I was taught one day by my Mom, I forgot about it for a while, and got back to it a few years later.

 

You? 

My cousin Allen taught me when I was like 7.  Played on and off ever since.

I was taught when I was like 4 by my dad, and was in a chess club at school in brooklyn in 2nd grade.  I only recently started playing regularly again, with the discovery of this site and the purchase of some good books :).

I got caught up in the chess hysteria when Fischer was carving through the opposition on en route to Reykjavik.

A week on a house boat when i was 12 i belive. Picked it up when i was 14 and played on and off till now

I saw a chess set in a car,

went to a toy store which says it's a board game,

and just bought a set - without even knowing how it is played! :)) 

That was in 1964, when I was 8 years old.

I don't remember who taught me, nobody in my family plays chess.  But I must have been really young when I learned, because I don't remember not knowing how to play.  I've played a lot back in high-school, including a few minor tournaments.  Slowly coming back to games now.

I was taught by my Grandpa who was playing my older cousin at the time and noticed my interest.  That was when I was 4.  I had learned the basics at that time and picked the game back up 2 years ago at the age of 14.

I always have dreamed of playing with animals, so I did find in chess figures and their houses a small zoo in miniature (rooks were chariots, bishops <-> elephants, knights <-> horse-riders, King and Queen were their administrators, and pawns <--> their servants).

All the men in my family played. Picked it up when I was 4.

Chess runs in my family

kind of like a past time

I used to always play with my dad until i reached 8 then i stopped

I joined the site this year at 15 over a funny argument with a couple friends as to who would beat who and then stopped for 2 months and then got really caugtht up in it and still am

Ferdyrojo wrote: I always have dreamed of playing with animals,

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i think you could be onto something here ferdy, next time i lose 2 or 3 consecutive games, i'm going to arrange a game against my dog, just to get my confidence back up. and just to ensure the victory i'm going to target the rotweiller. i think the border collie has worked out a counter attack to my current opening.

Don't remember when or how I learned but have been interested in chess for years. Never have found others to play with so its been hit and miss until I found this site.

Monado wrote: My parents bought me a Simpsons chess set during the shows first season or so, and learned to play then. I stopped before high school, and just started again last year when I was backpacking around parts of Europe.

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 haha,i have that chess set, too.. it's such a pain in the ass when you've been playing on real boards to play on that colourful, simpson character board...

 

anyways, i was taught by my dad but never really learned strategy until highschool, when i found it fun beating the kids on the chess team in my comp sci and comp eng classes.. our teacher is nice enough to have a board in the middle table so we don't screw around too much when we were done our work 

I bought an iPhone, jailbroke it and installed Chess 1.6 on it.

I found it interesting and enjoyable so I downloaded some chess books and went and bought a chess set.

I mentioned chess to some colleagues at work, who ended up being interested in playing, so I brought my board to work and now we play games over lunch.

Now I pretty much play every day.

I learned how to move the pieces when I was young playing against a computer. Then I started to enjoy the game after I entered a school tournament in 7th grade and took 2nd place. But I didn't actually start learning the real fundamental concepts of chess till my freshman year of high school.

My sister taught me to play when I was 3 or 4 years old. It's an interest that has stuck with me, although sometimes it'll languish for years before I pick it up again. Could explain why Chessmaster says my Elo rating is about 600... Much like music, though, it's something I always come back to in the end.

I learned a long time ago at school.  We didn't have a chess club, but we had several people at high school that played at lunch and after school.

 My father taught me to play when I was a child.

During an air raid in World War II, my brother played chess with a friend to pass  the time. That's how I learned the moves watching them play.