I have been playing boardgames for all of my life (I was born in 1965).

I remember buying my first game (before that I played the games of my family) from my personal savings at the age of 11. The game was - Diplomacy
I was totally fascinated by that game, although we played it as purely tactical game with 3 players. The actual diplomacy part did not get to me at that time.

Later I started playing Chess and entered a Chess club. Soon I increased my playing strength, culminating in several championships and titles, the best being the runner-up at the German National team championships for juniors in 1983.

When I went to the university I started learning about Avalon Hill games and other (wargame) manufacturers. The first non-German games I played were Conquistador and Rise and Decline of the Third Reich.

At that time I knew little to no English and I had to translate the rules word by word using a dictionary.

Over the years I tried about all genres - RPGs, sports replay, wargames, etc. One of my favorites of that time was Up Front which I must have played more than 1,000 times. I actually became quite good at it, winning a couple of tournaments at wargame conventions.

Then a totally new game entered the gaming community: Magic: The Gathering CCG

Almost all my other games slid into the background when I started to take Magic: The Gathering CCG more and more seriously. I entered tournaments, played at German nationals and finally made it to the Pro Tour, where I played in 14 different tournaments over a period of 5 years. My best season was the 1999-2000 season, when I finished each Pro Tour including the World Championships in the money (= Top 32) which no other player accomplished that year (not even Finkel or Budde).

I stopped playing Magic: The Gathering CCG at the Pro Tour level at the age of 36, when I could not justify the huge amount of time taken off work anymore.

My next love was Paths of Glory. Once again I perfected my play to top level, winning the World Board Gaming Championship Email tournament and going undefeated for about 2 years. But eventually, I grew tired of that game, too.

Nowadays I still play most of the Eurogames, a decent selection of wargames and the old classics. My current love is Magic Realm which I rediscovered using the brilliant Java application Realmspeak. With the help of this tool, Magic Realm is in my opinion the best game ever invented.

I started recording my playings on BGG in 2005. Earlier playings have not been recorded here.
Also, I only record face-to-face games, I do not record Brettspielwelt, Play-by-E-Mail or other PC and Internet games.