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A little anecdote about how I came up with the nothing original idea to combine literature and chess training; and how 13 summers later this idea became ChessForReal.com

A chess coach under the sun.

A noon of august of the year 1998, sat down in the middle of a park in my home city, Havana, I had a “revelation”. No, nothing religious, I just defined what would be the happiness for me.

I remember it very well: I was sweating even for my fingernails, under the merciless sun of my summer, and surrounded by unused basketballs balls. There wasn’t a living creature at sight, because no one with brains goes to a park at that time, but I was following a “Summer Plan” written by my bosses, bureaucrats that for sure in those moments were enjoying a nice roof over their heads.

But I was in my world. I had in my hands “The art of analysis”, from Jan Timman, and “The Autumn of the Patriarch”, a novel from Gabriel Garcia Marquez; I was alternating them when the complexity of the book of the moment overwhelmed me, but I reached the point that I had to stop, not because I couldn’t do it more, but because I realized I had begun to digest easily these two difficult books.

But the “the epiphany”, what was it?

The next day I quitted (anyways… what is a chess coach doing with basketball balls and under the sun?), and I started another one of my many lives.

And I was happy, sometimes.

13 years later, the dream still survives.

13 years later my life haven’t changed to much, it seems.

I changed the cuban sun for the one in Sonora desert, which cracks my skin and my patience. But I have several lives to tell and thousands life mistakes to rectify, but this even matters? What it keeps me alive is the shadow of what I thought it could be my personal fountain of happiness, and when I remember, overwhelmed, that I’m not doing anything I wanted to do, I freak out trying to fix my two really bad scripts, continue word by word a novel that I can’t never finish (and hoping not as bad as my scripts), and stop the temptation to begin any other of the four really detailed ideas I already have anotated…

But for the reader that is reading, patiently, all my rant, also I have the thrill of this giant project, to help the comunity of serious lovers of this game that looks so much to life.

Thanks.

Keep Reading: What to expect from Chess For Real.

UPDATE: I DON’T LIVE IN PHOENIX, ARIZONA ANYMORE. CURRENTLY I LIVE AND WORK IN MANHATTAN, NEW YORK. YOU CAN FIND ME AT 230 THOMPSON STREET, IN THE VILLAGE CHESS SHOP.