Well here I am in Boston, having  just sampled the delights of the Uno restaurant. Serving bacon and gorgonzola together in a salad has to be an American idea – the Italians would probably consider this combo quite inappropriate. I also got to drink Sam Adams Boston Lager on draught, and it’s quite something.

Whenever I leave the UK I realise just how bad the food is back home. Air France no doubt considers it a matter of pride to serve up some decent nosh with their airline fare beating the hell out of what you might expect from the average UK pub chain. Add the fact that I manage to see the movie Ip Man and it was about as much fun as a longhaul flight could be. I must remember to fly with the frogs more often.

As for the training session that comes tomorrow. I’ve spent most of the day studying the various concepts – I don’t want to be left behind by my two Polish classmates. And this included wandering around a shopping centre whilst listening to the recording of a course my teacher presented some time back.

One of the things that strikes me about this stuff is that there’s just no way it can be quantified by stat arb types. But that probably means the cycles aren’t quite so subject to changeability.

In a couple of hours I’m leaving for Boston for a one day training session with someone who trains traders in a particular methodology. Before getting interested in this approach some 9 months back I took as my working assumption the idea that all trading coaches were bandits. But this was before I accidentally found out about one of his students’ results…

So why would a trader choose to coach? I’ve sometimes asked myself a similar question with my chess coaching, would I do it if money wasn’t an issue? There are certainly some arguments for doing so, not least of which is the contact with other people. As trading is an even lonelier profession than chess there’s a case for having students for some social interaction and the development of ideas.

Of course it goes without saying that there will be many charlatans in this field plus some other well meaning incompetents. So as the Armenian proverb goes one should measure the cloth seven times before cutting it once.

I got back today even before 10am, which entailed getting up at 4 in the morning (which is actually 3am in UK time) to do a shortened Zhan Zhuang session and then heading off for the train. Fortunately it’s now possible to go from Alte Wohr Station direct to the airport, otherwise I would barely have had time for the Wu Chi posture!

For each of the DVDs I recorded just over 4 hours material and I think it went OK. The one on the Queen’s Gambit Declined Exchange Variation was something I’ve wanted to do for a while as this stable asymetrical pawn structure is perfect for many older players.

So now I’ve got a few days of market studies before heading off to Boston. It’s been a while since I’ve flown so much.

Tomorrow I’m off to Hamburg for a couple of days to film 2 more DVDs. On the menu this time is one on the Queen’s Gambit Declined Exchange Variation plus the f4 Sicilian, so for the past few days I’ve been preparing material.

I’ve come to the conclusion that DVDs are ideal for explaining ideas and strategy but very bad for going into too much detail, especially with sharp variations. So my emphasis will be squarely on the strategy behind these two openings.

It’s going to be a busy week because next Saturday I’m off to the US to see someone about a particular trading approach I’ve been studying. I’m not going to go into more detail than this because the intuitive style I’m looking at would be anathema to some people with a more quantitative bent who have been very good to me. I wouldn’t want to contradict the idea that trading should be as scientific as possible but I’m motivated by the conviction that one should combine art with science for maximum effect.

In the back of my mind something else has started to crystalise – the idea that my interests in chess, taoism and markets may actually be closely connected. According to some historians the origins of chess can be traced back to early divination practices, and I found an excellent discussion on this subject here. And what does someone do with markets? One divines…

I got news yesterday evening that my 4NCL team is losing its sponsorship. Maybe I could find another team and it might be hard to refuse a good offer. But I figure this may be an appropriate moment to take a break from playing and make the Staunton Memorial my last scheduled event. It’s good not to spread yourself too thin and there are a lot of things I want to do right now.

One interesting issue is in how someone should maintain their chess during periods when they don’t play. This certainly isn’t easy, but first of all I think it’s important to maintain some sort of interest whereby you at least look at a chess board from time to time. I also believe that periods of intense training can be very beneficial, times when you do nothing but chess for days on end. For most people this isn’t easy and it makes me wonder if I should reintroduce my chess seminars, just running them from Southport and limiting numbers to 6 people or fewer. If anyone is interested in participating then please let me know.

