Tactics

I started playing chess again about a year ago now. I first learnt when I was little but my dad stopped playing me when I could beat him easily. Then I started again in the 6th form at school. There was me and another guy who were about the same level which meant we had some titanic struggles, often lasting for a couple of days as we only played in lunch hours.

After school I didn't really have any opponents for a long time, then I discovered chess on the web and in particular the Gameknot Site. I really like this site, more than any of the others I have tried. One of the things that I particularly like is that they keep working to improve the site. It has lots of features which are quite useful in play such as a game database and an analyse position feature, you can also add comments about a particular game, I use this to remind myself of what I am intending to do which is quite important when you have 40 games on the go at once.

Forty games may sound a lot but there is a minimum of three days and a maximum of fourteen to make a move. For me this tends to mean that I get to make a few moves a day.

So why do I enjoy the game? My rating on Gameknot fluctuates wildly which I find frustrating. I think the reason I like the game, and especially Gameknot, is that there is a "never ending" supply of opponents of a similar level. It makes me concentrate for the whole of the game if I want to win and it makes me think tactically and stratefically. I like to think that I can then apply some of this in every day life