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

Hi Ziryab, i am Happy to read your story thank you!

starting playing about a year ago first time  i am over 70yrs old way over  played the game of go for a couple years was terrible- in fact  most games i am terrible at-- playing even poker  i am terrible i lose money every week on avg.- i have yet to in late stages of my life find a game i am good at-- card games just as bad - still at 100 score here on chess.com  after a year of playing  my local collage has a night time adult chess learning class if i am well enough to go out  i think i might- sign up  for the comradery at least -- people that sign up for those classes tend to be lost looser types like me

chess clubs here tend to elitist's club outfits -- tried  one once and was told to come back when my score was 1200 at least on chess.com -- well that will never happen so -- other options have to present themselves -- i hope   

I am from the US

I learned to play chess on my own

In the past I haven’t done any chess activities, I just play on my phone, and don’t see my self playing in person ever. I think without my phone, I doubt I would ever play chess. Like right now, my girl and tenant are having a conversation and I’m on this site to pass the time.

Oh and I would like to add, when I was around 8, someone bought me a chess set without teaching me a thing so i never used the set. It’s sitting in the closet collecting dust.

I started playing chess using my cell phone since around 2016 and i have played on and off.

I started when I chose the chess background in Gmail and my friend said "but you don't play chess!" then I joined chess.com.

Happy Holidays! to everyone. Thanks again for contributing your story to this thread. So many are inspiring, and all contribute to the big picture. We all starting playing under different circumstances and for different reasons. I believe chess is a great mental exercise. Is it a waste of time? Sure, but 100 years from now everything we do now will have been forgotten. It's all a waste of time. We exercise to keep our physical health, why not play chess to keep our minds healthy. 

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to all.

i have shared my story from time to time but how i remembered it was me being 7 years old at my elementary schools ending ceremony. i remember they gave medals to the chess team so i was like "wow thats so cool maybe i can play it too" and i instantly watched some youtube videos getting into the game. middle school was when i first got into playing with teams and where i started entering USCF events and now everything else is just me improving up to my goal

i got back into USCF since last year with a rating of 1300 and now i am 1896, have gained a ton of points about to break 1900 and also achieved a very notable goal becoming the national blitz champion at K-12 Nationals a few weeks ago so yeah thats my story currently, yep

i just played for fun

Well, I'll just say my word.

I actually started chess due to a friend of mine, but he's probably not even online on this site anymore. However, my other friends used to call him the "chess god", and I used to be crushed by him all the time (I was very silly back then, now that I think bout it). However, by the determination to beat him, I started at this website, at a rating of 700 (after all the adjustments) even though I put myself as intermediate and got crushed by the 1200s lol. Anyways, I kept on learning. I beat my friend eventually a few months later on this website, yet I still kept going, after having found a newfound love for this game. Right now, I have a FIDE rating of 1228 as a Korean, and have won many awards amongst people my age (I'm 13 rn), and chess is basically my favorite hobby now. All I gotta do now is to keep improving. Kudos to my friend for getting me here. Here's just my progression chart since I started, just for fun

By the way, happy holidays to all

I am from the USA. I learned to play chess when my dad and brother taught me, but for years showed no interest. One day, I was watching TV, and in that specific episode a character discovers that she’s a chess prodigy. It looked sort of fun on the show so I decided to reopen my barely used chess app (this one) just for the heck of it. I would have never expected the love of chess and the ambition to become a grandmaster that I grew to have. I now spend hours of my free time frolicking through the chess world- books (right now I’m reading Mortal Games by Fred Waitzkin), movies (my favorite is obviously Searching for Bobby Fischer), watching Twitch and YouTube, and of course, playing games. I’m so glad I decided to give chess a chance, because so many amazing moments have filled my life now. I have grown a passion for it (despite my drastically low rating) and I hope to keep it for a long time.

South African. Heavy lockdown in covid time, we were not even allowed to leave the house. I had no job, no internet and an old computer with windows "chess titans" as my only entertainment. There was solitaire on there as well actually

I’m from the USA and started playing chess either in 2020 or 2021. My friends mom took out a chess set and said that we could play it, I got all excited because back when I was like 8 or 7 I wanted to learn it so then me and my friend would play for the whole day. Eventually my friends brother would play too. I would beat all of them and then they stopped playing. I wanted to learn how to get better so I went to yt where the YouTuber (gothamchess) was using a chess website and I eventually learned that it was called chess.com. I started playing it on my school iPad and surprising my first game went good (I played at like 80%) and I kept winning and losing until it was almost summer break and I had to hand back my iPad. I eventually got it and my elo shot up because I watched more yt vids and yeah. I’m trying to find a coach because lately I’ve been playing weird and my heads not in the right place. I’ve also stopped watching vids for some reason.

I've sent awards as a thank you to the newest entries.

Happy New Year! May you have many wonderful games in the new year. Thanks for being here.

Happy new year !! tell us your story !!

What is your story in chess?

I don't fully remember how I began playing chess. I think it was by playing on an Excalibur brand Alexandra talking board. I also played against a computer in a chess program on Windows 7. I would also occasionally battle my brother in the game. I rarely won at the time, but later decided to try a chess club in my elementary school. I went there for a while, and eventually decided to try online chess and found this site while in middle school. I was rated 500 when I originally joined the site, but have played many games since, reviewed many videos, and learned several openings. Mostly, the games themselves brought my rating up to almost 1200 as of this post. I find chess a very entertaining game.

Nice! But I'd recommend joining again a club irl and play over the board tournaments, and then a real boost will come. It's like jumping from a training camp to real war.

Good ideas, I played at a young age, my grandpa taught me, I was really good from the get go, I won some chess tournament at some school I wanna day it was called Stonebridge, then I quit because it got too challenging. Then I picked it back up playing with homeless people, I played in jails, it was funny we made our own board, and yelled out the moves from our cells. I rarely ever lost a game in prison except to this Derek guy, wehd back and forth battles, this Italian guy in prison too he was pretty good, most people got pimp juiced, I played good games with Mike back in the Saint Paul vagabond days, Henry was alright , though when it came down to playing for money he choked. I once took this Jamaican guy for like 80 to 120 dollars in the Minneapolis higher ground homeless shelter, I even tricked him and let him win once, he got hustled scraped, I took out Vonns friend hebet again5 me, I never lot a game 7 and 0, and I was drinking vodka straight out the bottle too, God bless Vonn rest in peace bro, he died, he used to sell me plants too, idk what he was thinking betting against m, he died in a train accident, it's on the news. Love and leave to all you brothers may God grant you many years.