I met chess by the age of ten. My uncle bought Chessmaster for my cousin (at the time it was one of the earliest versions), and there was a day I went to play videogame with him, and he was playing chess at the pc. That chessmaster had a unique feature, which was printing certificates from time to time, as the player went beating more stronger opponents. Well, I started playing but short time cuz his dad never let me play for good.
Then one year later we went to a beach, and I played against my cousin, and they decided it was a draw, I really can't remember if it REALLY was a draw, cuz they loved to come up with tons of rules and some didn't even exist. XD
To tell the truth, at that time I did not have any interest on chess. Another cousin of mine lived with me when I was around 12-13 years old, and he always asked me if I could borrow my psx for him to play the Virtual Kasparov game. I remember he beaten Kasparov at that game, and got very, very happy.

A pity that this second cousin of mine got schizophrenic, but he is doing better and also tried to play with my grandma (which is very bad a player hahaha). Wish I could know if he won..
Well, I never really stayed playing chess directly, until a night.
That night I was totally bored of everything, and had no ideas of what to do. Tired of playing MMORPG Tibia (LOL), tired of watching tv and of using Orkut, I remembered that this schizocousin of mine used to play chess, and also my first cousin used to play chess, and his father played chess at the bar, and my grandma always spoke about her ex-boyfriend which was regional champion (I really doubt - she loves to make stories of all kinds

).. So I googled "Online Chess" and got lucky to find ChessCube at the first click! And I think I'll never leave!
Nowadays, I also play at a pub and with few interested friends, but I plan to inform myself about the tournaments and try to improve my chess everyday.
Cheers from Haumea planet! ^^