanted to leave it registered for my own use and this seems to be a good place to do it.
For my first defeat, I was paired against a player with a rating of 1313. The game was pretty even for the first 20 moves. Then I secured an advantage by capturing two pawns, let him capture three of mine, and forced a trade of a knight for a pawn (otherwise I would crown the pawn). I was happy with my position but let my guard down and was forked, losing a bishop and arriving at hopeless situation on move 32. After that, I still fought for another 20 moves but was unable to stop his extra pawn from crowning, and decided to resign. That cost me 45 points in my rating. Despite losing, I got reasonable good marks in the game review: “You had a pretty competitive game there. The opening was balanced. It was an incredible middlegame by both of you. You both battled pretty evenly in the endgame.” My accuracy was 78.8, against 81.0 from my opponent. Estimated 1450 rating for this game, against 1500 from my opponent. Opponent from: Bangladesh. Opening: Colle System.
I rebounded from that defeat with a victory by resignation on the 13th move with the black pieces after my opponent blundered his queen. My accuracy was 78.2. Estimated 1400 rating for this game. Opponent from: Georgia. Opening: Saragossa.
Another victory by resignation with the black pieces, this time on the 52nd move. My accuracy was 62.2. Estimated 1050 rating for this game. Opponent from: Georgia. Opening: King’s Fianchetto. With this victory I reached a rating of 1307.
A strange game here. With the white pieces, I opened with 1.d4. My opponent immediately offered a draw. I refused and he aborted the game. Curiously, it didn’t count as a loss for him or a victory for me.
With the black pieces once more, a sad loss in the endgame, with one of his paws too fast for my king. My accuracy was 72.3. Estimated 1250 rating for this game. Opponent from: United Kingdom. Opening: Accelerated London System. Back to a rating of 1264.
With the white pieces, I played a ridiculous game where I had to resign on the 20th move for playing so badly. I just put my queen in a place where it could be captured by a pawn. My accuracy was 65.1. Estimated 1100 rating for this game. Opponent from: France. Opening: Zuketort, Chigorin Variation. Back to a rating of 1230.
White pieces again, and a victory by checkmate on the 38th move. My accuracy was 87.2. Estimated 1650 rating for this game. Opponent from: USA. Opening: Indian Game: East Indian, Colle, Grunfeld Formation. Rating of 1254 now.
Another victory with the white pieces, by resignation on the 41st move when mate in three was unavoidable. The computer said I played two great moves. My accuracy was 73.3. Estimated 1250 rating for this game. Opponent from: India. Opening: Queen’s Pawn Opening: Zukertort Variation. Rating of 1275 now.
I was playing such a good game with the black pieces, with an advantage of three pawns and a good position, and then on move 27 I blundered a bishop and resigned in frustration. My accuracy was 77.8. Estimated 1450 rating for this game. Opponent from: Canada. Opening: King’s Gambit.
With the white pieces, I got a quick victory by resignation on the 16th move, after some tactical combinations left my opponent down 17 points of material. My accuracy was 77.4. Estimated 1350 rating for this game. Opponent from: USA. Opening: Englund Gambit. Rating of 1270 now.
The next game was strange. My opponent was playing at a certain low level (even got a bishop trapped) and then suddenly started to play much better, like a computer. I felt he was cheating. But I didn’t play well either. My accuracy was 58.3. Estimated 950 rating for this game. Opponent from: Mexico. Opening: Queen’s Pawn Opening: Zukertort Variation. Rating of 1246 now.
Another loss with the black pieces, by resignation on move 40, in a hopeless position. He had a well studied opening and I had no answer for that. My accuracy was 58.3 (exactly the same as in the previous game). Estimated 900 rating for this game. Opponent from: Indonesia. Opening: King’s Gambit Accepted. Rating of 1224 now.
Then I played what was possibly my worst game ever. Good opening with the white pieces, a bishop sacrifice to corner his king, then two great moves, and when I was ready to give the final blow I blundered a piece exchange and resigned. My accuracy was 75.5. Estimated 1350 rating for this game. Opponent from: Brazil. Opening: Queen’s Pawn Opening: Horwitz Defense. Rating of 1206 now.
