My love for chess began around the age of twelve in my homeland, Barbados 🇧🇧. What started as childhood curiosity soon became a lifelong pursuit of strategy, discipline, and self-mastery.

It all began when my mother gifted me a chess set — cleverly paired with checkers (or “draughts,” as we call it in Barbados). Already confident in checkers, I was captivated by the depth and logic of chess ♞.

With no coach or formal training, I became my own teacher. My early goal was unusual — not to win, but to engineer a draw 🤝. That mindset trained me to think from both sides of the board, sharpening my foresight and sense of balance ⚖️.

Eventually, that quiet practice met reality in the town market, where my family worked daily. There, I began challenging local vendors and testing my ideas in real games. Despite having no exposure to formal theory or tactics — and not even knowing what a Grandmaster was — I often found myself winning through intuition and pattern recognition 🏆.

Those formative experiences shaped how I think, both on and off the board. Chess became my laboratory for strategy and problem-solving, teaching me patience, adaptability, and focus.

To this day, I continue to study its many dimensions — openings, middlegame patterns, and endgames — with the same curiosity that first drew me in. Every game remains more than a contest; it’s an ongoing journey of growth, creativity, and discovery 💡.

CorrieG