About learningthemoves: Hi, I'm here to enjoy chess: experiment, make mistakes and learn from losses at my own pace. -- When I was seven, my father taught me how the pieces moved, but I didn't really play. -- In my twenties, I met a friend at a coffee shop who was always playing and studying chess. -- When we played, he had one of those plastic boards he rolled out from a bag he carried the pieces in with him. -- On one side of the board he had written "______'s victory square" with his name there. -- Sure enough, almost every time I played him, my king would end up checkmated on that very square all the way across the board! -- Needless to say, he was definitely harder to beat than the others I could just use the scholar's mate, fool's mate and Parham attack against to win. -- Then there was another guy at the same coffee shop who was writing a book. He had a reputation of being really good according to my friend who always beat me. -- I talked him into a game one early evening and sure enough, for the first time, I really saw what was possible with chess! -- Each move I made had a trap prepared for it well in advance that cost me material and weakened my position while improving his own position at the same time. -- Whatever gambit it was, the pawn I took to "accept" it was the only capture I made the entire game before being mated! -- My friend at the coffeeshop was reading a book about chess and walked me over to the aisle in the bookstore the coffeeshop was connected to, where there was a book on endgame theory on the shelf. -- I remember thinking, "Man, there sure is more than meets the eye when it comes to this. Maybe one day I'll study some of this stuff and learn enough to get as good as these guys!" -- Time passed and I didn't really play that much except for a few recreational games with friends at my house or the occasional father-son bonding game with my dad at his house. -- (We still play sometimes.) -- Fast forward to about a year now that I've joined this site to have fun, play some games and learn from the vast treasure of resources here at Chess.com -- So today, here I am, -- LearningTheMoves -- (*If you'd like to play a game with me on here, just send me a challenge and depending on how many games I have going on at the moment, I'll accept.) - *Update: I have a grown a beard in an effort to increase my chess skills. I will keep you informed of the results.