Finally, after several defeats, a victory with the black pieces, by checkmate. The game was decided much earlier, but my opponent decided to play until the end, even after he lost all his pieces and his king was all alone. My accuracy was 81.0. Estimated 1500 rating for this game. Opponent from: Canada. Opening: Queen’s Pawn Opening: Zukertort Variation. Rating of 1226 now.
And then a victory by checkmate on the 37th move with the white pieces. My opponent was paying attention to the pawn race we were engaged on, trying to crown his pawn first, and didn’t realize I was going to use my pawn not to make another queen but to trap his king. My accuracy was 80.1. Estimated 1450 rating for this game. Opponent from: USA. Opening: Queen’s Pawn Opening: Zukertort, Chigorin Variation. Rating of 1245 now.
And another win by checkmate, this time with the black pieces on the 54th move. He had more pawns in the endgame, but I had a passed pawn closer to the final line. He still tried to crown a pawn but missed the checkmate of queen and knight. The computer said I had five great moves, my record so far in a single game. My accuracy was 78.9. Estimated 1450 rating for this game. Opponent from: USA. Opening: English Opening: Reversed Sicilian, Kramnik-Shirov Counterattack. Rating of 1264 now.
Game number 21 was my fastest win so far. My opponent, playing with the white pieces, hung a knight on move four and resigned on move five after I took it. My accuracy was 100 (which is funny for just five moves). Estimated 2100 rating for this game. Opponent from: Indonesia. Opening: Queen’s Gambit Declined: Baltic, Pseudo-Slav Defense (does anyone know all these names?). Rating of 1282 now.
Then I got a victory by checkmate with the white pieces on move 31. My accuracy was 80.5. Estimated 1500 rating for this game. Opponent from: India. Opening: Queen’s Pawn Opening: Zuketort Variation. Rating of 1298 now.
The next game was a very bitter draw with the black pieces. I was moving my rook to apply checkmate when my time ran out and the game was declared a “drawn by timeout vs insufficient material” (king, queen and rook vs king). That taught me a lesson: enable premoves, so I can play faster in situations like these. Since my opponent was higher rated than me, the draw still gave me 4 points, enough to take me to 1302. My accuracy was 80.4. Estimated 1550 rating for this game. Opponent from: USA. Opening: King’s Pawn Opening: Leonardis Variation. Rating of 1302 now.
Another early resignation in the next game, as my opponent surrendered on move 11 with the black pieces, after realizing the only way to stop my early attack on the king was by sacrificing his queen. My accuracy was 92.7. Estimated 1950 rating for this game. Opponent from: India. Opening: Queen’s Pawn Opening: Zuketort, Chigorin Variation. Rating of 1318 now.
Then I got totally outplayed by another Indian player who knew his opening better than I did. I resigned on move 30. My accuracy was 76.9. Estimated 1400 rating for this game. Opponent from: India. Opening: Queen’s Pawn Opening: Horwitz Defese. Rating of 1302 now.
I thought I was going to lose the next game as well, with the black pieces, because I got to the endgame with three pawns less than my opponent. But I played a solid and stubborn defense and managed to take the advantage after 62 moves. He resigned. My accuracy was 84.2. Estimated 1600 rating for this game. Opponent from: Italy. Opening: Ruy Lopes Opening: Morphy Defese. Rating of 1315 now.
It seems that every time I pass the mark of 1300 I start losing. This time I resigned on move 46 with the black pieces, after getting outplayed in the endgame. My accuracy was 70.5. Estimated 1200 rating for this game. Opponent from: India. Opening: Queen’s Pawn Opening: Zuketort Variation. Rating of 1300 now.
And then I made my worst mistake ever, blundering my white queen on the 13th move and resigning immediately. My accuracy was 60.7. Estimated 1000 rating for this game. Opponent from: Uruguay. Opening: Queen’s Pawn Opening: Horwitz Defense. Rating of 1290 now.
