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

I love your story Denver High.  So cool that you're 80+ and still playing and commenting on chess.

Hello !

I'am french, 63 years old and retired . I've learned to play chess when my son was 15 years old .it was around 2000 .

When he leaves home, i stopped . 

I met in 2007  a man who became my boy friend and he played chess .He was very happy to meet somebody who knows chess playing .

We play 2 ou 3 hours per day when we are together . 

He is better than me because he is more studious . 

I don't improve because i don't read books and make no exercises . 

But i like very much chess playing, forgetting everything when i play and feeling good when i win . 

It's a hard game . But i like it very much .

I like play tournaments on chess.com, meeting many people all around the world . 

We have teached chess playing our grand children and they enjoy . 

Chessly yours !

Helen

Great story Helen......I too teach my grandson chess.He is 7 years old....but...I always lose to him! No matter how hard I try,eventually he makes up his own rules and wins.-

I would really appreciate it if someone would send me the Fun trophy or award. Thanks in advance.

I recall in primary school that I would play chess every so often on a rainy lunch or recess, having scarcely anything else to do. My comprehension of the rules as such was quite limited, not even knowing about pawn promotion, en passant and other basic ideas. One day, however, I sought to change that, supposing it would be a relatively good hobby to pursue. For a few weeks or so, I got practically nowhere, blundering pieces extraordinarily often. Then, I viewed some of the chess.com lessons, took a few notes, built on my understanding by playing some games. I learned from some of the losses and utilised the computer analyses to discern what aspects of game I needed to improve in. I would partake in a few chess.com and chess tempo puzzles. Pretty much the earliest phases of my journey in chess consisted of trying to familiarise myself with the game, while the latter half was kind of devoted solely to playing the game, and dabbling in some analyses as well as watching some intuitive videos by kings crusher and what not. Now I have played the game on and off for a little under nine months now (since my seeking to improve my chess prowess), and making steady headway. 

Hello, I'm Ulysses Simpson Grant, but you can call me Sam. I'm 198 years old, and I've been playing chess fer at least a hundred of those years. I were born an' raised in the frontier known as Ohio. I never larned chess growin' up. We didn't have time fer all that, what with my Pa's tanning business an' all. I didn't learn it in the army neither. When the army fired me cuz they decided to git all righteous about drink an' such, I were too busy goin' broke to learn. Wall, they finally decided they needed me agin, and I joined the army and taught Bobby Lee some lessons, I did. When that all were over, I wanted to larn me some chess, but then they all decided they needed me agin, this time as President. Wall, that tomfoolery were a disaster cuz everyone I hired was a crook. I was all depressed and then some when that job was over, so I decided to finally larn me some chess. I been foolin' around with it since, cuz I don't know what else to do with meself. Never was good at bein' a civilian, I guess. Never have gotten much good at it, but I enjoy meself, I do. Wall, that's my yarn, as near as I can remember it. Good day, and keep an eye on that Bobby Lee. He's too big for his britches, he is.

Um!My story is already on the thread but I, too, would just like to thank Randy for starting it. It makes for interesting reading and is such a welcome relief from the background nonsense with which the forum seems plagued.

I second this sentiment.

hi. I learnt chess from an ex girlfriend at the age of 15. I then became obsessed becuase I failed in school and dealt if I was good people would I was smart. i played everyday for 7 years and became very good. now just play hear and there. end of the day I learnt it was just a game and I had to actually try in life to better myself. not trick people into thinking I was smart becuase of chess lol

I am from ...the Midwest

I learned to play chess ...my Dad taught me and my brother when I was about 6 years old. 

In the past I have done the following chess related activities ...started going to chess club in elementary school (partly led by my Dad), had a coach for a little while, participated in open and scholastic tournaments (state and national) in elementary/middle school...stayed on the high school chess team but was already a socially awkward teen and therefore remained a "closeted" chess player, ha. Stupid I know. After high school I pretty much stopped until late last year, so...over 10 years of no chess

Currently I am doing the following chess activities ...just playing casual blitz etc online here whenever I have time, which isn't often

I thought I would come back to this thread and share a link to my 10 year Chess.com anniversary message. https://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/wow-10-years

I was thinking this is a good time to revive this thread. A chance to remind ourselves why we come to this site, and the one thing (among others) we all have in common.

Can you share your story?

My dad showed me chess and the rules when I was five. My first openings were simply to play h5 and a5 and develop my rooks, but after my dad took them with his bishops I stopped. In chess club at school I learned some openings principles and stuff, got to around 800 uscf. However, I was stuck at 800-900 uscf, climbing as high as 990 in 5th grade, but slid down to 862 the next year. 

