Sam is a 5asideCHESS volunteer.  He works with our team to help spread to the 5asideCHESS message, #CHECKONYMATE.

As he says, he finds it easy to make contact with new people.  As he acknowledges, where he struggles is maintaining these new contacts and building solid friendships from them.  Chess is one of the tools he uses to help him expand his friendships.  As he has first-hand knowledge of how hard it can be if you do become socially isolated, he is enthusiastic about encouraging others to use innovative opportunities, like 5asideCHESS, to make new connections. 

Sam has played this short-form chess at the pub, at social occasions and, unusually, on LinkedIn.

He believes the critical benefit he has gained from his ongoing games, mainly via LinkedIn, is patience.  As he says, he is hard to beat, but when he does make a mistake it is when he forgets to be patient in his play and he is a little bit prone to throwing it all away with one irascible move!