I first learned to play, by playing against my brother as a child. Not knowing proper chess fundamentals
I played sparingly and without much devotion. It was not until later in my life when I was looking
for something to keep me awake for large spans of down-time while working the midnight shift
in a local factory, as a temporary replacement, that I discovered my true passion for chess.
That was over 10 years ago, when I discovered the dusty yellow-and-black covered
chess instruction manual which lay inside the cardboard box along with my father's chess set in the
basement. It was at this point that I began to truly appreciate chess for the art, poetry and science
that it contains. This passion has lingered, on and off, since that time, thanks, to Garry Kasparov,
and the Radio Shack 1650, both of which helped to maintain my interest in the game, in the lack of interested opponents.
That is until about six years ago, when out
of pure luck, I discovered the existence of a local chess club, in the back of an issue of Chess Life,
which I had bought to pass the time while I waited for hair-cut. It was probably shortly after this time
that I could truly be called a chess geek, (as I certainly, was not, am not, and probably never, will be a chess master,
so I might as well at least have some title behind my name). Since then, I began in earnest to buy books and study chess
in order that some day I might be able to play what I myself qualified to be a competent, if not elegant game of chess.
Since that time the Internet has rapidly changed this process, making it easier to find opponents and
to learn chess. But to make it easier for someone else to follow a slightly less difficulty path then mine, I have
attempt to convey part of my acquired knowledge in the form of the reviews and puzzles which follow on these pages.
