My chess history

I wrote this for my profile, but it was too many charachters, so I'm bloggin' it.

 My dad started to teach me chess when I was 6(?)  I was bad at it and never won a game.  I quickly lost interest.

Throughout my child hood I would play my friends ocassionally, but never won (except one flukey smothered mate - a complete accident I assure you).

Later in my teens I became interested again.  I got an excalibur chess computer for christmas.  I could not beat it on level 1.  I was still really bad and still never won a game.  Eventually it started to thrash me.  I later found out my dad was playing it, and increased the difficulty.  I lost interest.  The excalibur gathered dust for years. 

One day (after I moved out on my own) I dusted it off and lost a few games.  This time I played until something clicked.  All of a sudden I could beat it!  Level 1, 2, 3... I was moving up fast, I skipped from level 15 to 30, then to 50.  I was quite impressed with myself (after 27 years without a win).  Next I decided to see how I fair against other humans, so I found a local chess club.  I learned I was still bad at chess, but I started studying.  I kept coming back until I started wining some games. 

There was yet another learinig curve before I could beat my dad.  I knew he had a chess set & so forth, but I did not know he ever PLAYED chess.  When I finally beat him, I was doing well against all but the very best player in the chess club, so I asked dad how he learned chess - I know he did not play much in my lifetime.  He finally revealed he was in chess club in highschool.  Doh!

That was about 2 years ago.  Then my chess kick kind of petered out - for diferent reasons this time. 

A friend in my neighborhood recently became interested in chess, so I dusted off my board (again), knocked the cobwebs out of my head, and started to tutor him.  I'm not as good as I was when I studied and played more regularly, but I seem to have a knack for coaching chess.  Plus it is more fun when you have a chess buddy.
 
Now I am starting a chess club at work.  The club seems to be a great success so far.

I guess the moral of the story is:

If you are not someone like Paul Morphy or Bobby Fisher who can watch one game at the age of 4 then do a 40 game blinefold simul against IMs winning 39 and drawing 1, don't be discuraged.  Even if you are loosing, you are learning.  Chess can still be fun, it might just take a while before you enjoy the fruits of your labor.  Keep playing.