Self taught. I taught myself the way the pieces moved. But never had anyone to play. I finally bought a couple of portable chess computers and played them for a couple of years. But until I joined here I had only played one live person. I have found playing real people is 100x better and more interesting than playing a computer.
who taught you chess and how?
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First let me say that there's pretty important to have a board to lern chess. That maybe sound stupid but in my youth that was trully a problem. In those days, a computer was like a trip to Mars... and the existent sets were both too expensive or not so easy to find. So when I was 9 or 10, a distant cousin got a chess set and he taught me the basic moves, but with huge mistakes and blanks. One of them was that the knight only moved forward... When I turned 14, a teacher put on a chess club in our school and taught a bunch of nerd guys like me the strong basics of chess, the value of pieces, some oppenings and defenses and encourage us to play a lot. And he bought some 15 chess boards so everybody could play. Those where the days. So I insist: without the chess set, it's impossible to learn. Now this reminds me to get out, buy some sets and offer them to someone who doesn't have any.