It’s sad and funny at the same that that my next opponent also blundered his queen and resigned, on move 16 with the black pieces. My accuracy was 69.9. Estimated 1250 rating for this game. Opponent from: Mexico. Opening: Queen’s Pawn Opening: Zuketort Variation. Rating of 1304 now.
For my 30th game, I played the Blackburne Shilling Gambit with the black pieces, one of the very few opening tricks I know. My opponent was clearly not familiar with it and was checkmated on move 7 (that’s the main image for this blog post). My accuracy was 92.9. Estimated 1950 rating for this game. Opponent from: Argentina. Opening: Blackburne Shilling Gambit. Rating of 1316 now.
Not a good day for chess. Three losses in a row, and one was not even my fault.
I thought I had a solid position with the black pieces but then my opponent started taking my pawns, one, two, three, and that was a poor endgame for me with that material disadvantage. Resigned on move 50. My accuracy was 79.7. Estimated 1550 rating for this game. Opponent from: USA. Opening: Bishop’s opening, Berlin Defense. Rating of 1303 now.
The next game was befuddling. I had my opponent one move from checkmate. He sacrificed a bishop to avoid that. And then four moves later he checkmated me. I totally missed that, it was the first time I was checkmated in all my games. Very disappointing. My accuracy was 64.3. Estimated 1550 rating for this game. Opponent from: Kazakhstan. Opening: Queen’s Pawn Opening: Zukertort, Chigorin Variation. Rating of 1293 now.
Another frustrating experience. I was doing well with the white pieces, up a bishop on move 35, and then the electricity went off. Lost by abandonment. That brought me down to rating 1281.
Finally, I got a victory, with the white pieces. My opponent lost a rook in some poorly calculated piece exchange, and resigned on move 24. My accuracy was 78.1. Estimated 1450 rating for this game. Opponent from: Philippines. Opening: Queen’s Pawn Opening: Anti-Torre Attack. Rating of 1290 now.
Then a victory with the black pieces, by resignation on move 54. My opponent actually tried to give me the Scholar’s Mate. I defended appropriately, of course, and the computer classified my sixth move, a knight sacrifice, as brilliant. It’s my first brilliancy ever. My accuracy was 76.0. Estimated 1350 rating for this game. Opponent from: India. Opening: Bishop Opening. Rating of 1298 now.
Appalling game. Big blunder on move 22 with the black pieces, gave a rook away and resigned. My accuracy was the worst ever, 46.7. Estimated 600 rating for this game. Opponent from: Philippines. Opening: King’s Gambit. Rating of 1286 now.
Another defeat. Slowly outplayed, little by little lost material, got to the endgame with my bishop and two pawns against his rook and two pawns, nothing to do but resign. My accuracy was 69.4. Estimated 1150 rating for this game. Opponent from: Indonesia. Opening: Englund Gambit. Rating of 1278 now.
Finally, a win. With the white pieces, in an endgame of queen and pawns, I outmatched my opponent and he resigned on move 61. My accuracy was 73.4. Estimated 1300 rating for this game. Opponent from: Romania. Opening: King’s Pawn Opening: Goldsmith Defense. I’m not sure how this can be a King’s Pawn Opening if I started with 1.d4. Perhaps it’s a transposition, because I played 2.e4? Rating of 1287 now.
A blunder on the 18th move with the black pieces makes me lose the will to play. After losing a bishop that I didn’t see was being attacked, I resigned. My accuracy was 69.3. Estimated 1200 rating for this game. Opponent from: Russia. Opening: Polish Opening. Rating of 1277 now.
The next game, again with black, wasn’t much better. I messed up the opening so badly that I ended up resigning on move 28, feeling totally defeated. My accuracy was 62.2. Estimated 1050 rating for this game. Opponent from: Philippines. Opening: Blackburn Shilling Gambit Declined. Rating of 1267 now.
A draw is better than a loss, so I imagine I shouldn’t be sad about this game. I got a good material advantage but my opponent was lucky that he could force a draw by repetition. My accuracy was 69.0. Estimated 1200 rating for this game. Opponent from: Philippines. Opening: Indian Game: East Indian. Rating of 1268 now.
