I'm a beginner to the game of chess and I can't figure something out. I learned monopoly when I was just a kid and was playing like a pro in no time. I conquered yahtzee in a day and was kicking butt left and right. I even tried backgammon and was gammoning my heart out in a week. But here I am, I've studied and been playing chess for a whole month and I'm still not a master! I can sometimes win a game or two when I play against one of my guy friends by wearing a top that shows a lot of cleavage and bending over the board pretending to be intently studying the positions of the pieces, they sometimes get distracted and I can sneak in a good move, but that doesn't work online. So I sat awhile and pondered my dilemna and decided I must be doing something wrong. "I've got it!" I said, "I'll go find Bobby Fischer and ask him what I'm doing wrong."
 My search led me across the globe until I finally tracked him down just outside Reykjavik, Iceland, where he was ice fishing at a small lake. "Bobby, I've come from far away to hear words of wisdom only you can impart", I said. "Eh?" he said. "Tell me, greatest of all chess grandmasters, what is the secret to winning at chess??" He looked me over for a minute then said, "First you need to get a top that shows a lot of cleavage.....", "No no" I said, "I need to win at online chess!" He paused for a moment to check his fishing line then responded, "Forget it, it'll never happen". "Why not??" "Well..... you're FEMALE" he replied and promptly ignored me and sat looking down at the hole in the ice.
 Things were not going as I had planned so I decided it would be a good time to give him the gefilte fish and kugel that the nice little jewish lady next door had made for my going away trip. For some reason this only seemed to make him more angry. I was getting a bit angry myself, not to mention cold. "What about the Polgar sisters??" I said. "Freaks" he replied in a derisive tone, "Products of a secret government-funded genetic engineering project." "Well how about....." (I tried desperately to think of another female chess player but the only one I could think of was the one that wrote that Chess Bitch book and I couldn't remember her name) "how about those other female chess masters??" "Alien implants, every one of them" he answered. "The aliens beam the best moves into their brains from a spaceship circling Mars."
 At this point I wasn't sure what to do next. I considered asking him if he knew how to get in touch with the aliens but I was worried about what might be involved in getting an implant (I've seen the X-Files shows). "So there is no secret to winning at chess?." "Oh, there's a secret but I'm not about to share it with you." I looked at the hole in the ice and asked, "Catch any fish yet?" "Not a single one" he replied with a sigh. "Well, I'll tell you how to catch all the fish you could want if you'll share the secret to winning chess with me." He thought about it for a moment then replied, "Alright, it's a deal, the secret to winning chess is...... 42." "42??" "42 what??" But he would tell me no more and insisted I tell him my end of the deal. So I told him and left him there, happily baiting his line with gefilte fish, as I headed home to ponder his answer.

 I've really been enjoying learning chess. The complexity and depth of it is unlike any other game and I'm having a great time playing and studying it. I lose pretty much every game at this point because I'm always playing stronger opponents but that only inspires me to work harder and I learn a little more from every game. Finding Chess.com was the best thing that could have happened for me, it has a fantastic commnity of very nice and helpful people and a wealth of chess information.