Views of a Patzer!

After getting beaten soundly (you can still see the dark ugly bruises in my face) in Online Chess for 3 times in a row, yesterday, I did the Chess equivalent of drowning myself in Liquor: Went out and bought more Chess books! You see, everytime I have an embarassing, totally annihilating defeat, I get soooo "low" that I go out, buy a new Chess book, read the first chapter and hope it doesn't happen again. Does buying all these books help? I would say it only adds to the worries:

1. How to pack/unpack/shift some 110 Chess books blah blah blah. A constant reminder of how many times I have embarassed myself.
2. When am I going to go past the first chapter (?!) in all these books.
3. The alarming rate at which this collection is growing. This is my major worry. I don't seem to learn anything at all. Why?
4. Keeping a tab of books in which I crossed the first chapter. Ohhh..this is quite an irritating thing, believe me. Most of the times, I get so confused that I start from the beginning.

Enough rambling! When I had my latest ETAD (Embarrassing, Totally Annihilating Defeat), I didn't go out and buy any books. Does that mean I am cured? Nope! Since I couldn't find any books that I didn't already own, I bought Chess Master 10th Edition (CM) and subscribed to both BlackBelt and WhiteBelt.

I first saw CM in one of my friend's house. My first impression was "All nice graphics, engine is ok and has tons of tutorials. Wow!". But, soon that "Wow" factor gave way to "Doesn't look professional at all" feeling. Now do not get me wrong, I don't play Kasparov every other day. I didn't mean that kind of professionalism here. CM has that look that can't quite be termed as ...... professional, you know :) So, why did I buy it? I figured I do not need a Deep Fritz to train and anyway Deep Fritz bows out to CM when it comes to tutorials, which is exactly what I am looking for.

WhiteBelt and BlackBelt, for uninitiated, are the weekly Chess newsletters sent out by MiG. It is not free, BTW. But, I think, it's cheap (or does it look cheap just because I am desperate?!) . At $6/month it is worth a try. I already have got 2 BlackBelts and 1 WhiteBelt. WhiteBelt is supposed to be for my level of players (read it as "for patzers"). But, after going through WB, I tell you, only a "Sub WhiteBelt" or a "No-Belt" issue will make sense to me, I guess.