A little victory to get me going. Endgame of black rook and bishop (me) versus white rook and knight (him) resulted in his resignation on move 47. My accuracy was 75.0. Estimated 1350 rating for this game. Opponent from: Bosnia and Herzegovina. Opening: Blackburn Shilling Gambit Declined. Rating of 1276 now.
It seems every time I start to gain a little confidence I’m paired with a stronger opponent. This one had three Great Moves (according to the computer) and made me resign with the white pieces on move 42. My accuracy was 70.9. Estimated 1200 rating for this game. Opponent from: New Zealand. Opening: Queen’s Pawn Opening: Krause Variation. Rating of 1268 now.
Checkmate on move 66 with the white pieces makes me smile again, especially against a higher rated opponent who started the game with an insulting trap (1. d4 e5, 2.dxe5 Bc5, 3. f3 d6, 4. exd6 Ne7, trying to get my queen). My accuracy was 74.9. Estimated 1350 rating for this game. Opponent from: United Arab Emirates. Opening: Englund Gambit. Rating of 1278 now.
Got a bad opening, with material advantage but allowing my opponent to have two unstoppable connected passed pawns. Resigned on move 37. My accuracy was 68.9. Estimated 750 rating for this game. Opponent from: France. Opening: Blackburn Shilling Gambit Declined. Rating of 1268 now.
Then a quick victory with the black pieces, to keep my spirit up. My opponent resigned on move 25 after I trapped his queen. My accuracy was 80.2. Estimated 1450 rating for this game. Opponent from: Indonesia. Opening: Queen’s Pawn Opening. Rating of 1274 now.
Lost the next one with the black pieces in an endgame against pawn superiority and a stronger opponent. Resigned on move 67. My accuracy was 71.7. Estimated 1300 rating for this game. Opponent from: Canada. Opening: Slav Defense. Rating of 1268 now.
A strange game where my opponent tried to attack me very early and very forcefully with the black pieces, and after I defended myself appropriately he resigned on move 21. Even though I played solidly enough to make him resign, the computer wanted me to follow some other plan and gave me very low scores for not doing it. My accuracy was 49.9. Estimated 700 rating for this game. Opponent from: Kazakhstan. Opening: Queen’s Pawn Opening: Horwitz Defense. Rating of 1275 now.
I consider very poor sportsmanship when the player is about to be checkmated and, instead of letting it happen or resigning the game, lets the clock run until he loses on time. That’s what happened in this game, where I won with the black pieces on move 88 in a rook and pawns endgame. My accuracy was 73.3. Estimated 1300 rating for this game. Opponent from: Iran. Opening: Scotch Game. Rating of 1283 now.
To close my first series of fifty games I had a very silly loss where I wasn’t really paying attention to what I was doing and made a couple of serious blunders. Resigned on move 19. My accuracy was 64.5. Estimated 1100 rating for this game. Opponent from: France. Opening: Queen’s Pawn Opening: Zukertort Variation. Rating of 1276 now.
In chronological order, only one movie per director.
One of my projects for 2024 (yes, I have many projects) is to play again (or, in some cases, for the first time) old computer role playing games (CRPGs). It’s something that gave pleasure for many years and I want to experience it again. I think I will be disappointed in some cases but rewarded in others.
I won’t start with games from the Ultima series (Origin Systems) or the Gold Box series (SSI) because I was never able to like them. It wasn’t because of the primitive graphics, I don’t mind that (I still enjoy playing the classic Rogue, which is just white letters and symbols over a black background). It was the clunkiness of the gameplay and in some cases the silliness of the story.
I was never a fan of the Ultima series. The whole mythology centered around the figure of Lord British (game creator Richard Garriott’s alter ego) was silly, and made even sillier by the pretentious use of Old English expressions like “thee” and “thy”. The worst part, however, was the gameplay. These games were never fun, just piling up one annoyance after another. Working on spreadsheets was more entertaining than playing these early Ultima games. The only game in the series that I had a sliver of fun playing was Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (1992). This was the first time we saw freedom of 360 degrees movement in a game. Even in that low resolution, it was impressive. The gameplay was still cumbersome, unfortunately. And the collision calculations were still primitive, making it hard to deal with enemies and obstacles. A fantastic advance in game technology but still not really an enjoyable experience to play it.
