Genesis -- II

The Renaissance began in a quirky way, and only after a long (about 12 year) hiatus. I was visiting my family home in Maryland, and my mother presented me my belated Christmas/Birthday present (my birthday falls very close to Christmas). It was a chess set. And an elaborate one at that (mental note -- include pictures of it). At the time, I thought it was a pretty cool gift. Not because I planned on playing very many games on it, but because I just thought it was very beautiful and would look excellent displayed in my apartment.

And for the next couple months, that's all this chess set did -- sat there, looking beautiful. But still, something was happening. I don't want to say it was calling me. It is a cool chess set... not a magical one! However, I did feel like something was drawing me to the game. It was not until a particularly boring day at law school that I acted on it. I was just perusing the Yahoo website trying to find anything to kill the 30 minutes between my law school classes. Yahoo offers a variety of games for users to play. I saw a listing for chess, and thought "what the hey." I logged in and began to play. And, unfortunately, play poorly. But these defeats only intensified my desire to play. What could I do to get better? And that's really where it all began. I began reading books, going to websites, studying openings, etc. It's been about 3-4 years since I really started playing. Have I improved? Yes and no. My game is much more solid, but GM status is still a long ways off, I am afraid! "Getting there is half the fun." And even if I don't get there, chess has proven to be a really good time -- and a life saver too. Chess got me through some of the worst times of my life, offering a welcomed distraction to some really dark and painful days.

This web log is the latest installment of my journey. I am glad to share a little bit of it with you.