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Avatar of animeshbordoloi

New here? Old here? Doesn’t matter. If you can move a pawn, you belong.

This is our space to introduce yourself:
Tell us your story, your chess journey, goals in life (“don’t blunder my queen” counts too), where you’re from, your hobbies, or anything you'd like others to know.

No rules, no pressure, just a warm community of chess enthusiasts who celebrate progress, share laughs, and occasionally sacrifice pieces “for activity.”

Jump in whenever you like!

Avatar of animeshbordoloi

Let me set the ball rolling:
Hi everyone! I’m Animesh, a regular individual in his mid-30s from Assam, India, who has spent the last few years switching hats between architecture and management.

I learned how chess pieces move 25 years ago, played one game, lost one game, immediately retired, and lived happily ever after.. until last year, when I joined Chess.com at 218 ELO and decided to give this game another shot. Must say, I’m genuinely enjoying the ride so far.

My dream is simple: play two openings properly and stop hanging pieces for absolutely no reason. A tall dream, yes, but a man can dream.

Outside chess, I’m into travelling, photography, lawn tennis, astrophysics videos, wildlife content, and the dangerous rabbit hole of YouTube reels.

I started Masters of the Squares about 7 months ago with the hope of creating a friendly, warm, competitive community.. a place where we learn, grow, and cheer for each other, all while trying not to blunder too much.

I’m extremely proud of how far we’ve come in such a short span, and I genuinely can’t express my gratitude enough to every single person here. You are the reason MoTS is what it is today. Thank you. 

Avatar of psattva

Hello everyone - I'm Parz, a retired (from accounting and related financial and data analysis positions) Canadian living in Thailand with my wife and cats.

Aside from trying to achieve Animesh's goal of playing a couple of openings well and not hanging pieces in chess (which you'd think would be way less hard than I'm finding it), I'm a creative writer. Currently, aside from submitting to a monthly publication called Moss Piglet, my wife and I are playing a journaling solo role playing game called Apothecaria (I publish the text of it in Blogger) and then narrate the story (and also talk about how I put the episodes together on YouTube). And, based on our experiences and feedback with that system, we're also building our own journaling solo RPG system called Pip's World - we hope to start playing and sharing our stories in mid-2026.

To wrap things up, many thanks to Animesh for starting this group and maintaining it ably.

Avatar of Mando_Frank

Hello chess people, I first learned chess in Jr High School in Los Angeles in 1971. During the time of Fischer we would cling to the radio for any news about his games. I was known to hang out in chess book shops for hours. I obtained a small magnetic chess set and carried it with me everywhere, and played everyday up to High School Graduation. I would hang with a tough chess crowd and I think I lost most of my games back then. I think playing everyday did help.

I found online chess in 2011 and mostly drilled on tactics. About four years ago I got more serious about my chess study strategy. 

I'm mostly retired, I find daily games agreeable. I've been working on my rapid chess, the time control is a challenge for an old guy. I now live in the San Diego area.

I do make weird music as an Improvisation, sound and synthesis artist. Here is a sample of some of my electronic music:

https://soundcloud.com/user-194933727

Avatar of Shermated

Hi everyone, my name is Nik(36yrs. old) and I love chess 😁 Started with some sort of commitment 2,5 years ago. Due to work and life the actual time I can invest in chess is limited but I try to learn and enjoy. Beside chess I‘m into music, sports, science and everything healthy that makes life better

Thx for the kind invitation and having me here ✌️

Avatar of Neuberbaer

Moin allerseits

Avatar of Losually

Hi MotS all,

Losually here. I'm retired, so, yes, I'm old. I'm in love with chess but, as you can see on my rating, chess is only moderately in love with me. Therefore I also make photo's and I write haiku's to place in the photo's. Funny thing is; My best photo's don't have a haiku yet, which balances out with the fact that my best haiku's lack a photo.

My goal in life is not to embarrass my MotS colleagues too much with myself because I usually miss the obvious.
Have fun all!

Losually