I had already played more advanced games before I got to Gold Box series (Pool of Radiance and its sequels). After that, those older graphics and interface felt primitive and cumbersome. Everything took forever, with an excess of keystrokes to accomplish even simple tasks like equipping a character. And the battles were long and tedious. There was no enjoyment. The only thing I remember appreciating in these games was that after killing many monsters in a battle the last ones would flee instead of staying to be slaughtered. I thought that was a nice touch.
So I will start my replaying of CRPGs with the first games that I really fully enjoyed: The Bard’s Tale (Interplay, 1985) and Eye of the Beholder (SSI, 1991). I won’t strictly follow a chronological order and may eventually jump to more recently titles and then jump back to the old classics. I don’t want to write a thesis about this, I just want to have some fun.
In chronological order, only one movie per director.
I have enjoyed an uncountable number of hours playing Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), and many of them being the Game Master (GM). I particularly find pleasure in being the GM for a group of people who are playing D&D for the very first time. Guiding new players into the game, helping them create and grow the characters, sharing with them the magic of discovering new worlds, all this is a reward in itself. I often use the official starting adventures published by Wizards of the Coast, Lost Mine of Phandelver (from the the 5th Edition Starter Set) and Dragon of Icespire Peak (from the 5th Edition Essentials Kit). They are both good, but they can be improved with a few tweaks (something to be expected from good GMs), and I do that by merging the two into one single adventure.
Merging Lost Mine of Phandelver (LMoP) and Dragon of Icespire Peak (DoIP) into one single adventure is an idea that pops up naturally, because both stories are set in the same geographical area (southeast of the city of Neverwinter, close to the Sword Mountains) and both adventures were designed for characters of the same level (1–5 suggested on LMoP and 1–6 suggested on DoIP).
I begin the campaign with the LMoP adventure. The party can follow the initial plot, dealing with the goblin ambush, finding Sildar Hallwinter, and discovering the Black Spider’s involvement with the Wave Echo Cave. I particularly enjoy that very first fight, the goblin ambush on the road to Phandalin. It’s the first time the players experience combat and start to learn how their individual abilities can interact and collaborate into achieving victory. Well, it’s also funny when things go wrong. Even though those goblins are just a few weak foes, that first encounter requires some thought for a party of level 1 characters. I’ve seen one group of adventurers be totally wiped out by the little critters, thanks to some bad planning and a few unlucky dice throws. After some laughs, the players rerolled their characters and did a much better job the second time around.
When the party reaches Phandalin and starts exploring the village and the surrounding areas, I introduce hooks and rumors related to the troubles in the region described in DoIP. I emphasize the growing threat of the white dragon, Cryovain, and the cultists. Phandalin becomes the central hub for both campaigns. NPCs such as Sildar Hallwinter and Harbin Wester can provide information about the increasing danger in the region, tying the two plots together. Side quests from both campaigns become seamlessly incorporated into the storyline. This can involve encounters with the dragon cultists and their activities, as well as additional threats in the wilderness. In case the players don’t show enough initiative to follow those clues by themselves, Daran Edermath can provide missions for the party guiding them to those locations.
I let them explore and accumulate experience with the side quests, and eventually give them information about one person who knew the location of Cragmaw Castle (that’s where they need to go to rescue Gundren Rockseeker, their original employer and owner of the mine of Phandelver). It’s a druid named Reidoth, usually found in the area around Thundertree, a ruined village East of Neverwinter. That’s where the party will encounter their first dragon, and it’s where I apply my own patch to fix one thing that I consider a problem.
