I'm from Germany, I started to like chess after I saw a video of Agadmators chess channel. I watched his videos all day and wanted to play. First I downloaded some apps on my phone like "Play Magnus". Then I thought that engines are too strong and I wanted to play other people. Not everyone I know likes and plays chess so I found chess.com and I started playing here.
What is your story? How did you start playing chess? What have you, and are you doing in chess?
A friend taught me how to play. I was 14 then and had learned of the game from a kid who gave a talk on chess in high school. I then asked around and was told about this kid who played. His dad had a bar and that's where I started to learn the game. I became quite good at the game and beat my teacher all the time. Later I joined the air force and played the game with fellow airmen while in tech school. After assignment to S. Korea, I played Korean players. They take the game very seriously and a big crowd would watch the games. I never lost a game over the year (1976-1977) I was there but all competitors were hobby players, like me. To this day, it remains just a hobby but a very fun one.
I joined the high school chess team during my sophomore year, in late 80's. We were a team of noobs, with no leadership. But then we found a very good coach ( a former alumnus and valedictorian of our HS, who had just graduated college) who whipped us into state champions, in under 3 months.
I played for my HS in my Junior and Senior years as well. Then RL intervened, and I stopped playing for a few years.
Then I was stationed in Britain in the early 90's, during the Short/Adams/Nunn boom, and we formed a chess team of Americans. Played a lot there. Seemed like EVERYBODY was playing at that time.
After I left the service, I have played very little over-the-board. Some here and there. But most my play has been on the internet.
great post. thank you, we need more of threads like thd. ill contribute asap, for now I'll just enjoy the stories of you guys :)
One add-on:
I did start playing a lot again around 2012. Thisis when I met a friend, who loved chess as much as I do. We were almost the same strength, but complete opposite styles. I am kinda the grin-them-down-in-the-endgame sorta player. He was the sac-everything-and-mate-them kinda player.
So we often went to tournaments together. Would be nothing for me to walk over to his board, and see him sitting there with a smug grin on his face, while being a rook down on the board. Material meant nothing to him.
But he passed away unfortunately, and I have since fallen out of tournament chess.
I started playing 1 and a half years ago when my uncle came to visit me. I joined my local club and became addicted to the game. I now play in every tournament i can. My rating is currently 1900. Every day i do opening prep, analyse GM games first without computer simply commenting on moves and calculating what i think are other options. afterwards i compare my ideas with a computer or other GM annotations. Every day i also solve 30 minutes of tactics, do positional and calculation excircises( I am currently doing puzzles from Jacob Aagards Grandmaster preperation) For 1800- 2500 players. I also play raopid and blitz online and do a specified topic e.g. Tal attacks, structures, karpov endgames, endgame theory