About
My love for Chess and Personal Computers
(PC) began back in 2002, the golden age of the PC era. I was a
businessperson with a lot of free time and passionate about Chess as a kid. I
was introduced to online chess playing sites by a friend who prodded me for my
lack of even the basic knowledge in computer terminology. That was when I
decided to rent a computer for a month or so to get a feel of the
various functionality in a PC. That was it. I took to the PC medium
as a fish in water. After “playing” with that awesome (for that time)
machine for just a few minutes I was hooked! Before long, I had one of my own.
I have owned at least one computer ever since the day I brought that baby
home (at present I have 6-7 systems lying around). In addition, almost all of
them were used for playing online Chess or using Engines to analyze and play
with me.
My entire life energy was thrown
into the mysterious world of hardware and software and I eventually bought
myself a Pentium 1 GHz system with Chessbase 8 and Fritz 8 which was quite a
feat; almost a marvel of technology at that time. I adored all the tech talk
given by my chess superiors who visited and tinkered with it. That day was a
start in my colorful world in the computer-chessdom and I am still learning
many new things from different sources. I am no means there yet in terms
of what is still pending. For example, I still do not know how to use a Linux
or Mac OS but I think it will be done in due course nor do I know anything much
about Chess Assistant software.
Fast forward to a few years. The
Handhelds invaded my house. I still have the ASUS P320. It was able to run the
Pocket Fritz program and boy… I was hooked like a kid in a toy store!
Eventually I dabbled in teaching
Chess part-time and assembling computers to sell at a profit. I also started
buying second hand PCs and made a decent cash out of it. However, some
recessions and the widespread availability of first hand cheap PCs pretty much
removed the steam. Moreover, almost everyone now has a PC or a laptop.
My PC endeavors quickly moved from PCs
to smartphones. I moved around with many chess players and soon I was the one
teaching a few tricks to them. The problem with these players was/is that they
are masters of one aspect (Chess) while I was a ‘Jack of all trades’! So that
made me a go-to man for my local chess players when they had any software
related doubts. In return, most of my Chess classes conducted by them were
free!
These days I spend most of my
time building websites, forums and blogs, but I still enjoy “popping the hood”
on a PC and upgrading or repairing something. I have recently became
interested in smartphones after discovering how well they render common chess tasks
similar to the PCs and sometimes even better than them.
The purpose of this blog is to share
my insights and experiences with you, and hopefully learn some new things
myself while I am at it. After all, we are never too old or too experienced to
learn, especially with us living during an era when technology changes
virtually by the day.
I hope you will return repeatedly to
find out what is new. I named this site ‘Expertchess’ because I plan to post
interesting articles in this field every day and not because I am an expert.
Most of my ideas come from the WWW but the interpretations and reviews are
entirely mine.
Thanks so much for stopping by. I appreciate
it very much!
Kish Kumar
www.expertchess.blogspot.com
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