Back in elementary, I was on our school team. I never made it to the main lineup, so I was just a backup player. I can’t even remember if we won or not.

Back in high school, I used to play in our intramurals at Marcelo H. Del Pilar. Each team had two players, and my partner was this guy from our neighborhood. Dude was strong, and I never beat him before. But during the intrams, we ended up on the same team, he took board 1, I took board 2. We freakin’ won the championship! I only grabbed second place individually, I was damn happy with what I achieved.

When I started college, I let my chess career slide. Especially after joining the school's annual tournament and not winning a damn thing, I just got lazy and stopped playing altogether.

Now that I’m an OFW, playing chess has become my go-to pastime.

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