Flashes

9PM last night. Staring at computer. Not much sleep for about 4 days -- 5 hours/night at most. Like to get 8. Bed calling, "Don. Daaawn. Put down your heavy burden. Rest. Chess problems can wait for another day ..."

No. I may get the remainder of the problems wrong, but I'm going to get them wrong on schedule. I return to the screen with new found determination and immediately am rewarded with getting 3 problems in a row completely wrong. The next problem looks no better. I see no real threats. Hmmm ... Let's try this. What looks out of place in black's position? King position is a tad under-defended and his rook on the queenside is undefended and in an awkward spot. Calculate a few lines on a kingside attack, but not quite enough to break through.

Then it flashes. One kingside line forces the king to cature a piece on h7 where a queen check will fork the poorly placed rook. The 5 move combination flows effortlessly.

This happened several times last night. I was trying to start off my analysis with thoughts about what looked "wrong" about a posistion. What I was able to do more easily was to see how several themes could combine -- combining combinations. Much like what Sancho described as "stringing several ideas together". Very satisfying when a 5 or 6 mover pops into your head. Never thought 6 movers would feel like 2 3 movers.

55 days down, 100 to go
695 probs down, 514 to go in Circle One