I’ve just read the best advice I’ve ever seen on how to write a book. Dan Poynter’s classic Self-Publishing Manual recommends printing out any copy as you write it and then carrying it around in a binder. That way you get to make edits at various times of the day and can bung research material in the back. The book is always with you and thus provides a crutch against procrastination.

I only wish I’d have read this some 15 books ago; every one of them has been a struggle and I’m sure the entire exercise would have been a lot easier had I known about Poynter’s method. There’s lots of other good advice in there too.

Self-publishing? Yes, amidst trading the hell out of the S&P 500 I’m thinking about bringing out a few of my own books, not least being a thoroughly revised and expanded edition of the REAL Power-Chess Program. The one that Batsford produced in that weedy, diminuitive, two volume, 500 page edition was a hugely cut down version of the original two year course. And I have a few other ideas as well.

Switching web hosts to Zen Internet has thus far turned out to be a sheer joy and I’m back online. The Tigerchess site can currently be reached here and the Tigerchess Domain name should catch up fairly shortly. I’ve come to the conclusion that this is one of those things where it’s worth paying a bit more for excellence. In fact this whole experience has been a good lesson in going for quality over ‘value’ and keeping things simple wherever possible.

The other areas where I believe it’s good not to skimp are with lawyers and teachers. With lawyers the main saving should be in not having to go to them in the first place, but when it’s absolutely necessary (for most people this will probably mean divorce) then a good one will help you resolve matters with a minimum of fuss and pain. With teachers it’s less obvious, the good ones helping their students to progress at a much faster rate and without leaving them with any bad habits.

On the latter note I will be switching to private Zhan Zhuang lessons with the teacher I’ve been studying with for the last 18 months. For the next few months I’ll be doing the class as well, but once trading starts up again it will interfere with the US close.

Still under the influence of Tim Ferris, a few minutes ago I googled for ‘lifestyle design’ and the search came up mainly with furniture. Now whilst I’m a great believer in free markets I figure that somewhere along the way humanity may have lost the plot. Shouldn’t there be more to life than a comfortable sofa?

I guess that these anarchistic thoughts have entered my head because of the strange case of the disappearing web site (Tigerchess) and my feeling of utter helplessness on a Memorial Day/ Bank Holiday weekend.

I’m beginning to wonder if finding a good website host is as hard as finding a good plumber. My Tigerchess site went offline today without me touching it, but Evgeny at their customer support seemed to want to imply that it was somehow my fault. The company concerned had received pretty good review for their domain name hosting and recently went into offering web space. I guess there were no guarantees they’d be good at both.

Anyhow, I’ve now concluded that Tim Ferris’s advice in his Four Hour Work Week book is probably right – to have duplicate versions of your site hosted with two different companies and then have a third hosting the domain name which can be simply redirected should problems occur.

Funnily enough this idea of having a back up is echoed in Joe DiNapoli’s training course – just in case your broker suddenly can’t be contacted you need to have backup brokers with whom you can place offsetting orders. It’s in the nature of things that they should go wrong so you can’t have enough contingency plans.

Well it looks like my various obligations are gradually being brought under control and a time of self-determination is approaching. I’ve been moving my chess coaching to Saturdays and weekday mornings where possible, leaving me free to spend time with markets during the afternoons and evenings.

Right now I figure I might have separate accounts for different time frames, daily and intraday. I can trade the daily close with most European and US markets, but if I don’t want to do this whilst fixing junior’s rice pudding on Mondays I should probably just look at the US. BTW, I don’t agree with those who think that all markets have similar patterns, they just don’t. Even amongst stock indices the Hang Seng trades very differently to the Nikkei.

It might well be September before I’m fully up and running with this project, summer markets tend to behave strangely because the liquidity goes on vacation. But this is no big deal, it’s just good to feel that I’ll have some say over my destiny again, which may be why markets are so attractive.

June promises to be an interesting month. Besides making two more DVDs I’m going to see someone in the US about a trading method that I believe will make all the difference to the quant approach I learned from Dr. Niederhoffer. The issue I’m thinking about is how to interlace the two and I’ve come up with several ways of trying to do this. But as they say when annotating a new chess move, more tests are required.