There’s a young green dragon called Venomfang living in a tower in Thundertree. Apparently, the game designers put it there as an example of how not every monster should be fought and how not every problem should be solved by force. The players could avoid the dragon or could try to negotiate with it. But my experience is that every newbie just wants to fight the dragon. It’s their first one and they want to be heroes (and also collect the dragon’s loot). Even the illustration on the cover of LMoP shows a party of adventurers fighting a green dragon. This is a young green dragon with 136 hit points and armor class 18, which makes three attacks per turn (one with its bite and two with its claws) and exhales poisonous gas in a 30-foot cone. Also, once you engage into a fight there is no way to flee, because Venomfang has a flying speed of 80 feet, plus blindsight, darkvision, and a passive perception of 17. Experienced players may manage to defeat it with some luck, but it’s too much for a party of low level newbies. And while your players may laugh at being vanquished by weak goblins in their very first fight in the game, it’s no fun to see a TPK (total party kill) this far into the adventure. So I give them a little help. Reidoth, the druid, gives all of them potions of poison resistance (those are good for an hour, enough time to fight the dragon) and offers support during the combat (he won’t attack the dragon but will cast healing spells from the background). This gives them a chance of defeating the dragon and finding among the loot the Dragon Slayer Sword (+1 bonus to attack and damage rolls, plus extra 3d6 damage to dragons), which will be of great value in the fight against Cryovain, the dragon of Icespire Peak (Reidoth won’t be there to help them).
Once the players are through all (or most of) the side quests, I like to combine the climactic encounters from both adventures into a single, epic finale. Wave Echo Cave (which is the final challenge in LMoP) and Icespire Hold (which is the final challenge in DoIP) are not too far from each other, so I establish that there is a tunnel connecting both locations. After the party enters one of these locations, I create some event that blocks their exit through the same route and leaves them with the other location as the only way out. This creates a large and challenging final dungeon to be explored, but at this point the characters should be at least level 6 (with the two campaigns combined, there are more side quests and therefore more experience points to be collected). The party eventually discovers that the Black Spider (from LMoP) and the dragon cultists (from DoIP) are working together to harness the power within Wave Echo Cave for a dark purpose.
I’ve GMed Lost Mine of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak merged together like this many times with first-time players, and we all had much fun with it. The sense of accomplishment and the bonds formed during these initial adventures make it a truly rewarding experience for both the players and the GM.
In chronological order, only one movie per director.
So, I put my plan in motion and began playing at chess.com. I started unrated and had to play five games to get my first rating.
In the first game I got a victory by resignation on the 16th move, after my white knight forked the black king and queen. But the game review said I played with only 69.5 accuracy. I guess it didn’t like me taking too long to check mate. Despite that, it said I played two great moves. Estimated 900 rating for this game. Opponent from: Philippines. Opening: Ruy López, Morphy Defense, Deferred Schliemann Defense (I wish I knew that’s what I was playing).
The second game, playing with the black pieces, I won by checkmate on the 43rd move. This time I had a much better accuracy, 83.0. Estimated 1350 rating for this game. Opponent from: India. Opening: Queen’s Pawn , 1 … c6.
The third game, playing with the black pieces again, I won by resignation on the 25th move, after my knight forked the king and a rook. My accuracy here was 76.5. Estimated 1200 rating for this game. Opponent from: Indonesia. Opening: King’s Pawn, Leonardis Variation.
I won the fourth game with the white pieces on the 48th move, by checkmate. There was a moment where I thought I was lost, but I managed to play a discovered attack on the black queen with check (a great move, said the computer) and that turned the game around. My accuracy here was 73.3. Estimated 1200 rating for this game. Opponent from: Brazil. Opening: Colle System (I learned that from Rey Enigma on YouTube).
The fifth game, with the black pieces, I won on the 20th move by resignation, after my opponent miscalculated an exchange of pieces and emerged with one piece less than me. My accuracy was the highest so far, 82.8. Estimated 1550 rating for this game. Opponent from: USA. Opening: Queen’s Pawn, Chigorin Variation.
So, after five games, I have a rating. To my surprise it’s 1264, beyond my realistic goal of 1000 and my optimistic goal of 1200. But I don’t think it will be so easy from now on, as I will keep getting stronger opponents. I expect my rating to stand around this level or even go down, because soon I will find players who will defeated me. I’m curious to see when I will encounter this brick wall.
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