A year in chess

Warning: long read! The experience of learning chess at 39yrs old...with only a few hours a week.

My father, a former high school chess champion, tried to teach my brother and I the game. He failed. Why? Because he is not a teacher. No harm, I loved monopoly and playing in the yard, happy days. I did remember how the pieces moved but until last november I would have had trouble setting up the board.

So why learn ches at the tender age of 39, whilst holding down a job, and taking care of home, wife and kid? It has simply always irked me, graduated in three different fields, that I couldn't play the noble game. If I was so clever, how could it be that I just sucked at chess? 

So after watching my father in law and cousin play during a family holiday, I installed AI factory's chess game on my smartphone and kept getting beaten at level 1. Not even a whiff of a chance. Embarrasing stuff indeed. So, armed with false optimism, and a sense of pending grandeur I turned out of copyright classics on my e-reader. Staunton and his lot. Descriptive notation and always the assumption that opening a chess game is simply e4-e5.

That didn't give me much joy but I finally beat the chess app - once!

I was quickly starting to realise that chess is quite tricky. Time for a more structured approach: it seemed that there was a fairly broad consensus that 'The Idiot's Guide to Chess' by Patrick Wolff is a comprehensive manual for the noob. Admittedly, the title put me off. But, I was feeling quite the idiot so I made the purchase. Best decision I made so far in my chess 'carreer'. In fact, I will always consider the day the book arrived, december 5th 2014 as the day I started learning chess. I studied the book, chapter for chapter, excercise by excercise. And it was fun!

Soon I played my first games online, quickly shooting from the starting point of 1200, to a rather optimistic 1430 with my trusty Scotch game. Admittedly, I always lost with black. But my moving of the pieces was starting to look something like chess.

When learning, it's good to set goals. Mine was to beat my father in law. His OTB rating is around 1275, so at the time it seemd feasible. But, as I studied more, the game was simply becoming more difficult. For example opening study...

At first I refused to learn openings by rote, I just don't have the memory for tons of lines. So: not to memorize, but to comprehend. However, as I started facing better players, it soon turned out that my aggressively uninformed e4 openings, and continuous black losses would hinder any real progress. How to get to a midgame?

I decided to streamline things, and following Yasser Seirawan's advice, picked the PIRC/KID as black, which led to an uptick in black victories. And to the Queen's gambit as white, which led to better positional play and longer games. At the same time, someting disconcerting happened: I started losing. Big time. My rating quickly fell to around the 1000 mark. So I signed up for more tactics and did the 25 a day. Never getting a much higher tactics rating than 1100 but still, learning to recognise some patterns at least.

Now, the year is up. And, after going over Wolff's book again, and watching video tutorials, and playing with more care and attention, I have now reached 1250 on this site in standard chess. I have recently beaten some (considerably) higher rated opponents online, and glory be, after five straight OTB defeats, I beat father in law with the black pieces in a drawn out, serious game. Great!

I feel I've done okay. With only about two or three hours a week to spend on chess, I feel I now deserve my 1200+ rating. I feel confident with the white pieces, and less insecure with black. And, most of all, I am finding it such fun that I have entered the famous Wijk aan Zee chess tournament, in the 'patzer' category obviously.

Took me 39 years to read!! LOL (dont take this to heart just having fun not mocking you:)

An extreme understatement. That's part of the fascination of chess, I believe: that it's so complex, which which largely what makes it so fascinating.

Thanks for the responses. @whiskers LOL and indeed sqod it is unlike any other 'game' I've ever played.. As soon as you get better a new world of possibilities and challenges opens up.

Great story!! LIKE

Good job klimski! I can relate. I played my first chess game two years ago on Cc. My rating is not as good as yours but I raised my rating 200+ points in nine months. I will be 57 years old in a few months. Sure, I know that even for a beginner my rating is pretty bad, but I am improving. Learning how to play (or rather how the pieces move) was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I truly love studying and playing the game and chess has become an integral part of my life. Congratulations on beating your father-in-law!

Solskyz and Jengaias, thanks for the kind words.

And Rick, yeah it's great fun to learn the noble game. I have found to my cost that blitz chess hasn't improved my game. So I've promised myself to get back to 15/10 chess (which is still rapid!) and do some endgame study when I find the time.

That's awesome!

When I was a kid, there was a guy at school who would set up a chessboard after classes and play anyone who wanted a game. He had a reputation for never losing. I only knew how the pieces moved, but I thought it would be fun to play him a few times, and of course I lost.

Many years later, completely by chance, I happened to meet him and we got to play a few games. Beating him wasn't the greatest chess play of my life, but the victory meant a lot to me, because in the past he represented that impossible obstacle.

So congratulations! Fun story.

Did you feel like you proved yourself when you beat daddy?

It was kind of funny when I could do it BLINDFOLD at age 17 (it was also mate in 17 moves). 

@chessofplayer impressing the father in law goes a long way. Haha