Hi, and welcome to my chess website. My name is Arnold, and I’ve been playing chess since elementary school in my home country of The Netherlands. Two decades later, this blog was born.
I’ve been a loyal member of my local chess club for well over a decade (shoutout to my chess coaches at Inter Nos), and always enjoyed participating in regional tournaments. My entire childhood was filled with chess activities. I mean, just look at that pic of tiny me winning hard in a game of chess!
The social aspect of chess was just as fun to me as the game itself. I’ve played chess with friends for countless hours. I’ve joined school tournaments, chess club tournaments and was probably an above-average player.
My chess tournament activities quickly filled my bedroom with a bunch of prizes. Even though there were always some opponents that were infinitely better than me, I was happy with the tournaments I (almost, or fully) won.
Yeah, I wasn’t a grandmaster or anything. But I always really enjoyed chess as a hobby, and I still enjoy it to this day! That’s why I decided to pour my heart and soul into this chess blog.
Recently, chess has massively grown in popularity. A lot of that is thanks to streaming services like Twitch. The hours I’ve watched popular streamers learn the game of chess from scratch with coaching from the likes of GM Hikaru Nakamura really got me excited to start playing again.
I’ve started playing chess online every day, and fell in love with my old hobby again. Playing Blitz (5+0) on Lichess is still my favorite way to go about it. But my love also goes out to other popular platforms, such as Chess.com!
About ChessFuel.com
Starting ChessFuel was basically a coincidence. Since I’ve picked up some chess apps along the way, I’ve started Googling basic questions again to refresh my memory. What were the castling rules again? When can you do an En Passant move? Is that new Queen’s Gambit show really worth a watch? Stuff like that.
Surprisingly, a lot of the stuff I tried to look up didn’t have clear or accurate answers. That’s where I saw an opportunity to help beginner chess players. Answering their simple questions is what initially motivated me to write this blog. And now, ChessFuel has grown into a blog that covers the whole chess spectrum (and more).
If you have any advice for me on how to improve this website (or just fancy a chat with me), feel free to send me a message using the contact form. I’ll eventually get back to you, I promise. Hopefully, fellow chess enthusiasts enjoy the content on this blog as much as I enjoyed creating it!
