I started playing chess when I was 6.

I started playing it a bit more when I joined a chess club when I was in my mid teens. Strangely the local chess club has had several GM’s and IM’s and some FM’s who did some of the training.

Considering that the local football club was next door, playing in the 8th Division and had a budget of around 50000 euros a year – they were rich compare to our less than 5000 Euro a year playing in the top or second tier of chess in one of the strongest leagues in the world.

Having training by great players means that you potentially can improve quickly and due to the access to those decent players you tend to learn a lot.

I think my highest Elo was around 2100. I stopped playing over the board chess more or less when we had out son and only play the occasional blitz or rapid tournament locally.

I do however play correspondence chess relatively successfully and only recently (at the time of writing this) secure my IM title in correspondence chess. In addition to this I do tend to play chess online mainly on www.lichess.org under the handle RYGB

Another hobby of mine is boardgames. I grew up with board games and it was part of some of my upbringing which – usually at the weekend – brough family/friends together. The first game I remember playing properly was Catan – I think THE gateway game into board games.

Nowadays I play a lot of board games and to get you an idea of what modern board games are just have a look at this website: www.boardgamgeek.com

This website will “blow” your mind – especially if you haven’t been introduced to the world of board games.

Some of the games I play frequently are: Through the Ages: A new story of Civilization (At the time of writing this I am playing the World Championships), Lost Ruins of Arnak, Terraforming Mars, Brass Birmingham, Kutna Hora, Champions of Midgard just to name a few.

The great things also is that you don’t need to own all of those games. Two options: Either you join a board game club and they hopefully have a great selection of game provided by the club members or if you are not that fuzzed to play face-to-face then you can go to www.boardgamearena.com and set up an account for free and play games for free against anybody who is willing to play.

Fortunately our son is into boardgames as well and most weekends we play some from his collection – SOS Dino, Ticket to Ride or Carcassonne – great kids games!!!!!