I’ve been thinking of reentering the housing market of late, not because I think prices have hit the ‘bottom’ but rather because there’s a point at which any further decline is likely to be smaller than the losses incurred via renting. There are probably also smart ways to combine a mortgage with a trading account, for example by taking out an offset mortgage and having one’s main trading capital in this account. Then it can be fed in and out of the brokerage account whenever one has a trade that needs margin. Needless to say I believe in betting small, I’ve seen too many traders blow up because they haven’t had good money management in place. And this is regardless of their ‘edge’.

So where am I thinking of moving? It could well be out of Southport in which sellers seem to be particularly stubborn with their asking prices. I’ve been looking at Skelmersdale for example, where John Littlewood has lived for years plus another good friend of mine. Of course there’s very little in Skelmersdale apart from a TM temple, but at least the yogic flyers won’t think it particularly weird if I start doing some Zhan Zhuang outdoors. I’ve tried it in a local park in Southport and besides the midges I got some funny looks from early morning dog walkers.

After more than twenty years of practice, I am thoroughly convinced that a large percentage of human ailments can be treated more scientifically at home by natural methods of right living than by unnatural methods of drugging, operating and general tampering with the human body.

This is from a book that caught my eye that was first published in 1925, Healthy Eyes Without Glasses and Heath Without Drugs. It takes real guts to say this, plus honesty to the point of being a little crazy. In advocating various exercises and proper diet as a way of avoiding the use of glasses the Dr Richardson who wrote this book was turning down the nice gravy train offered by new prescriptions for ever weakening eyes. I guess he figured that most people wouldn’t take a blind bit of notice (excuse the pun) and that those who did would buy his book. Plus he thought that the message was important.

This reminded me of Dr Benson’s book The Relaxation Response in which the benefits of meditation were scientifically documented. They’re both ‘free’ treatment approaches in which the patient takes responsibility for his or her own condition. And it goes without saying that there’s going to be little commercial backing for either.

Whilst we’re on the subject of gravy trains it’s difficult not to  mention the chess industry in which the latest openings and importance of ‘theory” are heavily plugged. And are such matters of any importance whatsoever to the average player these books purport to be targeted at? Nope, not at all. But nobody wants to admit this.

My son’s liking for a dog training DVD advocating the John Fischer methodology (it advocates an understanding of dog psychology rather than things such as ‘choke chains’) got me thinking about incentives. I think that systems based on punishment are deeply flawed in that the anxiety they create is likely to inhibit performance. Reward versus no reward is much better, but this should be managed carefully. Rewards can also create poor overall performance as they can put the performer in a situations in which he has everything to gain by a particular outcome and nothing to lose if he takes too many risks to get it. For some strange reason the word bankers has just popped into my mind.

You can get this at the chessboard too. I once heard that in a crucial chess match the Israeli team were each offered a thousand dollars bonus if they won, nothing for a draw. Naturally this produced a tendency to go for a win no matter what the position required them to do, a sure-fire recipe for disaster.

So what’s the solution to the incentive issue? Basically I think that optimal performance is produced when people take pride in their profession, so treat them with respect and they’ll do much better. Of course proper financial incentives are a good way of showing respect but this must not be done in too crass a manner.

The problem I’m having is in quantifying these thoughts, turning them into a simple and easy to understand formula. If I could then I dare say, for example, that the politicians would learn to leave teachers to do their job rather than treating them like performing fleas.

And before anyone asks we don’t have a dog. My son just likes to see them under control…

The following clip of Tim Ferriss talking about defining fears seems very deep to me.  There’s a clear analogy here with the Samurai approach of visualising death in order to overcome their fear of it. Not to mention the falsification process that strong chess player’s go through.

Of course pessimism tends to be looked down upon in our culture of upbeat optimism in which books such as The Secret (imagining cheques coming one’s way etc) become best sellers. So anyone for a bit of Seneca or maybe the Hagakure? Failing that, here’s the trailer from Ghost Dog.

