Shira Chess Challenge: Match and Training Update!

Hola darlings! The time is fast approaching - this weekend, starting on Saturday September 5th and concluding on Monday September 7th, Shira and I will be playing out match - one game each day, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I'll let you know the TIME soon! Shira and I will be playing in real time using clocks - 1 hour each - at chess.com. Shira plays under the name "shirae" and I play under "JanXena". We invite you to kibitz. I don't recall if I posted this link earlier - but if I didn't - here is the link to Shira's "Movie Channel" at You Tube. She's posted a lot of videos there of her 2009 projects with the kids - worth watching! The kids and Shira's work with them is what this is all about. On the training front, some updates. First, Chessdaddy, I done you wrong, darling. I thought he had abandoned me, but it turns out he had not received the email notice that I had made a move in our one and only training game, and he hadn't gone back to redhotpawn.com to check the game status. Our game has since resumed and right now, according to CD, I am ahead in piece development and slightly ahead in material. Second, I have received help from an unexpected source! A little background: Back on July 6th I did a post, sounding in dismay and depression, about how my chess training was going, and I posted an article I'd found about "beginner" chess and a couple who are training mostly young ones (but some older ones too) chess beyond the fundamentals. After all, it isn't that hard to learn how the pieces move. It's what comes afterward that is the brain-slayer for moi! At that point in my training, having hit near despair that I could even play again (paralysis had set in), Shira and I bumped back the match date from the end of July to the end of August, and settled upon Labor Day weekend. Lo and behold. Laura Sherman, one of the dynamic duo who is Your Chess Coach, posted a comment to that dreadful lament and the rest, as the saying goes, is history. After learning more about Shira's Computer Labs for Kids Foundation, Laura and her husband Dan are contributing free time to help me with analysis and zeroing in on my weakest spots. I'm not too hopeless a case after all, darlings! First session is tomorrow night (I scheduled it for AFTER Hell's Kitchen - can't miss Chef Gordon Ramsay yelling and screaming at his contestants, heh!) Dan and Laura Sherman met through chess in Los Angeles in 1992. Both were strong tournament players in their youth and developed a passion for the game. Now that they are parents they feel it is time to start teaching the next generation. To that end they are working on e-courses and books to teach parents and educators how to teach children to play chess. They also teach over 50 student in 6 schools locally, starting as early as age 4. I'm looking forward to my first session with Dan and Laura. We'll be working via telephone and simultaneously online. Thank you, Laura and Dan Sherman, for caring, and for your time. I will try my bestest not to disappoint.