Danny Rensch Releases Dark Squares: From Cult Survivor To Chess.com Co-Founder
Published By admin
Chess.com’s Chief Chess Officer and co-founder, IM Danny Rensch, has released his first book, Dark Squares, a raw and deeply personal memoir about growing up in an abusive cult, how chess became his lifeline, and the journey that helped him build Chess.com.
Rensch has become one of the most well-known personalities in the chess world, as the public face of Chess.com and commentator of some of its major chess events. He co-founded the platform in 2005 and has played a key role in making it the world’s largest online chess platform with more than 200 million members.
In Dark Squares, which has its official release on September 16, Rensch reveals for the first time the story behind his persona. He grew up in the Church of Immortal Consciousness and spent much of his childhood in the small Arizona community of Tonto Village, where spiritual hierarchies, communal poverty, and strict control from church leaders defined daily life.
In an article in The Guardian this week, Rensch described his childhood as “dirt poor” and recalled the moment everything changed: Watching Searching for Bobby Fischer at the age of nine.
Searching for Bobby Fischer was to me what Star Wars was for kids a few years older. I didn’t simply love the movie. I was obsessed with it. Any kid who’s ever felt lost or misunderstood or stuck in the middle of nowhere has dreamed of picking up a lightsaber and discovering the Jedi master within. That was me in the summer of 1995, only with chess.
He started playing with his stepbrother and was introduced to the cult’s leader who saw his potential and started a chess team. He was eventually coached full-time by GM Igor Ivanov, the late Russian-born defector. “Chess is your purpose, Danny. Remember that,” he was told by the church at the time.
Content retrieved from: https://www.chess.com/news/view/danny-rensch-dark-squares-released.
