I saw a forum topic awhile back on how people learned the game.  I didn't see anyone who was self taught, so I thought it'd be interesting to find people who were.

I got a chess book when I was 7, and read it, and learned to play.  My dad was an ok chess player, but he bought a board so that we could play more.  I never really played anyone outside of my father or his friends until I was 13, and I found I could beat most of my age group.  High School treated me well, I had moderate tournament success, met a lot of really good players, and now I continue to get better by actually studying some chess, instead of just playing.

What are your stories?

anyone?

Very much self-taught here. Love the game but have only been a chess.com member for a few months.

I consider myself self-taught, even though my dad showed me the moves.  After that I was on my own, as far as objectives, tricks, planning, strategy, etc...  My motivation was to defeat him, I did, but I almost never beat him at speed games.

Players stand better at success if they were self -taught, I once heard, although there are exceptions.

I was bored, and looked on his book shelf, found one about an interzonal tourney in the 60's.  I then set up my board, and tried playing what was written in the book, my only confusion was: 0-0...I didn't know what the hell is that?...But then I figured it out, like we all do sooner or later anyway.  And then I progressed the more games I played from the book, and then I joined a club, and then I played dad....( the usual stuff)  So here I am, a slave of the game.... 

Yea, I'm self taught i geuss. Friends and I used to play our own variants on a big, beautiful wooden board at primary school. Then my dad showed me how to play properly and within a few months i could beat him and everyone at my school. this must of killed it for them a bit because for no particular reason i can recall i didn't play chess again 'till highschool.

I dominated at my highschool too, but it was a small school and whenever we went to regional tourneys we'd be lucky to win a game or two. Looking back this doesn't surprise me becasuse the only tuition our club got was forty minutes at lunch times for a couple of weeks before each tourney.  This tuition was run by a kindly old white haired man, who i realise now, could barely play. I gave it away after a year and a half.

So i consider myself self-taught, because i finally came back to the game a couple of years ago, through playing with some friends, and have since devoured books, articles, opening databases and plenty of actual games in an attempt to improve my game and this reading constitutes by far the bulk of my chess learning.