Meet CCCSA Blog Contributor: Davide Nastasio

Davide Nastasio with his favorite Chess DB program!

Hello everyone, I'm Davide Nastasio from Georgia, and I'm quite thrilled to contribute to this blog with articles on my two passions, one is the Chessbase world, and the other is chess books.

I'm excited of being part of a group of young people, with a vision, like NM Peter Giannatos.

My chess journey began about 5 years ago. I was taking care of my son, at that time around one year old, and he wouldn't sleep in his cradle for more than 10-15 minutes, making my life quite miserable. One day, while I was on the sofa and he was on the top of my chest, he began to sleep for one hour and more. Obviously the sofa was boring, but thanks to the laptop I was surfing socials, and discovered it was possible to play chess. While I couldn't move from the sofa, I could have fun battling people in different countries.

Fast forward a year later, while buying food at a local farmers market, I discovered chess was played on actual chess boards at the nearby Atlanta Chess Center, which had the nickname: "House of Pain" because it gave many upsets to the many guests visiting. 

The Atlanta Chess Center closed two years later, and I continued my chess journey at different tournaments in our tri-state area: Georgia - South Carolina and North Carolina.

Chess is my favorite sport, and like every sport is brutal, and can be disappointing at times, since long hours of studying and training often don't correspond to good results in tournaments.

But it is the sport I love, because it can be practiced 24 hours a day, everyday, in every condition. Of course like in every sport the physical side is very important, as the Romans said: Mens sana in corpore sano (Healthy mind in healthy body).

My favorite chess quote comes from the Great Paul Keres:

"Nobody is born a master. The way to mastery leads to the desired goal only after long years of learning, of struggle, of rejoicing, and of disappointment."
Hope you'll enjoy my articles, and give me feedback on how to improve them.