glennclapp

I started playing chess as a kid and thought I was pretty good all the way through college. Then I found a local chess club in Grand Rapids Michigan and got beaten pretty bad by some much stronger (though very friendly players). I decided to figure out where I was going wrong and opened my chess.com account.

I continued for a year or so pretty aimlessly and didn't see much improvement. I played a handful of rated games over the board with very limited success. Finally I started picking up a few books in addition to watching more serious chess content on YouTube (as opposed to the more trendy click baity stuff) and finally started to see some substantial improvement.

A few more years went by and I got a different job and a lot of my new colleagues were interested in chess and a few of them were stronger than my previous routine opponents. I had to improve my game in order to keep pace with those players. Around this time I also started my own club The Rookery, in order to host some daily tournaments.

About a year after that, my daughter and some local kids started getting interested, and a club sprung up at my local library and we started hanging around there and I found I was passionate about getting new players into the game and sharing my enjoyment of the game.