Getting back into chess at 40

I find I have a lot more time on my hands lately and I have been studying hard to improve my chess playing. I still have a lot to learn and study, but I feel like I'll get to a point where I'll be happy with it. I guess I should fill you in on my chess playing, so I started playing probably when I was about 8 years old.

I was never really good but I played here and there, I also didn't know how serious the game was taken by the time I moved to Portland, OR and lived in the same building with a massive chess enthusiast who later started the Best Chess Set Ever! I remember one time he called me up and said "Dan! Get up here now we need to play chess!" I ran up the stairs and we played a bullet match which was the first time I've ever played that kind of game. He kicked my ass obviously then tore out some pages in one of his books on mate in two's and handed them to me "Here you need to study these and I'll sell you my computer with only chess on it" so yeah at the time I was studying these pages ripped out from a book and playing against a stockfish computer and I can remember vividly the way it was effecting me in my everyday life, like nothing I've ever experienced before. I would cross the street and almost in front of me seeing chess pieces move with the movements I made, as if there was a whole strategy and thought that went into simple tasks. And it then made a lasting imprint on me since.

I have put it away from many years after that and moved all over the work and when I came back to the US I fell back in love with chess. That was about 8 years ago I think??? A lot happened and dropped it again and then a lot more stuff happened and here I am now taking chess more serious than I did before.

I'm doing puzzles, watching the Silman series on youtube, I got some books too by Silman, Fischer and the latest by Levy. I actually feel this is the hardest I ever took it and I'm hoping to see some improvement and if not then whatever chess is still awesome and using Lichess which i never used before is freaking rad!

Well I guess that's enough from me

Thanks for reading

BlastBeatBishop