re: How good are you at chess?

I used to play with a lot of guys from Georgia (south of Russia, not Tennessee) and they always humbled me. Also there were a few Filipino guys that worshiped Chess, Bobby Fisher and Gary Kasperov like I do football, I learned a shite ton from losing to them.

Not knocking my friends or anyone close enough to actually wanna play me locally, but outside of my FIL, I'll just say they boost a very false sense of security. The intrawebz are a good source of legit competition. Not many people in our culture were passed down tricks from several generations like people in some of the shite corners of the world.