Sometimes I make a "mouse slip," the kind where your cursor betrays you and drops your queen on a square that screams why? My username is a nod to that, not to any obscure rodent anatomy.

I proudly wear the label of "Senior Sustainer," which is a fancy way of saying I'm an "Adult Improver" with more life experience and more back pain. I turned 65 in January 2025 and am a retired US Navy Chief Petty Officer now living in the Philippines with my wife, kids, and grandkids, who still can’t believe I spend this much time yelling at a virtual chessboard.

Long games are a rare luxury, but I join the Dojo sponsored "Friday Night Fights" within my rating group when my schedule cooperates. Since that’s Saturday morning here it’s basically my version of cartoons and cereal. I mainly play 15+10 games on Chess.com, setting a pairing floor of -100 and no ceiling -- because hope springs eternal.

I've taken to deeply annotating my games to sharpen my analysis skills before consulting Stockfish, so I can at least pretend I came up with a good move on my own every once in awhile. I’m also tinkering with some Python scripts in the Linux terminal (GUIs are for cowards) to pull Stockfish evaluations for each move. That way, I can see exactly when and where things went hilariously wrong.

You can also find me on Lichess under the same name, and every so often I post ramblings about online chess on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ChessWithMouselip

Listen to the "Perpetual Chess Podcast" -- great info!

https://www.perpetualchesspod.com/

My USCF membership info (expired):

http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlMain.php?12542731