What is your story? How did you start playing chess? What have you, and are you doing in chess?

I was a good casual player and high school champion, but our school team knew nothing about real tournaments and I figured out descriptive notation and followed the newspaper chess puzzles and games but had no clue what the titles "Sicilian Defense," "Ruy Lopez," etc. meant.

Then, with a graduate scholarship and teaching assistantship in Chemistry at IIT where I had to do research in the summers but was only paid from Sept-May, one August I realized I could only budget $7 for fun for the whole month!  In a bookstore, I stumbled across William Winter's Chess for Matchplayers, and there the Sicilian D, Ruy Lopez, other openings, middlegame tactics and strategies and endgames were explained.  I decided that book would be my fun for August!

That book led me to playing over the board tournaments - where I only reach a 1636 level, but I reached 2116 in correspondence chess and the Semi-Finals in the 1976 USCF Golden Knights - back in the days without serious computer chess!

I didn't play much in the '80's, with serious political and work occupying my time. Then, around 1990, a surgery repaired Achilles tendon took me out of coaching high school sports and my chemistry and physics students, knowing I had played OTB in the past, asked me to start a chess club.

In our 2nd year, we were County Champs in our state's most competitve county.  The next year, I became USCF Tournament Director for our county's high school tournaments.

After I retired from teaching in 2006, I didn't feel mentally challenged and in late 2016 returned to chess through chess.com and was amazed at how great chess is today in terms of being able to find great competition at your level, being able to find tactics trainers that were not in existence a decade earlier, and being able to find information and 3400 chess engines and great freeware like Lucas Chess.

So here I am!

Every bit of this comment is hard to believe based on your bullet, tactics, and blitz ratings here. 

I'm only reading all of this cos I'm bored. There's nothing to do in London on a Saturday night.

My Dad gave me a bicycle and a chess set on my 11th birthday so I suppose I was 10 when I started. My Mum had no interest in the game, and still doesn't.

¿Qué?  

This is a terrific story. Learning yourself, then helping others. We should all try to do that.

 There's nothing to do in London on a Saturday night.

You jest I'm sure. When I lived in Knightsbridge, we used to go down to town and get the Sunday papers. There was a 24 hour 7-11 near Gloucester tube which was very handy too.

Well, if you are trying to lay low then why did you mention beating Kasparov?

As for the players with ratings at 500 beating 1900s, do the ones you have in mind do this consistently? If so it seems odd that they would be at 500.

Also, personal attacks are against the site rules.

I've played for a long time without really improving very much and sometimes even getting worse..

I started learning and thereby improving by watching other people play and discussing the moves with other onlookers. This especially goes for endgames.

There are quite a few things one has to know if one wants to improve. They have to be shown to you, because it is a very slow process if you depend on yourself finding them out. But I really started improving when I took some lessons here on Chess.com. Even the lessons for beginners taught me some things I didn't know, for example centering the rooks at the end of the opening (in an ideal situation that is).

So I'm sure you will improve by analysing games with another person and following lessons.

Of course it could be that chess isn't for you, just like for example I'll never be a good car mechanic or an olympic turner, but If you like the game and take lessons and analyze games I'm sure you will improve.

 I have little idea of when I started playing chess. Can't remember. What I do know is that I played chess when I was 11. 

DON'T SWEAR nufnuf20

I'm serious

 Delete your comment nufnuf20

It's just a troll that registered an hour ago only for this purpose I guess

Please read my OP. Then contribute your story. Readers skip the childishness. There are many wonderful stories here. They have the power to humanize the coldness of internet play. You have the power to add your story to what has grown way beyond my original expectations to a chronicle of how people around the world have come to be chess players. Join in the fun. 

I am among many others who enjoy reading the real honest stories of how people got hooked on this awesome game we call chess! 

continuing my story. In 1973 I had a performance rating of approximately 2431 after playing  8 games in the US Open in Chicago where i beat a grandmaster and held my own vs several strong masters. However I had to stop playing due to exhaustion as i had employment in Kankakee Illinois for 8 hours during the day and then had to drive to Chicago [for the tournament] and then drive back home and then go to work and then drive to Chicago etc.

When my Chess Life came out I had a rating of 2188--just 12 points short of being a master! But not to worry there was a USCF Tournament in Kankakee!  It was 4 games in one day a "Tornado". I won all 4 games and won the tournament. Enough to make me "master'!  But then shortly thereafter--there was another "Tornado" in Kankakee!  Should i play and risk my "master" rating? What if i lost or drew a game?  I decided to play and again I won all four games and won the tournament.  Now I estimated my new rating would be about 2216.

Chess Life came out and it gave my old rating of 2188. I waited another month and the magazine still stated my  rating was 2188 Not sure what to do so waited one more month and...same result...2188  Took me another couple of months and I finally got hold of the tournament director via the phone. He told me that not only was he the director--he decided to play in both tournaments. But he did not like his two results and never sent the 8 games in to be rated!! 

So, my rating has stayed at 2188 ever since 1973!

However correspondence chess was my specialty. It was what I really liked.  I reached the Finals of the 7th USA Correspondence Chess Championship. And in the Finals my score was 13 wins and 1 draw and no losses! [this was a record for Correspondence Chess] This was a time when chess engines were not used. The chess engines were not strong in that time period anyway. My Correspondence rating is somewhere around 2530.  Here I had some bad luck also. As for that time period the powers to be decided not to rate preliminary round games [about 20+ games for me from several preliminary rounds] and this cost me about 50 rating points.  After that they always rated the preliminary sections as the prelims were strong with all masters and experts.

 However I will be age 77 this month and am satisfied with my playing as an amateur and now just play a little vote chess and do various Forums here on Chess.com.  [also i love to play  duplicate bridge and poker!]

How do the ratings on chess.com differ from FIDE ratings? You have a 1600+ rating here with daily chess. Would that mean that my FIDE ratings would be higher than my 1409 here?