Naor Wallach Like many people of my generation, I was first attracted to chess in the early 1970's. Yes, that does make me a Fischer baby! In my case I was attracted to the game by all the publicity and was also lucky to have some of my closest friends be the ones who started the school's chess club. Over the next year or so, I grew fond of the game and gained some experience and knowledge. At the time, we were dimly aware of ratings and their meanings. Someone managed to get a sheet of paper that described the ELO rating system and we decided to rate our games. Of course, we were not a part of the USCF so our ratings were meaningless. In addition, we really did not understand the system so any new member of the club was given a rating of 1200 to start. After a couple of years I hit that age where girls, cars, and other things captured more of my attention and chess was relegated to the level where I played an occasional game against my cousin or my father.
Fast forward now to 1989. By now I was married, a father, and working as an engineer at Eastman Kodak company. I was part of a large engineering group that was developing products. Somehow, some of my colleagues started playing chess. Within a few months, chess became quite the rage and we had a very active chess league and tournaments with games being played every lunchtime! We even had prizes for our winners. I became a participant as well. These games were for fun only and none of us had any inkling of opening strategy, endgame strategy, or any formalized chess understanding.
One particular incident changed my whole chess career. One of my colleagues and I went on a business trip to the Netherlands. Since we were both active members of the chess scene at work we made sure that we brought a board with us and planned on playing a tournament throughout our trip. We were planning on a 12 game tourney with the winner having bragging rights as the Atlantic Ocean Champion! My colleague was a stronger player than I and was consistently beating me. After four or five games, I played a particularly good game where I had a clear advantage getting into the endgame. I misplayed my position, and we ended up drawing with each other. On the elevator back up to our rooms, my colleague turned to me and sneeringly said "Face it, Naor. You'll never beat me!" Being somewhat competitive, I took this as a challenge and decided to start working seriously on my game.
When we got back to Rochester, I found my way to a library and checked out the first chess book that I could find. It was Chernev's book "Logical Chess - Move by Move." This book was an eye opener. I first had to learn the notation that he used, then I had to figure out what he was talking about. I spent about three weeks going over every page several times before I thought I understood anything. This was the first time that I was exposed to the idea of an opening which has strategy involved with it. The fact that you want to develop your Knights first and towards the center of the board was a revelation! Following this first book, I scoured the local library and eventually checked out every chess book that they had. I picked up descriptive notation and was getting comfortable with the analysis part. Not coincidentally, I started winning many more games at our chess games at work.
A few months later, I was on a business trip to Michigan. To kill some time, I stopped off at a bookstore. I was browsing through the magazine section when I came across a copy of Chess Life. This was the first time I had seen a chess magazine. I bought it and spent the rest of the evening in my hotel room reading if from cover to cover. Even the tournament announcements and advertisements were interesting! Yet another epiphany was in the making!
I joined the USCF and started getting Chess Life on a regular basis. I found out that Rochester had a chess club that was operating not too far from my house. I went to visit it and was blown away when the proprietor shows me copies of Inside Chess and his substantial chess bookstore and library. I was definitely hooked by this point. I started buying books, subscribed to Inside Chess and became better and better at the game. For almost 6 months I was unbeaten at work. My colleague who launched me on this venture with his sneering remarks could not win a game or even come close to a draw any more - revenge is sweet!
I was amazed to find the plethora of chess related activities in the country. I became rather active in the local chess club and quickly climbed from a 1400 rating to a 1700 rating. I was also dabbling with every chess related thing that I could find. I played some bughouse, pretended to analyze with the masters in the club, became a TD, and in general caught the chess bug. I also signed up for a correspondence section with the USCF - a class tournament.
The rest of the story is that I did rather well in that section. Being allowed to use books and study at home relieved my biggest problem - a weak memory. Rather than trying to remember tons of material, I could rely on my work and library and gain the benefits of the wisdom of many chess players that preceded me. Being allowed to set up a board, move the pieces around, look at things from my opponent's side etc., allowed me to start formulating plans and perform analyses that were just not possible in OTB chess. The additional time that I had as a postal player was also welcome. The end result was the I got a 1900 rating, and stopped playing OTB to concentrate on correspondence play.
I received my USCF Master title in June of 1993. I became aware of ICCF through Alex Dunne's column in Chess Life and started playing in the 11th USCCC. I almost made it to the finals section. I have been playing in NAPZ tournaments and representing the US in friendly matches. My USCF and ICCF rating have stabilized lately at around the 2225 rating while I strive to gain more understanding of chess and hopefully will learn enough to get a bit better. My best results to date have been to get to the finals of the USCF Golden Knights and win an NAPZ master section.