Who taught you how to play chess?

Please feel free to post a comment on this forum about who taught you how to play chess.

When I was about 7 years old my uncle taught me how to play chess. If I had to estimate his strength at chess I would say he was about a 1500-1600 player.

He used to beat me at chess a lot when I was young, but gradually I became stronger over the years. We would play chess off and on for 10 years over the holidays, I probably played against him 100 games.

In the 4th grade, when I was 9 I remember beating a bunch of other kids at chess during recess on rainy days (I brought a board in)

Eventually my uncle became sick, and I remember the last game of chess I played against him he resigned, but I declined it... He was like wtf? he was down a minor piece and wanted to call it quits, but I didn't let him resign b/c I told him he had a winning game. So he looked at the board for about 20 minutes and could not find the correct line, so I showed him it (it was sacking his queen for my knight then my queen would be hanging the next move, and he had a passed pawn I couldn't stop after that)

A month or so later he passed away, and I stopped playing chess for about a few years. I started playing chess again vs my computer, and then eventually on chess.com

 I bought a cd to install "age of empires 2" in the same cd there was also "chessmaster 10th edition",i just had heard abt chess b4 but didnt know any rules or moves etc. so i thought to try it on the cd anyway bcz "age of empires 2" i didnt quite liked it the graphics and sound were not good, so i first leanred chess by playing against the personality "casie" in chessmaster and learned the moves from there...:)

My older brother taught me chess when i was 3 years old. I beat him the first game i played and i continued to be stronger than him. Even though i was pretty gifted for that age, my parents refused to take me to a chess club untill i was around 15 because i could get very upset when i lost (maybe thats how i won, by making my opponent so scared that he let me win), throwing pieces around me and even beating my opponent up. 

If i started in a chess club when i was 3, only god knows how good i could have been now :(. 17 years of chess instead of 5-6.

well for me, it was my father who taught me chess. When I was a kid I used to play with him  a lot but I often lose at that time but nowdays hehehe I can easily beat him

I learn to play chess when I bought a chess board when I was around 11 years old. I have to learn the basic moves myself because at that time, my family members all don't know how to play chess. In secondary school I play with my friend sometimes. At that time I am quite weak tactically and strategically on chess. After about 10 years gap (seldom play chess), I decided to take it as one of my daily activities and put some effort on it when I heard the advantages of play chess. I start with correspondence chess, but sometimes I play real time chess :D Until now I am still weak strategically and tactically.

I taught myself using the book I bought the day after someone taught me the moves when I was 17. There were no computers then and few chess books in the stores where I lived. I would also go to the library for books, and the selection there was small.   I knew no one that knew anything about chess.  

My Commodore 64! hrm, it also taught me to how program back in '84

http://www.atarimagazines.com/compute/issue55/chess.php

I remember it followed the rules, but it allowed you to play wherever you want! so my favorite opening was 1. Qxa8 then 2. Qxh8

Nobody.

a mate and then he beat me every game for several years - some mate

My mother showed me how the pieces move, but that was all she knew.  It was this book by Raymond Bott and Stanley Morrison that showed me how to pleay the game, aged about 8 years old:

http://www.jacketflap.com/bookdetail.asp?bookid=0001061100

A Shaolin monk taught me to play chess. We were doing iron shirt training that day. He told me it would help teach strategy for fighting. Then he said, "eagle feather floats but must leave sky." He was always saying shit like that. "The gorilla hath a mighty jaw but eats no meat." I never knew what he was talking about. And how many Chinese people say "hath?"  

who indeed? when i was 8 or so i had this major crush on the boy across the street. he was not allowed to leave his yard so i would bring books, puzzles and games over. once i brought over a chess set. we read the instructions and taught each other how to move the pieces around. mostly we ended up playing other fantasy games with pieces because that was way more fun.

later on, when i was 16, i had a friend, an older man... he was 25 and much more worldly than i. we would spend weekends together... playing chess and watching "The Prisoner"... good times. he taught me much about the game.

after that, it was computer games. i have never read a chess book or really actively studied the game. i would like to learn more about the game. chess.com seems a pretty good place to do just that.

maybe i would play a better game if i had been taught by Shaolin monk... dem's da breaks...

I taught myself. I just read this chess book because I was bored. Later, I became interested.

Couldn't leave his yard? What was up with that?

it was weird. i never met his parents. i never went in his house. once they would not let him come outside for a week - he did some heinous thing. they would let him sit at the window and talk to me while i was in the yard. i read Nancy Drew books to him. just the beginning of many strange relationships. lol.

Some times I think everyone in the world has had a more interesting life than me.

i am melodramatic. it is the truth. with a some flair. give it a try... your life will be more interesting. it is all in what it means to you.

but hey, what do i know?

this one time, at band camp...

My dad thought me, he played it "semi seriously". I even have a photo of me watching him play at some local tournament(I was 4 years old)