When I was quite young, maybe eight, my parents subscribed to a magazine that had a Murray Chandler chess column. I taught myself to play chess by figuring out how the algebraic notation worked (my parents cannot play). My mum bought me Leonard Barden's "Play Better Chess" when I was 12, and I devoured it. I later read Fischer's "My 60 Memorable Games", and my opening repertoire is based on Fischer's to this day. I never actually played chess competitively until I was aged close to 30 (I'm now in my 40s). My first published rating was somewhere around 1800 elo.

My openings suck. I really hate studying openings, and I often struggle against much weaker players well into the early middlegame. It doesn't help that I play the Najdorf Sicilian and King's Indian Defence with black - two openings which require book-bashing to play well. I usually open with the e-pawn with white, but I've also toyed with the Reti and English over the years. I've never opened with 1.d4.

In the middlegame, I like to have a space advantage with white and sharp counterattacking positions with black.

I am at my strongest in the endgame. I play simple positions well.

I played club chess in 1995-1996 and a few tournaments around that time as well, although I've only ever played about 100 rated games over the board.

I have played three tournaments this century - the Waitakere Open in New Zealand in 2002 (3/5), the Seoul Spring Chess Festival 2010 (4.5/5) and the Seoul Summer Chess Festival 2010 (3.5/4). I won the two Korean tournaments.

I check out chessgames.com most days for the puzzle and game of the day. I also occasionally play on chesscube.com, under the handle "newzild", and on facebook. My rating usually hovers in the 2000-2150 range on those two sites.