Headlined: Introducing Myself
Hello everyone! I'm honored to be here writing for you today. I love both chess and writing, and combining them both into this blog has not only helped me to connect with other chess players but also through tougher times in my chess life.
This is my third introductory post in just ten months since I decided to try blogging again, and yes, not too much has changed, but I think introducing myself to the rest of the site is necessary and worthwhile, and I'm determined to give even my original readers something they won't be bored by.
Like many chess players, I'm largely self-taught. Where @DanielNaroditsky had a chess dad and a chess brother to lean on, I had neither. I never fell victim to Scholar's Mate or fell victim to forks on f7: in the months before I started playing seriously I was the one who was winning dozens of Rooks in game after game.
I don't know why chess became a true interest of mine: perhaps I liked the abstract nature of the game, or its status as a pure game of strategy above almost all others. But one thing stands out above all others in my mind. I hated nasty surprises, and chess offered none: every possible event was contained in the position on the board, there for the discerning player to find. Chess seemed a game of perfect justice, where the board dictated everything and players who defied it would only destroy themselves.
That's probably why I developed into the player I am today. Of course, there's the standard info: I have a peak rating of 1605, have played chess seriously for almost 3 years, err towards the positional side of things, although I dislike the notion of "style", and have a thing for venomous opening prep. But other words explain it better: I can play with anyone below Master on a good day, and I do it regularly. I have a blunder problem and I hate it. I hang stuff in severe time trouble against weaker players (or players I consider weak) in OTB rapid games and I hate it.
Before I started this blog, these emotions would drive me crazy. I would spend an hour after a game feeling that nobody would ever understand these feelings: the furious resentment of a blunder or a blown endgame, the bestial urge to punish your opponent for beating you, the righteous indignation of losing to an opponent who can't play chess well.
And it was out of those emotions that my blog was born: after all, anger turns your face red, makes your heart race and makes thoughts buzz around in your head, but it also gives you a purpose. That's why in my first series, I looked back and put everything that happened inside my head during my games that nobody ever talks about down on paper, laying bare all of the troublesome psychology that kept me from playing good or even okay moves at key moments, and I think is far more common than anyone thinks.
And people understood.
Blogging-wise, I'm kind of the "odd one out": I analyze my games and do stuff on events, but I also do stuff I've never seen anybody do, like my series: sometimes the order of the day is a heavily psychological look at amateur chess through my own games (Why Players Plateau and Concrete Problems), sometimes it's a practical look at opening prep from the same amateur standpoint (Everything Openings, ongoing, posted in batches of 3-6) and sometimes it's a hand up for underrated bloggers (Rising Stars, upcoming) or a look at my correspondence with some well-known members on, off, and beside the board (Head to Head, also upcoming).
As I said in my very first post, I believe I have a lot to say, not only despite my rating but also because of it, and I hope you enjoy my content. 
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