Thread: Any chess players?

I was never any good at chess. When I was in grad school, THIS GUY was a friend and tried to teach me, and he took me to a tournament where I got hammered. He could beat me with a rook handicap, with me untimed and him playing speed chess. He could do 6 boards or more blindfolded.

I also played Go once upon a time. Another game I was never any good at.

When I was in college, THIS GUY taught me backgammon, mostly by beating me out of tons of money until I got it. He was a math/sci grad student, with the psych dept centering a study on him, for reasons that might be apparent. He could look at the board, calculate his exact odds of winning almost instantaneously, and know whether he should offer or accept the doubling cube. That I got. I paid a monster bar tab in the Bahamas playing backgammon, and it was REAL big. In fact, I met my future wife on that trip. Oddly enough, I was probably better at poker than he was.