It’s the end of the 2007-08 season for me. There are still a couple of cup finals which Horfield Chess Club is involved in but my services won’t be required – not if we want to win!

It’s been a good season – 13 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses. I played up in Division 2 a few times when the B and C teams were short, but I spent most of my time playing for the D team in Division 5 on top board. Having joined the league as a late entry, I was required to organise all the D team fixtures (which was easier with some clubs than with others), and it was very satisfying to win Division 5 in the first season.

Even though the season is over, I’ve got a summer of study and practice planned – tactics, lots of games, strategy, looking over some master games, etc. It looks like my rating will head up towards mid-90s (ECF) when the new grades come out in August and I’m going to need to put some effort in if I want to hit triple figures next year as I only played a couple of games against players rated in the 100s this season and I lost both of them!

I started playing chess as a kid at about the age of 8 at the school lunch time club. It wasn’t serious, and we just played chess – no coaching or anything. I didn’t play much after the age of 11, and most of my time was spent playing cricket (I was good at that!). I was beating my Dad consistently and my only remaining opponent didn’t seem willing to play chess anymore (Dad was more of a Go player anyway!).

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Hi everyone!

This is the start of a long journey, from your average club patzer to wherever the world of chess takes me – hopefully onwards and upwards!

Along the way I’ll publish my thoughts, experiences, progress, some reviews and anything else I can think of.

I’ll start by updating you with the ’story so far’ in the near future…