• Member Since: Nov 4, 2010
• Last Login: Apr 16, 2013
• Profile Views: 214
• Points: 2
• Occupation: The Man

As a boy, I was considered unattractive, withdrawn, and an object of ridicule by my classmates. One day, when a guest came to my father's party, I was asked whether I knew how to play chess. Embarrassed, I said no, but this encounter served as my motivation to pick up chess. I skipped school and visited my aunt's house to learn the basics. I quickly became a great player, enrolling in local competitions and rising in rank as a chess player. My talent is prodigious and I attained the level of a Grandmaster in less than ten years. As my obsession with chess grew, I became socially detached and physically unhealthy. At a resort, I met a young girl whose interest I captured. We became romantically involved, and I eventually proposed to her. Things turned for the worse when I was pitted against Turati, a grandmaster from Italy, in a competition to determine who would face the current world champion. Before and during the game, I had a mental breakdown, which climaxed when my carefully planned defense against Turati failed in the first moves, and the resulting game failed to produce a winner. When the game was suspended I wandered into the city in a state of complete detachment from reality. I was returned home and brought to a rest home, where I eventually recovered. My doctor managed to convince me that chess was the reason for my downfall, and I, aided by my fiance, decided to abandon all thoughts of chess. Slowly however, chess began to find its way back into my thoughts (aided by incidental occurrences, such as an old pocket chessboard found in a pocket, and an impossible chess game in a movie). I began to see my life in vague chess terms, seeing continuing repetitions of 'moves' leading to my slide back into a life of chess obsession. I desperately tried to find the move that would allow me to avert this scenario, but felt it growing closer and closer. Eventually, after an encounter with my old chess mentor, Valentinov, I realized that I must "abandon the game," as I put it to my wife (who was desperately trying to communicate with me). I locked myself in the bathroom (my wife and several dinner guests banging on the door). I climbed out a window, letting myself fall to my death. The door was burst in behind me. 'David Spengler, David Spengler,' roared several voices. But there was no David Spengler."