I started playing chess from age 7 and joined my first chess club at age 14 in 1980, well before the time of the Internet. I gave it up when I got into the levels where memorising 2394798792873 opening moves was critical and I was losing too many games because of my reluctance to become more of a database than a human player.

I started playing again in 2009, after 15 years of not playing, rusty as anything. I have finally cleared out the rust and am now studying the game and playing competitively again and can offer a reasonable challenge to good players.

I still refuse to memorise too many moves in openings -- that's not chess to me! Thankfully, Online Chess (my favorite brand of chess here at chess.com) allows me to use opening books!

I absolutely LOVE tactics training. I learned to play chess largely from "sparring" with a friend and by reading puzzle books on chess tactics. The online ones are just awesome and I spend quite a bit of time trying to solve the seemingly endless puzzles!

I don't play a lot of Live Chess here, but I probably will eventually, I enjoy Live Chess, but because of my busy lifestyle, I find it hard to get uninterrupted time to just sit and play a few games.

I play Vote Chess, preferring only to play it for groups that discuss the moves and are organised, so that all may learn. I find the 'turn up, vote and leave' (aka drive-by voting) method of playing vote chess dull and boring... may as well just play my own games.

I play OTB for the Modbury Chess Club, based in South Australia and I enjoy it a lot. I have an ACF (Australian Chess Federation) rating of 1750 and a Rapid rating of 1950. I have no idea what that is in FIDE

I am a Sci Fi fan, primarily with:

Star Wars
Star Trek
Stargate (SG1, Atlantis and Universe)
Continuum
X-Files
Battlestar Galactica (new)
Warehouse 13
Space 1999
Many more of course!

There are many more I have enjoyed, and still do when I find the time and opportunity, but these are my current favorites (at time of writing this). If you are interested in sci-fi too, then by all means, consider joining my group, Borg Collective. I'd love to see you there and have a chat about your favorite sci fi show/film/book/whatever

I'm friendly and easy to get along with, so if you want to drop me a note or a message, by all means, please do! I'll forward it on as spam and report you! No, just kidding! lol I have a keen sense of humour too, so don't take everything I say as literal

I am also currently one of the superadmins of Team Australia. If you are an Aussie and want to play for Australia in the World League, please join up. We need all the members we can get!

BorgQueen