jwiechers

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About Me
I was a very active and impatient child and so my parents decided to teach me a game that would engage my curiosity and intellect. In chess, I found a way to be calm and patiently construct strategies that came to fruition only after a substantial amount of (game) time had passed. It is one of my most cherished pleasures, calming, even anodyne, and I am fond to have developed some considerable skill at it. It also gives me strength; having always been sickly, I have been regularly hospitalized over the last few years and have been suffering from a variety of illnesses. Playing chess cheers me up and gives me pleasure.

Chess is superior to any other game, like the mountain Cimboraso is to a heap of muck. Chess works as life works. We have a plan to start with, but it all depends on what the opponent wants to do, just like in life it is fate deciding.
- A. Schopenhauer

Favourite Chess Game:
M Botvinnik vs JR Capablanca (Netherlands, 1938)

Favourite Opening:
Although I am rather reluctant and shun wild positions, I like the uncommon and random. This is one of the reasons why I enjoy Chess960 so much. I know that I am particularly strong when positions get tricky, although sometimes, I fall for my own tactical thinking and underestimate the variability that comes, not only from those positions, but also from the mind on the other side of the board.

I also like to experiment and regularly play uncommon openings that are generally seen as disadvantageous (Anderssen's, Ware's, Amar's); always with success. Sometimes, it lies in actually developing the positions to something worthwhile, sometimes in learning, the hard way, why they are uncommon.

My all time favourite, however, is probably the classic Réti Opening, not because I'm a fan of hypermodern play, in fact, I tend to be a lot more conservative unless I force myself to play "hypermodern," but I find Réti ripe with tactical considerations and opportunities that epitomize the thoroughly fascinating hypermodern spirit.