I haven't been blogging, as you may have noticed. Part of the reason is that my health hasn't been great for the past couple of years, and part of the reason is my bridge hasn't been that great either. Plus, I have been playing a lot with students, which means that even if I was personally having a good day, the chances of really good stuff coming up were a bit slim.
Well, things are changing, at least a little. Most of my students have fallen by the wayside, one way or another. I am playing with Elwood much more regularly, typically once a week. And Agent 99, flushed with success at finally achieving Life Master rank, has resolved to play more often, which may translate to more than once a week with me.
One thing that hasn't changed is that I'm back in a slump, occasionally having a good session, but more often spoiling the card with two or three idiocies that would upset me if a student perpetrated them. I don't really know of a good way out of a slump except to just play through it, trusting that there are still some good days to come eventually. If anybody has any other suggestions, feel free to comment.
So, anyway, I think I'm going to try and blog again. And to give myself some incentive, I'm setting myself a target. My New Year's resolution was to try and play better against good opposition. I feel like I'm stuck in what we used to call "rabbit bashing" mode - beating up the weaker opponents, but with some fundamental sloppiness that is quickly exposed when the opponents have quality. I want to tighten up my game so that even the good opponents worry when I come to the table. But also, my next master point rank is Silver Life Master, and it's about 230 points away. I want to see how close I can get by the end of the year.
That's an average of about a point a day, which is very steep in my current mode. I can perhaps earn some of the load online (I already have met the color requirements, so just pushing the total to 1,000 is all I need).
But that isn't as easy as you might think. The only real strategy is to play at some regionals, winning the points in bunches. That too isn't so easy, or cheap. I'll try and keep you posted on how it's going.
