I learned to play chess from my dad at around 7 years old. I was lucky to have good chess classes organised weekly at my primary school, where I could develop my skills.
I went to a few tournaments during primary school, culminating in my getting an official national rating of 1400 at a summer chess school tournament (picture below).
After primary school I stopped playing chess for a long time, with occasional short periods of playing. I went to one tournament in high school, which went terribly; I hung my pieces everywhere.
At 24, while working at Cohere, I started to organise weekly chess tournaments for myself and my co:workers, hosted on lichess. We also got a few boards at the office and there I played plenty of OTB games. After almost a year of playing frequently, a few friends and I signed up for an official (Canadian-rated) tournament weekend in Charlottetown, PEI. The two tournaments I played that weekend totalled 13 rapid games; I managed to win back $20 (much less than I paid to participate) and I earned an official (provisional) rapid rating with the Canadian Federation for Chess, equal to 1551.
