- Joined
- 28 Feb 16
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- 4765
Maybe a few here will share theirs as well!
My chess story began with what we called "parlor games" in a quiet country farmhouse. I began playing at probably around 9-10 years old. All I was taught was how the pieces moved, then you were just on your own!
It wasn't until the year 1972 (many here will understand) that I developed a deep interest in the game. Chess became sort of an overnight fad in the United States and I was swept away in it. I began to actually study chess. Started an informal chess club at school and I think we had close to a dozen participants. I won a junior high school tournament.
MOST of the kids that enjoyed chess like myself were not particularly popular and were often picked on by bullies. Not me. I played football, rode motorcycles, was just generally leaned towards being a Class A hooligan most of the time, and I stood up for my chess friends. It didn't hurt that I had an older brother that I have often thought about...I've concluded that "back in the day" he'd have given a silvertip gorilla a hard run for its money in a straight up fight. So, my group got to peacefully (mostly) enjoy chess.
It's been pretty much a life-long love, and all my education has been earned through experience and self-study.
I'd ride 100 miles through a rainstorm for an over-the-board game. Don't get me wrong, I'm very thankful we have internet chess, but there's nothing like a couple of friends kickin' it together, enjoying a drink or two, and just having at it face to face.
Peace to all!
@liljo saidIt wasn't until the year 1972 (many here will understand) that I developed a deep interest in the game. Chess became sort of an overnight fad in the United States and I was swept away in it. I began to actually study chess.
Maybe a few here will share theirs as well!
My chess story began with what we called "parlor games" in a quiet country farmhouse. I began playing at probably around 9-10 years old. All I was taught was how the pieces moved, then you were just on your own!
It wasn't until the year 1972 (many here will understand) that I developed a deep interest in the game. Chess became sor ...[text shortened]... kickin' it together, enjoying a drink or two, and just having at it face to face.
Peace to all!
That would have been my story as well, unfortunately our HS chess club coach was also my 2nd year German language teacher. I didn't like his teaching style or his arrogance, and grew to hate him as much as he loathed me. Talking chess to him was not something I wanted.
It wasn't until I was in my mid 20's, and found an Encyclopedia of Organizations in a local University library that I found the contact information for the USCF, and began to play correspondence chess in the late 70's, and OTB soon after. The 80's saw a slow, but steady rise in playing skills and rating, peaking in 1992 just under 1700.
The next 15 years saw no less than 3 of my jobs offshored, and with it some economic hard times. Concentrating on chess while worried about money began to erode my enthusiasm and results. Ego wouldn't allow me to compete if I couldn't play up to my standards, so I left chess in 1992. The last 5 years have seen an improvement in the personal finance dept. and am now studying and playing online chess, waiting for the chance to compete OTB and to make some new chess friends.
I don't recall precisely when I learned the rules of chess, but I guess I was around seven. For the next five years or so, I seldom played and read little or nothing about the game.
That changed when the husband of one of my father's cousins got the idea of giving me a Bar Mitzvah present of membership in the US Chess Federation along with a magnetic board and set and two books: Chess the Easy Way by Reuben Fine and Modern Chess Strategy by Edward Lasker. The effect was profound, for previously it had not even occurred to me that organized chess might exist.
Many years later, Bob (the cousin's husband) remarked that this was probably the best present he'd ever given, and that certainly seemed plausible to me.
My Chess Story
I was taught the rules of chess by my cousin, back in 1967. For a while it was just another game like Monopoly or clue and any of a dozen other games I played. Back in my childhood we only had TV as a screen distraction so we found our entertainment in comics (loved Marvel. Still do), books and playing various games of imagination outside.
Occasionally my Dad would play a game of chess with me and easily won, but I enjoyed playing with him, because it was my dad!
Then a terrible thing happened. We moved to Nova Scotia and I had no friends (yet), no TV to speak of, so I had to find other ways to amuse myself. The local library had a few chess books. I recall a few I borrowed: The Chess Companion by Chernev. Great Brilliancy Prize Games of the Chess Masters, Reinfeld. I also got a book about The Rosenwald Tournament, that had Reshevsky and a young Bobby Fischer. I used to copy all the games down on pieces of paper and play them over and over. I usually played the opening and middlegames way too fast just to get to the final concluding combinations. I was far more interested in the beauty of combinations then how the game arrived there. However I did improve fairly rapidly and was soon defeating my dad more and more often. Eventually we moved back to Ontario and I joined the Central YMCA chess club where I slowly got stronger. This would be around the time I was 17 yrs old. I still never had an organized study routine all through highschool and beyond. I just played over master games and had no interest at all in the endgame, which I regret. It wasn’t until my late 20’s that I started to actually study and by then becoming anything higher than a candidate master was almost out of reach. I have a small regret about that, but it hasn’t taken away my enjoyment of the game. Now I’m retired and play on RHP and when this damn pandemic is a memory will once again enjoy playing people face to face.
