With two chess courses now under my belt and a few hundred games against the computer, I experienced my very first “real” chess game – a game of chess with an actual human as my opponent.
The game began on August 28 and ended September 14. My opponent was a woman, a lawyer, in Pretoria, South Africa. She has taken the same chess courses I have and has been playing chess for 18 months. We played via email, each taking a turn and returning the complete algebraic notation to the other up to and including the current move. Each player made 0-4 moves per day, although there was no minimum or maximum number of moves required.
In this my first game, I played Black. I have not played any games as Black before. As Black, the board was completely disorienting to me and took a bit of getting used to. Once past the opening moves, I was able to see the board better, though upside down.
My first win.
As I See It 