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                 www.justgiving.com <- A friend of
mine is cycling from Saigon to Angkor for a Children's Cancer
Charity. She needs to raise £3000 (currently on around £2500). If
everyone could please donate whatever they can afford that'd be
great. Sorry to use my profile page to hit you for money, but it is
for a good cause :)
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Hey! Well, introductions! My name is Craig, I'm a recent graduate
of Bradford University where I earned a Bachelor of Science in
Computer Science. I'm currently unemployed, thanks to the
wonderful economic climate I've found it difficult to find work.
This means I'm spending my time doing odd jobs to earn a little
cash, so my leisure time is very limited. Due to this, I'm attempting
to reduce my number of games on gameknot to around 4 or 5. Not
only will this allow me to play each game much more effectively,
but also will allow me to start moving more regularly in each match.
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I first played Chess when I was 8, my parents taught me how the
pieces moved but little about strategy. Within a year I was beating
my mother, but defeating my father eluded me. I won a few school
tournaments for under 10s, having never learnt any opening books
or much opening theory. At age 11, I fell out of love with the game;
I found a lack of local opponents my own age which meant
either being decimated by older and more experienced players or
playing a match requiring little effort against a younger opponent.
The arrogance of youth led me to believe that chess would never be
challenging when playing those of my own age group so I quit for
many years. I only began playing again in June 2007 as a way to
relieve stress (HA HA!). Having not studied any aspect of the game
or practised in over a decade I quickly found my skill level had
stagnated. I managed to hit 1600 relatively easily in the ratings, but
was unable to progress further. It was then I decided that studying
the game was the way to go. Slowly, over the last two years,
studying games and reading books I have managed to improve to the
chess player I am today. I play a lot of correspondence chess and
some blitz games on other sites to keep my mind active while looking
for work.