Feeling pretty depressed, I stopped playing competitive chess in the 7th and 8th grades, although I would occasionally log onto my school chesskid account. During that time, I felt like the puzzles that were stupefying me were blatantly obvious, and the players on chesskid were just bad (rating inflation, 800s on chesskid don't even do opening principles). 

After 8th grade was over, my dad was taking me to his college for sit-ins, and having nothing to do for the two-hour drive I simply got on my phone and made a chess.com account, because I felt like chesskids had degenerated into an overly protective place. 

Placing myself in the "intermediate" category, I started with a 1200 rating and to my pleasant surprise I actually won against an 1100. I didn't know how chess.com blitz ratings correlated with USCF, but I did know that I wasn't able to ever break 1000 on any chess site, so I took this as an accomplishment. I lost my next game, and hung around 1100 for a week before increasing to 1200. During these trips I had dug out some chess books that my dad wanted me to read when I was younger, but having no taste for chess in elementary school I didn't read any of them and so never improved. 

These books were mainly "logical chess, move by move" and "Understanding the Chess Openings" where I got to know the thoughts behind master players' moves and different openings and common plans and ideas native to each opening. Armed with knowledge I was able to increase my rating fairly quickly, and by the end of the summer I didn't really learn much C++ but I did learn lots of chess, with a blitz rating of 1500-something.

During school I played less, but was able to get to 1600 blitz... while playing in class, which was a bad idea since I immediately dropped 150 points. This first experience with tilt almost had me yelling, but I couldn't because that would be very weird if some kid in class just started crying. By the time I got home, I had calmed down, but it took me a month to get to 1600, and I kept going higher, peaking at 1790 on New Years Day on 2020. After that I went into slow decline for two months, losing more games than I won. At this time my USCF was around 1373 (up from 862), because I found out that people around 1000 rated weren't so good.

Deciding to try my luck at the Murfreesboro Open tournament in Feburary, I got extremely lucky, paired with 1700 who simply dropped a piece early on. This made me get paired up with an 1800, who I beat, and another 1800, who I also beat. My fourth round opponent was an 1860, and if I won I had high hopes for playing the IM that was at the tournament, or maybe at least the CM. I lost, which was depressing, but I beat my fifth round opponent (a 1700) for a USCF Class D prize of 50 dollars. The best part about this whole thing was that my rating wasn't updated, and showed 1273 instead of 1373 as my uscf. This bout increased my USCF to 1618, a whopping 300 points, which did wonders for my ego (lol)

Getting back, I played in my city state championship, paired with a 1500 (whom I actually NEVER beat) and was eager to dish out my revenge. Missing a free piece in the opening, I actually dropped one of mine but after trading queens set up a drawing mechanism with two rooks on the seventh rank. I actually made the decision NOT to draw (horrible decision!) but was partly motivated by my pride. I wanted to win! I lost. After that, I won against another 1600 and a 1000 rated player but was shut down by a 2000 rated guy. At the end of the tournament, the 1500 I lost to was the first place in the 9th grade section-my section. The worst part was that IF I had drawn her, I, not her, would have gotten the first place. The only good thing that came out of that was that my uscf only decreased from 1618 to 1611. Phew!

I was looking forward towards chess nationals and some other big tournaments, but after covid happened I just simply turned inward and absorbed lots of chess material and played lots of games. My online rating is now higher than all the other people in my city, but since it's a small city it's not that big of an accomplishment...

@ SNUDOO

NICE interesting narrative . . .

 Thanks Denver! 

I am 18 and I am from India.

When I was 8 my sis told me the rules of chess.But I showed little to no interest in chess at that time. I liked basketball very much.

Last year I made a chess.com account because I got bored. Then left again due to many losses. And thinking that chess is not for me.

I started again this year, again due to boredom in the pandemic. This time I not only played the game but took lessons from Youtube and Sis. And found chess quite an interesting game. Also, I made some great friends on chess.com who helped me in improvement. Now, I play chess on a daily basis and it has some benefits too ( I treat it like a mental exercise).

Besides playing the game, I love solving tactical puzzles.

And hopefully I will continue playing it. And life won't force me to stop playing chess.

Cheers.

i learn the basic rules of chess at 8 years, i became good, or at least it was what i though because i beat my friends on school at 10 years old, the next year i had a worthy opponent and we had no time to play, our matches were so long, the only game we finally finished he won, it was intense. I was sad because the next year there was nobody to play chess, but this year i discovered this page and i was so happy, i started so bad and got demotivated but i came back a few weeks later and im slowly improving. 900 is like nothing but in the last month i got from 600 to 900 on 10 min, im scared to play again and lose it, but i have to