I am your host, the self-proclaimed Bishop of Blunder.

For those of you looking for my rough essay, "How I Became a Chessplayer", it has been moved to my not so recently opened MySpace page, http://www.myspace.com/bishopofblun... .

However, I have given up on MySpace. For 'tis a silly place. Therefore, I have moved on to Twitter (BishopofBlunder) and Fakebook (Mark Burns). Feel free to join me in either place.

I also have a blog (who doesn't) of little consequence which keeps changing names. It is now called: Bathtub Gin (url= http://nothing-n-nobody.blogspot.com)

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Some of my favorite chess quotes:

<"If it were just a question of winning or losing, if it were not possible to play a brilliant game, to make an incredible queen sacrifice, to play the occasional shocking or outrageous move, then I suspect many people would not play chess. It simply would not be worth it; such a difficult game and with so few rewards."> --- Jonathan Levitt

<"One of the biggest misconceptions about chess is it requires a lot of memorization. In reality, while some memorization is required, pattern recognition plays a crucial part in chess mastery."> -- Susan Polgar

After we have paid our dutiful respects to such frigid virtues as calculation, foresight, self-control and the like, we always come back to the thought that speculative attack is the lifeblood of chess. --- Fred Reinfeld

There are only two kinds of moves in the opening, moves which are wrong and moves which could be wrong. --- Tartakower

<"I am NOT a NUMBER! I am a FREE MAN!>

-- No. 6

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I would like to also add a special "howdy" to my favorite kibitzer, and adopted love child, jessicafischerqueen chessforum , whom I care for so much that I can even forgive her for being Canadian.

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My favorite chess masters are:

Paul Morphy

Robert James Fischer

Mikhail Tal

All my favorite players are dead. That should tell you something about my game.

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I am an infrequent visitor to FICS ( http://www.freechess.org/ ) to play chess online. My moniker there is <DissidentAggresor> (note only one 's' in aggresor due to username length restrictions). My ratings, as of 12/01/2011, are blitz: 1282, standard: 1583. However, these are still provisional. I have only played a few rated games.

I am a basic member at http://www.chess.com/ where I am currently unrated but have delved into the world of correspondence chess. Drop by and ask for a game (if you can afford the stamps :)). My name there is also <DissidentAggressor>. I also plan to play live chess there if I can ever find the time.

Additionally, I play correspondence chess at http://www.chessworld.net/ . Guess what? My user name there is Dissident Aggressor.

I am also a member at http://gameknot.com (for correspondence chess) under the moniker: BishopofBlunder and at http://chesscube.com (for live chess) under the name: DisAggressor.

I prefer over the board (OTB) chess to the internet version. Internet chess is to OTB chess what cybersex is to real sex. It's still fun, but is decidedly less satisfying.