Opening Move

Inspired by my fellow chess club members and a short but significant meeting with the incomparable chessloser, I’ve decided to join the chess blogging community and try my hand at it.

My handle will be Soapstone, and if you see Soapstone playing at the Playchess server, that's me. Soapstone comes from my favorite movie, “The Shawshank Redemption.” The main character carves a chess set from soapstone and alabaster to keep his mind entertained while in prison. To beat all the metaphors into the ground as is my custom, "soapstone" reminds me that I am a work in progress and that I should maintain the central theme of "Shawshank", hope, that I can reach some level of mastery of this terrifyingly difficult game.

I hope this blog will help me reach my goal. If it doesn't, at least the journey through stagnation will be more scenic on the web.