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If we are playing a game with a slow time control, do not expect fast replies from me. I have limited time to devote to chess and I must always address the games with the least amount of time remaining - or the trickiest positions - in order to avoid a forfeit. So if we are playing 5d + 5d < 10d, it may take a while for our game to come to the top of the list. Turn-based chess is a marathon, not a sprint - so be patient. :-)

I have been playing chess since 1983 - some periods in my life more or less all the time. Nowadays I enjoy the game in a more relaxed manner. For instance, I don't play in a chess club or participate in any over-the-board tournaments anymore: I only play tournaments on the Internet. Unfortunately I've suffered from a dodgy Internet connection from time to time, and have had to make several visits to a hospital during the last couple of years. This has made my GameKnot ratings somewhat wobbly, due to a far too vast number of time-outs. As for real-world tournaments, my merits include losing big-time to the (then) reigning Swedish Champions in the late 1980's and early 1990's... :-) That said, I often play rather uncommon "hypermodern" openings, i.e. openings popular in the 1920's, like the Alekhine Defence, Bird's Opening, and Réti. Not the best openings perhaps, but I find they lead to interesting games! Contrary to most (?) chess players, I prefer the endgame rather than the opening or middlegame. One of my best endgames can be seen in this game, using the Bird's Opening.

Furthermore, as I'm a graphics/web designer, I'm also a Macintosh fan. The new Mac Pro with no less than *two* quad-core Intel Xeon "Nehalem" processors is great for heavy graphics work: 2.93 GHz per core, which in essence makes a total of more than 20 GHz of raw power in the computer! And Mac OS X 10.6 "Snow Leopard" works okay - at least after the rather recent updates. Windows Vista is fine enough, but still have quite a distance to travel, before it's as intuitive and straight-forward as Mac OS X. (Actually I don't think Windows will catch up until Windows 8 or so, which is quite a distance away, but if you prefer Windows Vista for your own work, I will not blame you! Everyone should use the equipment they feel the most comfortable with, regardless if it is a matter of computers, carpentry, cooking, gardening, sheet-metal work, and what not. :-)

The photo to the upper right depicts my Persian cat "Chapman af Leufsta" (or more casually, "Chappe"), taking a nap in my office. He silently passed away in late December 2006, in the kitchen we had then shared together for just over fifteen years.