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Be Your Best - Play Chess
I learned to play the game of chess at the age of sixteen while visiting relatives at Ft. Leonard Woods, Missouri one summer in the mid 1960’s. After learning how to play, I returned to my first love, sports, playing very little chess for next two years. My senior year in high school, I had a big disagreement with the head football coach and quit the football team. With a need for a vehicle for the competitive fire that was in me, I joined the High School chess team. I was not a very good chess player, losing every game that I played for the whole chess season. Then I discovered chess books. I studied for several hours each and every day. I recorded all the games that I played and analyzed my games. Soon I was able to beat the city scholastic champion. Now, I was in love with the game of chess. A few years after graduating from High School I got married and started a family. My wife told me about a local chess club. This was my first exposure to USCF-rated chess players. The first night at the chess club, I was soundly beaten game after game by a 1300 USCF-rated chess player. I went back to what served me well before, studying my games and reading more chess books. When I played in my first USCF rated event my initial rating was in the 1500’s. For the next few years, I worked hard to improve my play achieving a USCF rating high of 2122 in the late 1980’s. Soon after this milestone my work and family responsibilities forced me away from the game for some time. Playing very little and having almost no time for chess, my USCF rating fell all the way down to my floor of 1900. At this time, I decided to start coaching chess players. I didn’t have a training partner, so I came up with the idea of developing one, by coaching and developing players in my community. It took many years but my plan worked. In time I helped develop three USCF Experts and one Class A chess player. When we all showed up a local chess event, we were a force to reckon with. Teaching and working with these chess players improved my game but I had completely stopped playing tournament games. After my kids went off to college there was a big void in my life. To fill this emptiness I started teaching chess in the schools. The high point for me, was coaching the winning Missouri K-5 Elementary State Championship team, five consecutive times with three different teams. During this time I had many students win State and National Championships. For quite a while, I have enjoyed the Chessville website. I especially was interested in Rose's Rants, because I too, am a senior chess player. Now retired, I again have time to play chess as well as teach chess. Chessville has blessed me with opportunity share my return to tournament play.
I will not only share my USCF tournament experiences but also lessons
from my continuing work with students. The column will follow my
return to one of the loves of my life, the game of chess. Chess - for the Love of the Game
The first step for me in starting back playing USCF-rated tournament games is to assess where I am and then what do I need to do to improve. To start, I will look at my first twenty-five USCF rated games to find out where I am. I will not set a rating or title goal. The one commitment I will make is to work continuously to become better and share my ups and downs here on Chessville. Hopefully my path to chess improvement, at the age of 61 years old, will give many others encouragement, that even with a late start, they can always get better. In sharing what works and doesn’t work, we can improve together and you may even benefit from my success as well as my challenges. If I can still improve I know you can too! May the adventure begin…
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Chessville
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Please,
let me introduce myself. I am Zebedee Fortman Jr., not to be confused with
my son, Zebedee Fortman III, who also plays chess.
