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

Thanks for all the new additions to this thread. 

A quick reminder of how this started.

What is our shared human experience with this game? What have we done? Where are we going? 

Just as a way to think of this.

I am from ...

I learned to play chess ...

In the past I have done the following chess related activities ...

Currently I am doing the following chess activities ...

Right now I’ve replaced my chess video time with psychology video time lol

I just play video games and have the video playlist in the background and I pretend I’m actually commentating on psychology, like how a lot of you tubers do commentary while playing games.

and surprisingly I’ve remembered quite a lot

Merry Christmas! Thanks to everyone who has shared their story here.

When I was around 6 years old, I went to my afterschool chess club and learned how the pieces moved. Later on I developed an interest to the game, and started practicing. I solved easy tactics (at that time I was only a beginner), and learned a few new openings. My dad signed me up for some private chess lessons, and I started to gradually improve. 

Later on that year, I went to my very first USCF rated tournament! My rating flew up, and all off a sudden I was at my state championships! We probably all know what happened next... no need to discuss it... the pandemic hit. Although nobody like COVID and to spend all year at home, like in jail, quarantine was a great way for me to improve my chess. And now I'm just waiting for the right time to go out there and bring my USCF rating up where it needs to be! 

Very funny

Got taught how to play at a very young age. I actually spent some time in 'studying' even though it didn't really feel like that at the time, I just practiced.

Then I haven't played for a couple years. The past two or three years I've played on and off. Nowadays I just play casually but my studying habit is still prevalent.

When I was in 3rd grade (5 years ago), I read an article about Viswanathan Anand in the newspaper and asked my dad to teach me chess. He said ok and started playing with me a game of chess every single day, without fail.

He never ever showed any mercy to my pieces and pawn structure. Everything I tried just went crashing down when I played against him. He said "Just keep trying" after every loss.

After an year like that, Dad was quite pleased at the interest I showed in chess, so he put me in a local chess class. My chess guru's name (as we students call him) Udupa sir. There are quite a lot of members who play here who was taught by him. One student even went on to become India's 58th grandmaster and Karnataka's 2nd grandmaster! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stany_G.A

My guru is blind, but very good at explaining just by touching and feeling! He did make me say wow at his talent. He made me understand that nothing, even being blind cannot stop you from becoming an International Master. He recommended me to play on chess.com. You may notice some absurd losses on @shikar17's account (Old games about 2 old). That is my father's account and me playing the game. Then I made my own account and let it rip.

I learnt at the academy for 2 more years and then bought chess.com premium membership for 2 years, then it expired, Covid 2nd wave came and I found this forum and posted this comment!

Now I'm way stronger than my dad and I beat him everytime lol

I would have never become this strong if it weren't for him, so the best has happened

My story began from I playing chess from 8 years... after I played with friends and family. My father told me to take the part in online chess. When I first time played chess.com its pretty not interesting for me that time. I don't know what I want playing chess. And I watched youtube about chess.com, I began to play cuz I think it more interesting... My friends play chess.com too. When I explore all features in chess.com, I began active in chess.com and I enjoy it.

I was in love someone and i was told that person only likes smart people so i googled how to be a smart person and only one word appeared on the screen.. it was chess. then i bought a book and learned it by looking at its pictures (because i didn't know how to read at that times) it took exactly 5 months 3 weeks and 6 days.

jk learned it from uncle, i beat him and he never played with me ever again

I am being love into the computer game. When I was 4 y.o, Chess was the only game on my computer. I asked my Papa to explain what game was that. My Papa just said that was a board game. Everytime I heard about game, I'm being curious. I tried by itself by randoming clicking and memorizing the moves. Until someday my Papa saw me and impressed about my abbility, yeah, now I am working as engineer, and I already could read a book when a was 3 so. My Papa bought me a chess board to play together. He teached me every move and some kind of Checkmate puzzle. Back to the chess game, I actually curious because I can't even beat Computer level 1 LUL, until I can do afterward, I was so excited and told my Papa, He is so impressed. I'm getting old, and that was when I in 5th grade, I found a chess club in my school, I register and trained but not for professional called Mr.Didi, He is telling every basic strategy and tac-tic in chess game. He impressed so bad, until there was a friend and now playing Internationally o.O , He is so tallented and still active nowaday. He teached me alot, but surprisingly, we met in a tourney when I was in 7th grade, coz we were in different school. ofc, I lost so bad there XD,  and now we're being a good friend.. Now, I'm playing chess just as an hobby, not professional, I learned a lot otodidac by reading online chess theory... And thanks to Levy and DewaKipas, coz of that I'm being proud that I was a chess player and can promote about the beuty of chess game... Now, I'm just studying, working and go to GYM and some Chess.com.

You mean there were times when there WASNT a security lockdown?

I began playing chess when I was about 7 my dad taught me how to play then I started taking chess classes and getting better and better. When covid struck i decided to use chess.com to practice playing chess.

I've tried to get caught up on my thank you notes. If you posted your story and did not receive a thank you from me. Let me know. Also I want to say here that I appreciate so many people sharing their story on this thread. It's been mostly uplifting to read how you became involved with the wonderful game of chess.

thanks for the tank you note!

I just created a vacation tournament for anybody who wants to participate

 https://www.chess.com/tournament/george-carlin-special

I despise Chess.

But it's one of the few tabletop games I know how to play. Plus it's something to do while I'm waiting for program installations or the like. I've never really taken Chess seriously even when I was first introduced to it way back in elementary.