Get ta Know Me!
Submitted by
mcfrazier on Sat, 02/23/2008 at 9:51am.
Well, let's kick this blog off...
My full name is Rev. Glenn McKinley Frazier, but since earliest childhood people have called me Mac, so you can do the same. I've been blogging since December of 2001 (GlennFrazier.com), but playing chess since my dad taught me the moves when I was five, back in 1976. I only joined the USCF as an adult, and I only really discovered online and correspondence chess at that point.
My United States Chess Federation (USCF) membership ID is 12721233 (click the link for my latest rating), and on the Free Internet Chess Server (FICS) I'm known as "Frazier". In addition to playing here on Chess.com as "mcfrazier", I'm also active over at RedHotPawn.com as "GMF". I've also coached a college chess club (Bryn Athyn College of the New Church) and am currently co-coaching an elementary chess club (Pittsburgh New Church School).
My chess playing is erratic: 2 years on, 2 years off. I played a few mega-tournaments (World Open, etc.) when I lived in the Philadelphia area, and had a blast, but back then I was a small business owner with crazy hours and no time for weekend tournaments. Now I live in Pittsburgh (another great chess city) and as a preacher have a slightly less crazy schedule--although I do travel out of town a lot. Plus I've got four kids, ages three to ten. So I still don't have a lot of time for over-the-board slow time controls, which is really what I like best. For me, a seven round swiss G/120 is heaven, if I can find the time to do it. Which I can't.
So now I'm in a once-a-month team tournament, and I'm playing a lot of correspondence-style online chess (at Chess.com and RHP), plus an occasional game on FICS or against my favorite engine, Hiarcs. I study quite a bit, including openings (MCO-14 and some Eric Schiller books), lots of tactics (1001 Combinations, etc.), plus pretty much anything written by Jeremy Silman.
And now, finally, my kids are getting old enough that I can have fun playing with them. Right now I'm spotting them time in blitz games, mostly: they get 15 minutes, I get 3.
So now I'm 37 years old, a perennial D-Class player (ratings in the 1200's), who has recently decided to really work to get his skill level up a good bit higher. And Chess.com is a central part of that plan.