Hello, by introduction, I am Wes Mattice.

I am 51 years old, married for 28 years to the same wonderful lady, I have two beautiful grown up daughters and I live in Carson City, Nevada, USA. I retired after 30 years of service to the State of Nevada as an Associate Warden of Corrections (Prisons). I am also a United States Air Force Veteran.

I began playing chess when I was 8 years old in 1972, when Bobby Fischer exploded on the scene. I have been playing off and on ever since. I played OTB tournaments in the late 80’s and all through the 90’s mainly in Reno and Lake Tahoe, Nevada. I’ve met and spoke with quite a few famous chess players over the years, Larry Evans, the late Walter Brown and Boris Spassky are my favorites. I once drew a game during a simultaneous exhibition with GM Andy Soltis. Those are the good memories. I disliked some of the shady stuff, outright in your face cheating and the huge investment for negligible return in OTB play, so I turned to the internet. I used to be a member of FICS and ICC. I have played approximately 10,000 blitz games on each (no that is not a misprint, you read that correctly) (under the handles Blind8 and BewildaBeast.) At one point I actually briefly achieved a 2200 rating on ICC. However blitz is very superficial and I became extremely bored of the same old classical chess. Same old stuff over and over. After coming to Chess.com I decided to slow things down a bit and enjoy chess more, and not be so superficial in my play. So now I mainly play turn based only. Then I discovered Chess 960. I believe that Fischer was right (essentially traditional chess is played out, it is dead).

I first became an admin about 6 months ago for The Not Wanteds, then Gothic, then Lucian, Lycan Werewolf, then The Terminator, then SA and Co-founder of Club 960 and lastly Cybermen Elite. My main focus has become Club 960 (and The Not Wanteds) as those are my home teams.

So as you can see I have been around chess for long time and I have seen a lot; both good and bad. I really enjoy it and I especially enjoy Chess 960, it is my main focus now. Please feel free to join Club 960 or check out my blog. It is fairly popular, I don’t get the number of reads as let’s say Jeremy Silman, but it is still good reading none the less.

I don’t normally like to share this much information with anonymous strangers on the web (call it a weakness, yes I have them), but it is the stuff relationships are made of. Given all that I have been through in life and chess, the above might give you some insight into me. I am a for real person on the other side of the computer screen; and I know you are also. I like to enjoy and play, I do not like drama, cat fights, cheating or other negative stuff. I have an abnormally low tolerance for the negative; this both a strength and a weakness I think. Keep all of this in mind when you are dealing with me, please. If that type of stuff comes up, I don’t mess around, life is to short. I will cut you off or block you with a quickness, I have done it in the past. I hope that last part wasn’t too harsh, but it is what it is.

I look forward to establishing a positive rapport with some of you.

Regards

Wes

WhipLash775