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I started playing chess when I was 8 years old. My father took
us to his company Christmas party held at the local theater. We
all watched a movie and afterwards we were given presents. Mine
was a chess set. I took it home read the instructions and got my
5 year old sister to play with me. My older brother, Dan, came
over and asked, "Hey, what are you guys doing?" And when I told
him he retorted, "That isn't how you play!" He took the set,
read the instructions, and began playing games with Paul. They
refused to show me how to play, deflecting me with, "You're too
young, you won't understand!" I kept insisting that they show me
how to play until finally they did, and thus were the seeds of a
serious brotherly rivalry sown. Being 5 and 6 years younger than
my brothers I started out on the bottom of the totem pole, but I
wouldn't stay there. By the time I reached 9th grade I was
winning the family games more often than not. The rivalry made
good players out of all of us. Paul attended a trade school in
Johnstown and won a tournament there. Daniel went to St.
Vincent's College and took 3rd place in a tournament there. I
went to a four year high school. It was during my freshman year
that they started the chess club. We never had a team that
played against other schools, but we did have a tournament at
the end of the year. I wanted to win that tournament very badly,
but my self esteem was so low that I felt a need to pray
ferventlly every day so that I would feel worthy to win. I don't
know whether praying had anything to do with it, but at least it
gave me confidence and I did go on to win the tournament and
become the school champion. My sophomore year I won the
tournament again, but my junior year they decided not to have a
tournament. Then my senior year they had two tournaments and I
won both of them. In my four years of high school play I never
lost a game and had only one draw, which was against my best
friend, Pete Meier. We were first and second in the chess club, and as luck would have it we were first
and second in the two mile run as well. Peter would later tell
me that the reason they had no tournament my junior year is
because they figured I would just win it again anyway. Then they
decided to have two tournaments my senior year so that someone
else would have a better chance of winning at least one of the
tournaments. That would have worked better if they had
made the winner of the first tournament ineligible to play in
the second tournament, (or they could have
given out trophies for second and third place, though no one, including myself, got trophies.) |
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