Introduction to Chess

I learned to play chess when I was in Kindergarden, at  the age of 5. One day after school, I went down to my dad's office where we store all our games, looking for a game to play with my dad. He was working on his computer in the office near me. I was looking around, trying to find a game I hadn't played in a while, and came across a game that said, "Chess Training Kit." I thought it looked interesting, so I brought the game to my dad. "Daddy, what's this?" I questioned.

"That's a chess kit. Wanna learn how to play?" I was excited, so I tried it out. The pieces were made of plastic with writings on the front of the name of the piece and how it moved. The board was a simple checkers board. After we both read the directions, we decided to play a game. We didn't know that pawns capture sideways. So, we played our first game, and it went about 10 minutes, but I ended up losing.

That didn't discourage me though. I asked my dad if he wanted to play again, and so we played. This time, the game went even longer, and I ended up winning! After this, I was very excited and got hooked to the game.

A few days later, my dad heard about a chess tournament in Allegan that would occour 3 weeks later, and I was very excited to play. For the next 3 weeks, I played my dad constantly. We both looked back at the rule book and discovered that pawns capture sideways. Days went by until it was the morning of the tournament. Our family woke up early, at 6:00 and headed out in our old van to lansing, for a Fun Scholastic tournament. 5 rounds, no clock. All I brought with me was my training kit.

We got there with a little time to spare, so I went to a table with my dad, and we played a few quick games. After some announcements, my mother helped me find my first opponent, and we began. "Good Luck." I said. The tournament was so long ago, I don't remember much, but I ended up beating the first kid I played in less than 5 minutes. I left the tournament room overcome with joy. My second game I won also. My third game, I looked at the pairings, and next to my opponent's name in parinthesis, I saw a number: 200something. I didn't know what that meant at the time. During the game, my opponent made a move I thought was illegal. He had moved his king over 2 squares, and brought his rook over his king to the other side. What kind of a move was that! He told me that it was something called castling, but I din't know. A tournament director came over and told me that that was called castling, and it was legal. I ended up losing that game. After the game, the organizer came to me and helped me understand about castling. In the fourth game, I was playing a kid named Alex, who walked over to me in his froggy sllippers and said we were playing. I judged him to early. He crushed me on the board. I didn't know that he would become my main rival for many years in the future. I won my last game, but it was tough, and lasted about 15 minutes, which to me was a long time.

In the end, I finished with 3/5. We stayed for an awards cerimony afterwards just to see what it was like, and I was talking to my dad when I heard my name called. I went up, and recieved a shiny blue trophy that said "Joshua Posthuma, 3rd- K-1st grade, Fun In Chess 2006." I was absolutely thrilled.

Right before we left, the organizer came up to us and said that he was impressed in how I'd done. He gave me a few instructive chess videos that I liked very much. He helped me become a stronger player, just when I was first starting out.

That was my exciting introduction to chess, and how it all started out.