I have been wondering what it is that strikes people about chess. What got you into it? How old were you? I have this theory that if you start playing when you are a bit older, ill say 11-13 you seem to want to know more and more. I learned to move the pieces when i was 4 years old. I never was too interested, i would have rather ridden my bike then sat and played a game with some stupid pieces. Then I REALLY got interested at about 14. But i figure by then, i hated losing, so i had a thirst for winning, and it was a game that doesnt involve luck. Sure if your opponent makes a bad move it COULD be considered luck, or just a brain fart. But either way, I love chess because it has no luck involved and i have a thirst to win.

I'm already 48 years old.  I learned chess when I was 10 years old.  My elder brother who was then still a college stude taught me.  I got addicted that most of the time escaped my classes just to play chess.  I played against anybody who wanted to play, young and old.  I used to play against my dad and grandad. Then I learned how to play ball and chess became a thing of the past. But then a friend introduced me to online chess and my interest and passion came back.  I love chess cause it gives the mental exercise i need in my profession.  Basically i love chess cause its fun. Now i'm trying to teach my 4 year-old son the basic moves but mostly we play just for fun.

Since my birth and up to the age of 20 i had played like 4 games of chess. One day at work a co-worker of my(hos wasnt any good at chess) challenged me in a game of chess in our lunch-break(this was i november 2008). I learned about castling and promotions :P. I lost every time in the beginning, and then i decided to get good enought to beat him. I found chess.com by searching chess at google, and registred here and started playing some matches. It took me a week or more to beat him, and from then i was beating him every time. He stopped playing chess because of this, and i had now fallen in love with this great game of chess. Have played now for 7-8 months and loving it. I should probably start doing more excersices and studyies.

I went to chess camp two years ago and really enjoyed it.  I had ChessMaster, but I didn't use it very much.  Then I played my first tournament.  After hanging my queen two of the first three rounds, I started getting the hang of it.

my farther learned me the movement of the pieces at five. however, i mostly used the chess pieces at that time to battle against my LEGO knights in an "over the carpet" war.

When I was +- 8, my parents gave me a little chess book, that explained the game. It was too hard for me.

At +- 11, we had chess lessons in school. After one lesson (that explained how pawns move), I realized I could look up the rest in the book. I phoned up a classmate who played at a chess club, saying I could play chess now as well. Went to his house, got beaten heavily a few times (first time scholar's mate, then something like Qh5 g6 Qxe5+ and Qxh8, don't remember the rest). Didn't play much.

At +- 13, we got a PC, with a chess program (called Chess 1.0 I think). I was a computer nerd and noticed that it played some moves immediately, and some moves it had to think. I got pen and paper and systematically wrote down its entire opening book. Chose a few, meaning I had an opening repertoire (basically 1.d4 mainlines and the semi-slav, but I didn't know that). This is still the base of my openings nowadays. I still didn't play much.

During the summer that I turned 15, we went on holiday in Switzerland, on a camping where they had a big chess board with huge pieces. I managed to beat all comers, including a few German club players.

When we got home, I saw a little article in the local newspaper saying the local club would have the first day of club season next week, open for everyone who would like to take a look. Joined the club, hooked ever since. My first rating was 1462 (regional rating, not Dutch national -- inflated over national). Goal became to breach 2000.

Now I'm 35, playing very actively after a few years of less chess, since I recently moved to a new town with a huge club. About to breach 2000 -- if all this years games had been rated, I would have reached 2081, but still stuck in the 19xxs. Next year!!

I had some sports knee injuries when i was 15. This left me laid up for an uncomfortable length of time. I was bored and picked up some random magizine my parents had. It said a local family had got a chess club together in the area and was playing tournaments.

I thought, "huh, you can play boardgames in a tournament?"

So i told myself that i wanted to be state and national champion in two years time.

I went to the library and checked out a book and began studying 4-6hr a day...
my story in a nutshell.

I was 6.  I was tired of losing to my older sister in checkers.

I didin't actually get into the game until I was 22. A friend of mine at the time was an avid player, and since we were very competitive in Street Fighter games at the time, I felt I should be "smart" enough to give him a good game on the chess board. I quickly found out that chess isn't about IQ, but it wasn't long before we would have epic back-and-forth battles. After some months of this, I decided I needed to find an edge or advantage against my friend, so I purchased my first chess book on general openings. After reading it, I found I was destroying my friend at the game with ease. He would soon after give up playing the game.

The next year, Kasparov had his infamous match with Deep Blue and I was captivated by it. That's when I really started focusing on chess and joined the local club. Unfortunately the club broke apart after only a year (a fluke of nearly every member having to move out of town)  and I gave up on chess after that. It wasn't until a couple years ago that I began playing again as there was a newer and much larger club in town.

So all together I've been studying chess for 3 years now, just with the years broken up with a large gap in between.

Non-serious flip-coin chess : About 6-7 years old when a friend whom I was visiting in India got together with his dad to teach us.  What was embarrassing is that the father got the rules wrong regarding dealing with what is legal when you are checked and for many years afterwards, I would counter my opponent's checks by making my own new checks at his king.

Serious chess : At a chess club in College Station, Texas ... about 5 years back, where I got to play against a 1900 player (I did not know what that even meant) who wiped me off the board and asked me if I just liked playing to win or if I even thought about getting better? I was hooked ever since.