The French Lebanese GM, Bachar Kouatly, once commented on how ugly my chess style was. Hopefully it has improved a bit in this respect (especially with my ever greater leaning towards positional play) but there may still be a lot of truth to what he said. I’d like to reply with Nimzovitsch’s remark that the beauty of chess lies not in a move’s appearance but rather the thought behind it, but when you see a game by Capablanca, Rubinstein, Smyslov, Karpov or Kramnik there is often an aesthetic appeal beyond this.

Of course an ugly style of play does not prevent one from being effective, and there may even be a case that ugly chess is MORE effective than the aesthetically pleasing variety because the only reason for playing that way would be the results. Lasker played ugly chess but was World Champion for 27 years whilst Viktor Korchnoi’s games would not win many prizes for grace or elegance.

Similarly you can find some ugly martial arts styles, the uglies of which may well be Yiquan. It has no form and little  grace, but the originator, Wang Xiangzhai, was one of the top fighters in China.

Here’s a clip from a Yiquan tournament. Ugly, really ugly.

It shows how slowly I get the news that only just now have I found out that Rob Hartoch died last month.  I got to know him quite well when we stayed with the same family in South London in the 1980s.

Rob was one of the warmest, kindest and most colourful people I’ve met on the chess scene. I wasn’t too surprised to hear that the cause was liver failure, he didn’t worry too much about the the harmful effects of whisky and coke, his favourite tipple. But this is a warning to us all, he was just 62.

People often make light of these issues arguing that a number eleven bus might take them out anyway so they might as well ‘enjoy life’. OK, this is a choice people have to make for themselves, but a look at the stats shows there can be very real consequences. I’ve known a number of chess people die in their 50s and 60s and in every case there was at least one lifestyle issue; weight, drinking or smoking.

I feel really sad about Rob, and I’m sure that many others do too. 92 would have been better.

Came across this earlier today. One might add that the trading rules should also lead to consistent profitability, and through changing cycles…

Another new deveopment is that on reading Deng Ming-Dao’s Scholar Warrior I’ve decided that I’m probably more of a reform taoist than anything else. The main problem I have with the Orthodox version is the pseudo-scientific approach to ‘herbal’ treatments, which unfortunately include such delicacies as frogs and sheeps brains. It seems that these are counted as herbs but without one iota of evidence that tucking into the brain of a sheep makes someone the least bit smarter.

On the other hand there are a number of strong suits to Taoism, not least of which are the recommendation of a broad education (a range of physical and intellectual disciplines) and no bribery vis a vis promises of heaven and/or immortality. So I figure that by substituting some of the ‘herbal’ recommendations with some standard healthy cuisine (for example Dr. Andrew Weil’s recommendation of a mainly vegetarian diet plus oily fish), one might make giant strides. Reform taoism, and my own brand at that.

On the Zhan Zhuang front I’ve recently started trying one of the one legged postures plus the ‘holding the tiger’ stance. In short it’s a whole new world of extreme discomfort and I can’t even manage a full minute in either. My merciful sifu actually recommended a sitting version of both, though never one to listen to good advice I’ve been trying them standing up.

There has been an interesting and highly noticeable side effect in that I’m now able to tie my shoelaces on one leg without any problem. Whilst this may not seem like much I wonder how many lives such stability would save amongst the elderly. The beginning of the end often seems to come with a fall and a broken bone.

Hopefully this will stand me in good stead during a visit to Gulliver’s World tomorrow. I hasten to add that this isn’t my father’s day pick as much as junior’s birthday trip; he’s 7 on monday.

So about the training session. For me personally it was great, I got a very different angle from that offered by my association with the Spec List – it was more like army training. The instructor fired questions at us in a very confrontational style and this was interspersed with exercises. One of the two Polish students left the room frequently and it got to a point at which she just wouldn’t be able to keep up. After about 10 solid hours of this (lunch was served at the table where we were working) everyone was exhausted.

It became clear that the Polish students had not prepared as well as they should; I had a few weak sides which will need ironing out. I will not be going into detail about what I learned and how I’ll be able to use it in conjunction with the stats based approach I was involved with earlier. But it can most definitely be done and should be very effective.

OK, I’ll give you a teeny weeny clue as to what it’s all about with this memo to self: Drink as many beers as possible with pit traders.