Welcome
to the Chess Section!

            I first picked up chess in May 2020 after clicking on a recommended YouTube video featuring Hikaru Nakamura— peak-ranked World #2— watching popular streamer xQc trying out the game. xQc was a total beginner, yet Hikaru reacted to his moves with genuine excitement, humor, and anticipation— eagerly waiting to see if a newcomer could spot a move that was trivial to him. Paired with his contrasting mix of playful immaturity and deep knowledge, Hikaru made the chess atmosphere unexpectedly entertaining and approachable. As someone who has always enjoyed competitive video games, I figured: if xQc can play chess, so can I.

​

            Chess.com quickly became my go-to site, thanks to its vibrant design. I played with every time-control, starting off with slower-chess at first, but bullet (1-minute) soon became my favorite— it mirrored the rush I get from video games, blending quick speculation and objectivity. My ratings climbed in succession—bullet first, blitz (3-minute) next, then rapid (10-minute). For example, I’d hit 1500 bullet, then blitz would catch up, then rapid. In just over a year, I peaked at 2100 in bullet— placing me above 99% of players on Chess.com— racking up nearly 10,000 games played across all time-controls.

​

            After taking a necessary 5-month break from the game, I returned to Chess.com in February 2022 with a new, more personal account: OGMred. My original throwaway username, Elementiratorally— a name I thoughtlessly created— felt like a relic from a time when I had no expectations to become any good at chess. “OGM,” short for Online Grandmaster, was an inside joke from Minh Le’s streams (he’s an actual Grandmaster now, though he was already one of the top Chess.com players at the time)—a playfully mocking title for those who dominate online chess. From then on, I proudly wore the OGM title next to my name.

​

            By late 2022, I looked up the nearest chess club and finally stepped beyond Chess.com, venturing into real, over-the-board chess for the first time. What began as a casual visit quickly became a routine—one to two times a week, every week, for the next three years (and counting). OTB had something online chess could never match: the human element— and I was instantly hooked. It had body language, eye-contact, tension, a physical clock and pieces, banter, and real conversations coming from people of all walks of life— all absent from online chess. Compared to what I was used to, it felt infinitely more alive. Though I had started with online chess, I grew to love OTB even more— and it was here that my passion for teaching first ignited.

​

            Having spent over two years mastering the craft in solitude— playing exclusively in my room— the chance to finally share my hobby with others who carried the same burning passion was an unprecedented experience. I couldn’t stop talking about chess, eager to pass on the insights I had cultivated during that time. I played anyone, at any rating— and found it gratifying to offer tailored advice to anyone who wanted to go over the game. Gradually, I realized that the skill of teaching was its own complex puzzle— much like chess— and that parallel is what made teaching so compelling to me.

​

            In September 2024, I decided to take what I was already doing for fun and formally teach chess as a profession. Over the next year, I led multiple classes across different schools, teaching nearly a hundred K-8 students, steadily raising my Elo in the teaching world. Outside the limitations of one-on-one interactions at the chess club, I developed a range of valuable teaching skills— adjusting my level and tone to match the class, quickly recognizing individual strengths and weaknesses to give personalized advice, and communicating ideas clearly to groups.

​

            Some students were prodigies—able to consistently outplay older opponents—and they constantly sought me out for advice. Their drive to improve was inspiring, pushing me to find better ways to guide them. In turn, that would help shape the way I teach the class as a whole. I treated every class like an experiment, testing different instructional content, and observing how my students responded. Piece by piece, I built on my students’ reactions, and my own teaching method slowly developed. In time, that method became Chessosophy.