Chess

In High School, my team came in 1st, 2nd, and 4th in the state of Washington respectively my 3 years. I played on the 2nd and 4th place teams as the second board out of 5 member team. I never lost a game at the tournament. Chess was an additional hobby to cross cournty and track training. In my senior year, after playing all day on Saturday (and being worn out-competive chess takes energy) I did my 90 minute running work out finishing at 10 pm. My team mates woke me up when they came by my house in the morning, but I was able to play,

I had an interest in chess from a very young age. Every Sunday, I would look up the chess column in the newspaper and I would replay the games on my chess set. Later I got a book that taught chess. The most powerful book I got was Modern Chess Openings. I remember reading a sample first 10 moves in the book which a recreated in a High School chess match to win the game in 10 moves.

I originally had an interest in chess because it appears to be a game which does not rely on luck such as backgammon where the outcome is highly influenced by the roll of the dice.

Chess is a great game to teach various types of strategy.

There are three stages of the game, the opening, middle game and the end game. Knowing this, I emphasized the study of the opening since loss in the opening would preclude entrance until the other two parts of the game!

ADDITIONS- This fellow thinks like me- 1.d4 e6 Black is Good! Milos Jovicic http://www.sahovski.co.yu/products/otherpub/latest.php?nolan=sr&id=272
https://www.schachversand.de/d/detail/buecher/4925.html
http://www.karlonline.org/winz07.htm

Nimzo-Indian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimzo-Indian_Defence