So this is kind of a great achievement for me. One year ago I swore I would not stop playing chess with my brother until I beat him. Since he is about 500-600 ELO higher than me, that was a tall order to accomplish. So, exactly 1 year after we started playing correspondence chess on Chess.com, a game that we started 1 January 2019 and ended today 8 February 2019 (3 days per move), I finally beat him. And that with a Bishop + Knight endgame.

I must admit, there are few things more beautiful that seeing the move sequence of a well orchestrated mating net performed with the Bishop and Knight and King in chess - it is like a prima ballerina moving gracefully across the stage. I did have to study hard to get it done, and my play was far from perfect, or good even for that matter. I made many big mistakes and blunders. But in chess that does not matter, the 1 for me and the 0 for him is all that does. (I will not speak of the 3 draws and 54 losses). What I am proud of, is that I managed the best case mate-in-26 from move 91, in 30 moves. That is just 4 moves worse than the best you can do with perfect play.