• Member Since: Aug 2, 2008
• Last Login: May 25, 2012
• Profile Views: 4497
• Points: 1309
• Homepage: www.facebook.com/davidjstyles
• Occupation: It's my job to travel the world, meet interesting people, and cryopreserve them.

Currently a B-class player, I'm especially happy to play you if you're around the 2000-2100 mark, as that's where I'm focussing on getting my chess currently.

Above photograph taken by the delightful and sexy Goticue, against whom I was playing the game you see on the board there. If I mention that I'm winning, does that make me a chess nut boasting by an open fire?

I'm making some fair use of the chess mentor on here, and the tactics trainer, and have started playing at a local club, and am pleased to find a few willing people rated rather more highly than myself against whom to play and from whom to learn. I also play a fair bit against my iPad set at a 2100 level, partly because at 2100 it makes instant moves (higher ratings, it thinks for some moments), and partly because I think 2100 is a good focal level for me.

Why do I think I should aim for 2100 rather than higher? Well, it's because frankly I acknowledge that for now, at the very least, GM-level play is way beyond my comprehension for the most part. My chess is simply too gross for the subtleties and nuances of that level of play. In other words, I'll learn more from playing a CM right now than I will from playing a GM, because a CM's chess I can understand. Later, I can focus on the higher levels. For now, my goal is to play consistently at a 2100 level.

To date, my best games have been beating my iPad set at 2100, drawing a few times with my iPad set at 2100, and drawing (and more recently, twice winning) at CC with a CM whose OTB rating is 2100+. Who more commonly wipes the board with me, but still, gotta brag about the occasional wins.

OTB, my best wins have been thrice-beating (out of about a dozen or so games, granted) a player rated 196 ECF (approx. 2170 Fide Elo, which is about 2300 USCF), but then OTB, I have not played many people much more highly rated than myself, since such people are usually busy playing people nearer their own rating range. In fact, I'd go so far as to say I've not played anyone OTB more highly rated than my best wins.

I enjoy OTB play, and live chess play on here, but find CC more convenient. Which is a pity, as I miss the elements present in live play that are not present in CC. I like playing with a clock. I'm not a fan of blitz (though will venture into it sometimes), but I'll tend to play quite rapidly, almost blitz speed, for at least the first ten moves or so even if playing 15 10, or 20 0, or 30 0, etc. Mainly what I have against Blitz is that it commonly becomes a different game; the goal is no longer to checkmate, it is to survive the clock by making adequately safe moves as rapidly as possible.

 To do that well requires either practice or silicon; I don't have so much practice, and cheating would be frankly boring, and essentially the job of a data entry monkey, so I don't do that either.

Consequently, when I play Blitz I invariably play trying to checkmate, and lose, or else trying to make adequate moves as rapidly as possible, and lose, so my Blitz rating is terrible.

I seem to be rather better at Blitz OTB than I am online, though, which probably says more about the player pool than it does about my ability :s

I'd rather play longer live games. 

But, I can't always be sure of sitting down to play and committing the time in a block, so CC is the bulk of my online chess-playing, alas.

About my game: Varies a lot, depending on what I'm studying presently. But I'm generally quite bold and tactical. Often this will pay off, often it won't, if I screw it up ;)

About me aside from my game:

I live with my wife, son, two cats, and a snake. My wife plays chess with me approximately annually, as she inherited the sore-loser gene from her father, and it takes her that long to get over losing to me, as a general rule of thumb. My son does not yet play chess, but he is only a year old. I've been thinking of training the cats to play. I want a pet tardigrade, whom I will name Methuselah, or "Methy" for short.

Much like Anatoly Sergievsky, I have not only a non-playing wife of my own nationality, but also a chess-playing Eastern-European lover, so at least I have someone who doesn't get bored of me talking chess, and who furthermore enjoys playing.

 I have some ability in some languages:
 

English: native speaker; therefore almost perfect.

Français: Je le parle presque parfaitement. Il y a eu des Français qui m'ont demandé "Vous êtes d'où en France?". Tout de même, mon écriture n'est pas encore parfait.

Italiano: abbastanza fluente; posso dire quello che voglio dire, senza difficoltà. Di tanto in tanto uso una parola latina per errore.

Español: Bastante fluente. Hay errores cuando empieco errante a hablar en italiano, pero puedo siempre expressarmi fácilmente, y cierto que puedo endender todo.

Português: Eu lo entendo quase perfeitamente, mas eu faço muitos erros en falando

Deutsch: Ich kann mich ganz gut ausdrücken, aber mein Wortschatz ist ein bisschen schlecht

Русский: Я понимаю, но не очень хорошо. 

...and some bits of pieces of others, in which my ability doesn't count for even that much yet; some "holiday level" Japanese, Greek, Dutch, and Lithuanian for example. My knowledge, to its various degrees, of the above languages means that I can usually make quite well-educated guesses in other languages. Oh, and I studied Latin for seven years, but not being a living language, I tend to forget mentioning that.

I also enjoy martial arts, and, preferably not at the same time, good food and drink. 

To this end, since I also like languages, I like visiting many different countries, and I like to be well-versed in different cultures. It's a pleasure to play so many people from so many different places here on Chess.com, for sure. While I've been to lots of countries (most of Europe, some of Asia, and a lot of North America), I've not yet been to any in Africa or South America, though I daresay I'll remedy this before too long.

Religion! You can gauge that from some of my group memberships on here, such as "The Atheists" and "Church of Satan". The former is self-explanatory, the latter means that I'm a life-loving epicurean atheistic pragmatist moral relativist who strongly opposes the views and values of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic right.

I'm going to Hell in all major religions, in any case, due to being an atheistic blasphemous bisexual polyamorous realist who lives his life according to his own values.

Politics! I don't know a good political system, but I can sure rip any of the existing ones into shreds. I'm not a fan of democracy (putting major decisions to a corrupt lottery of the chiefly uninformed and consumately misled is not a good idea), but also grant that wise and benevolent dictatorships are hard to find. I would offer that it doesn't matter terribly what political system is chosen; it will be the same ruthlessly ambitious people who will rise to power regardless. This is not cynicism so much as observation; I don't think it can be any other way. So, the crux is, how to get the ruthlessly ambitious people who will rise to the top, to govern a state in such a fashion as to be beneficial to the subjects thereof. If you have ideas, let me know; together we can change the world ;)

Chess and politics?

I take my hat off

to any champion

who can pull that off!