I was born in 1963 but I still feel no older than 47! I spend entirely too much time playing chess (so far only mostly chess.com), you see it's highly addictive. My excuse is that it exercises the brain, which is good for my day job as a software engineer. I also sail and play/compose music and computer-music.

I really like chess.com over all, and mostly I play "turn-based" or "on-line" as they call it. My philosophy about turn-based ratings is that they're ok as they give a general idea of who you want to play against, but the ratings are in part a function of how much research you do that is specific to the game (which is by the way specifically allowed according to chess.com rules - just no chess engines), and how much time you spend contemplating each move.

So, if you challenge me, we can either play seriously, with no chat specific to the game, or else I also welcome games for practice and learning - these can be unrated if you wish.

There in my view, there are many ways to play turn-based aka online games, and I welcome all of them - just let me know in your challenge or initial comments in the message box. Here are some of my ideas:

1) Openings - either practicing them without looking up things, or else using the game as an opportunity to research opening lines as we play. We can agree to a draw once it gets to a middle game, or when someone clearly blundered (hence probably unrated). And then there's also the possibility to rematch and try again,since the "game" will be only 10 to 15 moves.

2) Chatty games - we both chat about what our strategy is as the game progresses (again, probably unrated). This would be similar to a friendly non-competive OTB game between friends where we share ideas about the game as it progreses, such as "I see you have a discovered check threat - I think this last move was my only defence - but did you see a better way out for me?" Or, "you do see that I have a mate in one threat right now, right?"

3) Treating turn-based aka. on-line games as a gentleman / gentlewoman agreement to spend only a certain amount of time thinking about each move. For example, when the opponent makes a move, I note the time or use a stop-watch software to say, limit the time-per-move to 2 minutes (min for me) or 20 minutes or whatever. No conditional moves, and no-fair looking at the game after you have made your move (until your oponent makes his or hers, of course).

LIVE CHESS: Although I want to get some OTB experience, it would be also nice to play a live game on-line. Probably 30 minutes per game minimum, but 60 minutes per game would be closer to a real tournament game. We would have to set up in advance via messaging a mutual game time when we can turn off our phones and significant others (is that possible?) and be free of interruptions.

LarryTroxler