Emacs Chess was born after I defeated my father for the very first time.

You see, for the first 30 years of my life, never once had I one a game.  A
couple times against my mother, but Dad always seemed to fork my queen without
mercy.

So, I began to wonder, "Can anyone get better at chess?"  I looked up some
simple strategies on the Web -- such as building a strong center -- and lo and
behold! I won my first game for the very reasons I had read about.

Needless to say, the excitement of victory at last prompted me to buy a book
on chess (I think it was Chess Analysis), and thus a love was born.

That same week, early in 2001, chess.el, or Emacs Chess, was created.

I was visited my father on a month long vacation at the time, at his home in
upstate New Jersey, and I remember spending days and nights just hacking away
on chess.el, and loving every minute of it.  What you see in this directory is
pure passion, an obsession that took me by storm for over two years until I
moved to other things.  I hope you enjoy using it as much as I did making it.

John Wiegley <johnw@newartisans.com>


Further: Around 2004, another player came on the scene: Mario Lang.  Mario is
unable to see, but Emacs Chess's design made it possible for me to integrate
the display code with his braille viewer.  He still plays chess with it to
this day, as it is the only client that allows him to do so.  He has also
contributed time, the German language translations, a fair bit of code
(chess-eco is his doing, among others), and even money to help me bring Emacs
Chess to where it is today.  Thank you, Mario!