@Duchess64
I agree that critically analyzing your own games is a huge stepping stone to improvement.
I suppose I started playing against my dad when I was about 7 yrs old.
We didn't play very often but he had a book on the basics which I read.
I was always an avid reader and would read anything and everything.
After I had read the book and done a few examples I of course thought I was an expert(as you do at that age!!)
I discovered that an uncle of who visited occasionally also played so I challenged him to a game.
I lost to checkmate.
Shortly after, it was time for him to leave but the board was left as it was and as I studied it I noticed he had two of the same squared bishops on the board!!
I suppose it's easily done and the incident was forgotten.
I still played the occasional game with dad but over time lost interest in the game.
I don't think I played again until my teens when a few of my school friends played socially.
I don't remember what revived my interest.Perhaps it was the t.v series called "the master game" which was shown on UK t.v in the late 60's.
I resolved to become an expert like the grandmasters on the show ,but was far too lazy to put in the study time to become very good.
I taught my son the basics but my daughter was never interested.
When I was watching the televised world championship match between Nigel Short and Gary Kasparov on t.v she thought it was hilarious that they were showing chess moves in slow motion!!
I have never joined a chess club although I sometimes used to go and watch matches when my local pub team were playing.
When chess playing computers became popular I got one but lost the power lead.
I plugged in another one I found in a cupboard and fried the damn memory!!
Not to be deterred I bought a "Garry Kasparov" chess computer which I still have today.
I rarely use it now as I play on here instead
I was taught the rules by my best friend about age 8 or 9. We played incessantly, game after game for entire afternoons. He showed me the elementary mates with 2Rs, K+R, K+Q, 2Bs, B+N. I don't recall ever having won a game against him, though there may have been a few draws (insufficient material to mate). After some years, he moved away and I never saw him again.
When I got to high school, I joined the chess club and discovered that my apprenticeship had actually been pretty thorough and already in freshman year I played 4th board on the school team in a league with several other high schools in the SF Bay Area. By my senior year, I was 1st board at my school and 2d in the schools league.
A buddy and I hitchhiked across the USA to take part in the U.S. Open, which was held in Atlantic City NJ the year of Fischer-Spassky. We picked up John Watson on the way. My buddy and I sat on the back seat, Watson was up front in the passenger seat (the driver was a non-chess player). To pass the time while driving across the Great Plains, Watson would play us simultaneous games not seeing our boards.
This was the first year in a while that Fischer had not taken part in the U.S. Open. Top seeds were Bent Larsen and Walter Browne (Browne was the ultimate winner that year). The moves of Fischer-Spassky were relayed to Larsen, who would give commentary after the U.S. Open games of the day were finished. I recall watching Browne playing speed-backgammon with a chess clock against other players in the analysis room.
The strongest player I ever faced OTB was James Tarjan, in a simul. I had the satisfaction of having survived to a king and pawns endgame, and was one of about four or five games still running after he had dispatched everyone else in the room.
I was taught the moves of the game by my (late) father on an old pegset. It was the mid 1960's and I was about five or six years old. I went on to play club chess and study the game a little while he remained strictly social, but we would still play occasionally on family meet ups. He never beat me after I reached the age of 11, but would take great delight in getting to an endgame, triumphantly seeing the positive of this achievement with the expression "He had to beat me with his pawns!"
The memory makes me smile to this day whenever I find myself in an endgame.
The upset game of the 1972 Open in Atlantic City was Ariel Mengarini's win over Bent Larsen. There was a crowd around the board, watching the thrilling ending. Mengarini must have played the game of his life that day, sacking a R for a N+P, then attacking Larsen's king's on the k-side and simultaneously advancing a passer on the q-side. That one point cost Larsen a final tie with Browne. The game is below. Mengarini played White.