You guys honor me with welcoming me in here. I feel like I should speak of myself some.

I'm Michael. 45 years old. Lived in Kansas my whole life. My father taught me chess at a young age, but I never really had anyone to play other than him. I got better in my teenage years, so naturally my dad stopped playing me. I never really found anyone to play who could challenge me until I discovered online chess in my 30’s. About 8 years ago I found some local chess players. I’m still involved with that today, helping to organize events. The scene has always been small for a town of Wichita’s size, but it’s starting to grow now, so that is exciting. Also about 8 years ago I discovered daily games on chess.com. I found out I could play way above my normal ability (about 1600 USCF) with the use of the analysis board and the database. Signed up for a tournament with over 1000 players and only 3.5 years later I finished it with 1^st place. I would go on to win 1^st place in 3 other tournaments before my streak was ended. I made it almost to 2200 on one account and for some reason thought I’d never get there again and decided to make another account. I ended up peaking over 2200 with the current account and felt a little silly for not believing in myself. But it is true I was and still am a bit overrated as most of my games have been vs lower rated opponents, mostly friends.

Then just a few months ago I discovered vote chess. I never played any variants. A little bug house a few times I guess. But I always ignored requests to join clubs. I can’t remember what it was that got me to try it one day. I think I joined a club and stumbled into a game and was immediately interested. There is something about being able to see into the minds of other players and how they view chess differently that can be such an opportunity to better learn the game. I then took a deep dive into the vote chess leaderboard. I think there are over 10,000 teams. I took several evenings going through the list team by team. I took all the teams with a win rate over 50%, who had at least 2 active games going, and who had at least 3 people voting per move average. I ended up with a list of about 150 teams, which I sorted by points, members, and win %. Pretty cool spreadsheet if anyone wants to see it. I joined about 25 clubs and started a vote chess game with each. The experiences have been quite varied. Some teams have zero organization. Some teams have a structured vote call. Some teams vote early. Some teams analyze till the last minute. Some teams are dead silent. Some teams lean heavy on one person. Some teams fight with each other. Some teams have great communication and are good with reaching a consensus. I’ve left about half of the clubs I joined, but the ones I’ve stayed in I’ve signed up for many more games. I think I have 50 vote chess games going at the moment. It’s a little too much, at least for me, but it’s hard to turn down a game.

In this time over the last several months I started a club of my own (Wichita Chess Club) and got many of the locals to join and then started recruiting people over the site. Have about 70 members now. We do about 5 vote chess games at any given time and 1-2 daily game club vs club matches. It was a real challenge and still is to get players to abide by the 2 rules. Vote only for moves that have been proposed (and not refuted) and don’t vote early. But so far so good. Just need more players. Still in the number of voters where 1 bad vote can throw the game sideways and that makes me a little nervous.

I wasn’t too sure about Vote Chess Learning Club because of the small numbers, but it was actually one of the first ones I joined. I figured I would not be accepted, but gave it a shot anyway. I requested to join with a message that said something along the lines of “I want to see what you all are learning in here.” Lol, now I know and the rest is history. At the time I joined, I didn’t know about the connection with the Christian Home School group. One day I searched for Christian clubs on the site and found about a handful. Not too much activity on most, but I think it was Christian Chess Community where I chimed in on some political forum posts. Ended up meeting some folks. Pablo (Sweet Pea Buddy) asked me to teach chess at the Christian Youth Group. I told him I wasn’t a chess teacher, but I could guide them in some vote chess. We started a couple matches with Christian Home School Team and those have been very competitive. Vote chess is new to many of those kids, but a few are engaging.

What really intrigued me about this club is Heinrich. I just read his testimony again. Such a captivating and amazing story. He would be almost my father’s age. So cool he is still leading people through chess. I hope I will get the chance to know him better!

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