Greetings
April 28, 2008 • General
Since I have neither been on ICC or blogging much lately, I am sure people are wondering where I have vanished off to. Matter of fact, I’ve been spending time in the lovely Pacific Northwest. This past week I was staying in absolutely beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia. After that I returned to Washington State for a mere two days to do a simul at the Washington Elementary Championships in Redmond, WA. Now, I am back in Vancouver for the next two weeks before I try and remember how to play chess amidst all the calm and beauty. Till next time, keep it classy Chess World! (Takeoff on Ron Burgundy for those who didn’t see Anchorman).
icc is boring without you playing small, people there are lookin for you, only you could gather us together in one spot at icc
I’ve spent time in B.C., it really is beautiful. Icc can wait..have a good time there.
I spent some time in Vancouver as well and loved it. I was flown up there and given my own stretch limo rides by EA Sports Canada back when I was the world champion SSX snowboard racer. The city was stunning and I had a blast. EA even let me design my own snowboard, which was added in the PS2 version of SSX3. I remember the competition against me was pretty fierce, and I had to stave off people from all over the world trying to beat my records. At one point I was spending 8 hours a day just trying to shave a tenth of a second off my times! Anyway, I had to retire after 3 years of that as it left me no time for anything else, like working a job.
Oh no, I’m from the States. EA Sports had flown me up to Vancouver from Texas to have me test out SSX3 when they were developing it for the major consoles (PS2, Xbox, and I believe Gamecube as well). IF you play the PS2 version of SSX3, you can obtain my snowboard by using the “Mac” character. As you win medals, you’ll be rewarded with new selectable gear and will eventually get the “galaxy” board, which is the one I made. Its an all black board with dark blue trim and the initials “FBX” on the bottom side. “FBX” is of course short for FireBrandX and is what all my friends and fellow competitors called me.
Anyway, long story short: I retired after the release of SSX3 in 2003 and now I play club chess and render artwork for Gambit chess books.
Hikaru, if I could ask a question: When you were rising up the class ranks, how did you study to improve stuff like tactics and whatnot? I didn’t have the benefit of learning chess as a child, so I’ve been having to work my way up as an adult in my 30’s. I’m now up to 1741 from 1200 during the past year, but I want to make sure I’m making the best use of my study time. Any suggestions you could offer would be greatly appreciated! My email is wolff@firebrandx.com Thanks!