I was born and raised in Manchester, NH, which is about an hour north of Boston. I didn't start playing chess tournaments until I was 15 1/2. My first rating was about 1200, but I quickly moved up from there. I became a National Master after only two and a half years, and with no formal training.

At the 2001 US Open chess tournament in Framingham, MA, I had a "fateful" meeting with Davis Wolfgang Hawke AKA Walter Smith AKA Andrew Britt Greenbaum. He was flashing around huge wads of money and I wanted to know how he made so much cash. He told me he was a "spammer", and spams people with emails. At the time I didn't even know the meaning of the word "Spam", but I soon found out. He convinced me that night to play in a poker game, which was the first time I ever played poker (This was before the huge poker craze). Anyways, long story short, I got his phone number and gave him a call after the tournament to learn his "secrets" for making money. Eventually him and I became good friends and business partners. We ended up becoming one of the biggest spam operations in the United States. In March of 2004, we were sued by America Online under the newly formed "CAN-SPAM" law. I believe we were the first people to ever get sued under this law (not that it's something to brag about!). This lawsuit officially ended my days as a "spammer". Hawke is currently "on the run", and I haven't spoken to him in years.

During my spam career I didn't improve much at chess, I moved up maybe 50-75 points. After I realized I would never spam again, I decided to take up poker. This is a natural choice for many chess players, as a lot of the principals are the same as chess. The only difference is that your opponents get lucky and win sometimes, but this is exactly why poker can be played for a living, unlike chess. So the last couple of years poker has been my primary source of income.

In early 2007, I decided to spend a lot of time on chess again, and try to make a push for International Master. With the help of Dave "Opening God" Vigorito, I revamped a lot of my openings, especially with white. Since then I've tacked on about 75 points. My rating is now upper 2300s, almost a Senior Master.

In September of 2007, I officially released my first "Chess Rap" song: "Chris is Awesome". It was a big hit among the US Chess League players and fans, and so I decide to make a webpage with all my songs. This is how bradenbournival.com was born.

To be continued..............