Hello, I'm an American. But most of the time I am overseas, so don't let the flag chess.com puts by name fool you.

I used to play on chess.com with a different name several years ago. I got interested again by living in Chennai, India, where Vishy Anand was quite a celebrity. My online rating got up to the 1900s in the past. I'm very frustrated that I cannot seem to play that way now.

Some of my favorite chess players: Harry Nelson Pillsbury, Akiba Rubinstein, Jose Capablanca, Richard Reti, Tigran Petrosian, Bobby Fischer, Anatoly Karpov, Jon Speelman, and Judit Polgar. I've been told I play like Petrosian. I think I play more like Reti.

I'm starting a big push to improve my game. It is hampered by the fact that I'm in the midst of a move, so my efforts are hampered by not having access to a lot of my stuff, like most of my chess books. But that leaves me with a lot of time on my hands, which helps. I do have a laptop with Chessbase, Stockfish, Houdini, and Fritz 15. So I am slowly learning how to use these tools to hopefully get better!

Check out my chess blog at www.chess.com/blog/DamselinDischess/ and please write comments to critique my analysis!

Have a look at www.instagram.com/theplacechangesme/ to see some of my travel photos!

DamselinDischessi