As a reader of this post or as a frequent visitor to this site you can with safety, or assuredly if you prefer, assume I both love to write and love chess. The principle difference between them being, and this will indeed sound odd I only write for myself. In chess of course we have an opponent, team mates, tournament participants and so on. Even when we read alone, chess theory or history or whatever chess you are reading has been written by another individual.
This site is all my own. It is the lifeblood of an injured soul, if you like. I do not care whether I am read and the two requests I received last year to write for whatever those publications were, were politely declined…you could, if you like, call this whole thing a personalized prolonging of my love of chess, which in itself is a form of convalescence. Still it is the case that I am engrossed in a writing project already over 30,000 words and with much work ahead still.
Counting the countries I’ve visited has become tiresome. I think its 37. 34 at least. The number of chess clubs around the world I have played in is also numerous, with some being far easier to play chess in than others. The one club which I have now been a part of longer than any other is Bangkok Chess Club. I’ve photographed main events, met world champions and many things on top, I’ve even played some strong chess there too but never organized a tournament.
Last Friday we had around 19 players, of which 16 were up for the weekly blitz tournaments that occur each Friday at Herrity’s Sports Bar on Sukhumvit Soi 33/1.
So I rolled back those years to when I was the tournament organizer for the Kents/Luton Chess Club for 3/4 seasons and got involved. We used a Swiss system of course but it was daunting to organize one section all by myself when it was not I who wrote the names of the players, making me mispronounce them all the time. I did it effectively but found it hard to focus on my chess. Given I am rusty anyway, my results should have been better. Still it was fun, and being thanked for volunteering meant a little something… .
I always write in orange.
McCreadyandChess 
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