My dad taught me to
What is your story? How did you start playing chess? What have you, and are you doing in chess?
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RMChess1954 a écrit :
What is your story in chess?
Nice stories , i allready told mine here , in 2018 or 2019
Ok I started this thread and my story is the first one in the list. Here it is again.
I grew up in the small town of Marshall Missouri USA. My older brother taught me to play chess during the Bobby Fisher boom. I picked it back up while in my 30's. A 6 month USCF membership in the ChessMaster 2000 box opened the door to the world of chess I never knew existed. Laying in a hospital bed having had a cancer removed from the side of my head I decided chess was something I wanted to get better at. I've served on the Missouri Chess Association board, directed chess tournaments. Including the New Mexico, and Missouri Opens. Currently I play a lot online. I organize and direct over the board tournaments. I admin a couple of Chess.com clubs. I am thankful to have someone to play against. For many years after my brother stopped playing me I had no one to play. I am so glad you're all here.
fenrissaga a écrit :
I learned playing chess in 1975 my best school friend taught me, we were all both 7 years old.
He was allready a club player ,but my chess experience came only from him .
So of course he beat me in every single match when you're seven you can't be a good chess coach .
I remember i didnt liked to play white because you had the initiative
For example he let me premove the fried liver attack only to show me the traxler counterattack (so i loosed again !)
i stopped playing chess until 2001 when good computers where at home (but playing against computers is so boring!)
Since 2013 i'm playing on chess.com and i'm so happy with that!
yes it was in 2018
This was the original post. I hope you will read it and share with us your story. Read the other stories in this thread. Many are inspiring.
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 ...
Feb 22, 2023
0
#407
AyoV wrote:
dean1219 schreef:
I took a course in Medieval History in high school. A kid in the class did a class talk on chess. I was 14 then, and have been playing it off and on now for 64 years. Only in the last six months have I gotten semi-serious. I like the game because it's full of surprises.
Do you remember anything of the talk? It seems interesting. Maybe play a game by the old rules. Would be intersting maybe. The pieces moved differently, especially the pawns (en passant) and the king (castling).
I wish I did remember the details. The kid, Jack Schott, who gave the talk really piqued my interest. (Jack ended up, afaik, a professor/researcher at Stanford U in Cali).
I'm going to play in this tournament if anyone is looking to join in. https://www.chess.com/tournament/lets-play-217
Feb 24, 2023
0
#409
I'm from Germany and I played my first games in a chess club for third and fourth graders at my elementary school. I finished both years at the top of the table. Beyond that, I didn't take part in any chess activities, so after the fourth grade it all got lost.
Fast forward to my adult life:
I work in kindergarten. In the afternoon, the children from the neighboring elementary school are looked after in the after-school care center in our building. On the warmer days, the kindergarten and school children are outside on the same site.
One of the elementary school children played with the after-school care worker 7-8 years ago and when he didn't feel like it anymore, I was asked. I went straight into it and the child's enthusiasm for chess was simply contagious. Felt like I did when I was that age myself.
After that it was at least a kind of on-off relationship with playing chess. If you had the chance, the board would be taken out with friends - which was a rather rare pleasure. Then, about two years ago, I reconnected with a friend who had been cut off for years. At the time he was full of chess fever, which infected me. In a bit since then I also play online.
Due to my renewed enthusiasm for chess and the possibility of playing it regularly, I also mentioned chess in conversations with other friends, which turned out that 2-3 of them also actively play online.
Since then, I've actually watched everything that chess.com streams. Mostly as VOD on Youtube - but now more and more often live on Twitch.
I've been suffering from progressive depression for about three years.
Playing or watching chess is one of the few things that distracts me from my negative and suicidal thoughts.
I'm not good, I just play intuitively for the most part and have no real interest in "studying" chess. It keeps me busy and I just enjoy it! Apart from the fact that you also get to know people from all over the world. Really great conversations or whole internet acquaintances can result from a simple "nice move" or "well played (:". For me, chess is actually not primarily about winning, but about the experience itself and being together - albeit only on-line.
Apart from my mother, sister and a few friends, chess is my biggest help in fighting my depression.
The text may seem a bit dry overall, which is probably also due to the language barrier. All in all, i can't even put into words what an important role chess currently plays in my life. A life that might would not even exist without chess anymore.
Lots of love to you all. (:
Bobby Fischer appeared to me in a dream, you must forsake the love of all women and become a chess sensation, then i saw Alexandra Kostinuek and it's all went pear shaped since. XD
My friend played chess and I wanted to play so I’m here and I love it!
Many interesting stories here.
Check out this Giant Resource.
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Over 400 responses. So uplifting to read how others found chess.
Oct 19, 2023
0
#417
My grandfather forced me to play chess. I hated it because of how much verbal abuse I was dealing with which was really painful. There were moments I cried. I think this is one dark side of chess that some people may not know.
However, thanks to him I actually found the motivation again to play chess when my friends introduced it to me. I prefer self-studying and doing chess puzzles which is more entertaining but learning rate is much slower than being taught by my grandfather.
P.S. My grandfather was really good at chess and he probably teaches better than a coach but he is definitely much more harsh than any of them.
Played in prison too