In this section I will tell you some about my chess career. My real name is Cevdet Kizil, I am from Turkey, Istanbul. I am known as "ZOR_Cevdet" , "The Head Zor" or "The Legendary Cevdet Kizil" on the chess servers. Just as many know, I have played more than 70.000 games on only MSN Gaming Zone. I am a ZOR International Master (2100+ rated for 1min games). I usually win by the help of my super speed which makes me called as the "Son of Flash". I can really make very good moves in a very short time (Record: 37 moves in 0 seconds) which enables me to check mate some players in 0 seconds. Sometimes, this causes other chess players calling me a program and cheater, because it seems unbelievable and impossible for them. Also, there are many people who copy my name and nick on the chess servers. They tell others that they are me, then they cheat on them to make people hate me. On the other hand, it's sure that this super speed is a gift from God. I will mention my internet chess career in detail soon, now I am going to focus on my steps to the world of chess...

   I started playing chess when I was 9, by chance. It was my mathematics teacher who taught me playing chess in the elementary school. At first, being beaten by him and his two sons had became a habit for me. But later, after descovering the beauty and logic of the game, I started to win which made me much more interested in chess. Later, after becoming a struggle lover player; we started to organize tournaments amongst four of us. Chess was really becoming a real friend for me now. Especially there is a day from those times that I can never forget... It is the day I beat one of my teacher's sons in a very short time who was always defeating me. I can still remember my teaching saying "How did the game finish so fast?" while looking at the chess board in amazement after he entered the room :)

     After, I continued to play chess in the secondary school. I was playing in the school's chess club and chess was still so much fun. But, some events happened which made me stop playing chess for a while. The main events, maybe I have to say problems, were that I was beating students who were older than me. Especially, I will never forget a day which I had beat a student who was going to graduate from high school when I was a student in Prep Class. I had beat him in the school's official tournament. But he said to me: "Never think to report your win to the coach. I will give you some money now so that you will tell the coach that I beat you. Otherwise my friends will make fun of me because I lost against you, someone who is much younger than me. Understand? If not, I will hit you so bad after the school day is over". But, I refused the money and told the coach truth, that I had beat him. So, just like he said, his friends made fun of him and just like he said, he hit me so bad after school :( This kind of things started to happen regularly, so I gave up playing chess until high school. In high school, chess started again for me, just like from the beginning. We were escaping from conferences and lessons, but we were playing chess. But this time bets were talking. We were having bets like "Loser pays the lunch". So, I am still remembering the delicious hamburgers, toasts and cool Coca Cola's from those days :) I had a large number of lunch meals without paying a penny in these days :) There are still some immortal days from those times. As an example; once me and a friend had escaped from the conference room and we directly went to the chess room... We started to play, after a few games the door opened and it was the pincipal! He approached our table and looked to us (meanwhile, we thought that this time it was our end), then said : "If you are playing chess, that's ok... You can continue the game". After these words, he left... But we were shocked, because he was someone very strict and we couldn't understand how he didn't mind this. Another nice memory of me from the high school is a conversation between two of my friends who had both lost against me the same day (Naturally they brought me hamburgers, toasts and cokes at the same time), one of them was saying to the other beside the chess board : "Yes, I know that tactic. He beat me with this tactic too" :) Of course I have some unpleasurable memories too. The worst of them is that I was selected for the school team in High School, but was later sacked from the team because I was not attending to the practices (My grades were not so well at that time and the practices were during the lessons. They were coming to take me to the practices from the lessons, but I was not going... Because; if I would not attend the lessons, I knew that I would fail and lose a year (my high school was one of the hardest in Turkey), so I refused and was sacked).

    Then, in these days you couldn't say anything about the existence of the internet. So, this was really boring when I was alone. As a result, there was only one way... I taught the game to my friends nearby, around my house and street, that you call as neighours. I was teaching and creating opponents for myself. Of course, because I was their chess coach, it was impossible for them to beat me. At the beginning, this seemed a lot fun, because I was beating and beating, days were following each other by my winning streaks that made me being called as "never-losing chess hero" & "Kasparov Cevdet" nearby. I can still remember my friends saying: "Capturing a pawn is really one of the easiest things on the chess board, however, it may become much more difficult if its one of the pawns of Cevdet". LOL! I was really proud of myself and in such a small chess world, I was imagining myself as a World Champion :) We were organizing tournaments and I was always the winner. On the other hand, today is much more diffirent. We have established a chess club for organizing tournaments, we organize tournaments with prizes for the  first 3 (that is usually chess cups), we have some titled players in the club and much more players to join the tournaments. So, players are of course stronger, but I think my winning the championship title for 10 years in a row is a good evidence that there were not much strong players playing in our Hasbahce Chess Club in these years; however we have some strong titled players and some international players today. Plus, Hasbahçe Chess Club Champions now change every year.

     After my introduction to internet chess, I realized that I was far away from being a strong player. There were really very strong players worldwide. I can easily remember that my rating was maximum 1850 in my first 6 months on MSN Gaming Zone. At first, I was always playing those 20 min standard games and watching those 1min blitz players was like a dream. How fast they were... How so good moves in seconds, they were like masters who had reached to the maximum degree. I was always talking to myself: "This is impossible, I can never play these 1min games". But time talks! It seemed fun and I was getting better and better every game in this 1min blitz. My online chess friends were saying: "You are really successful in this 1min blitz". After 2 or 3 months, I had became a very strong 1min blitz player that I could never imagine. I was getting game offers from many players and they were really failing in hiding their amazements. During the end of 1998, I became a 1min blitz master who had no mistakes, was very fast and extremely hard to beat. Despite all of my great efforts, I ended up the 1998 season as runner-up (2nd). I was really very upset. All of my efforts were for nothing. I had decided to give up playing chess. But something happened which was a shock for the whole Zone. MSN Gaming Zone announced that 1998 Zone Chess Champion _Framb was a cheater and it was determined that _Framb had gained his Championship title by cheating. So, MSN Gaming Zone announced that I had to become the new Zone World Champion for 1998. That let me winning the "1998 MSN Gaming Zone World Chess Champion" title when I was 18 years old.

My most prestigious awarded titles are :

"World Champion" - zone.com (1998)

"Champion" title - playsite.com

metin_k (2200+) (Former chess champion of Samsun City, Metin Asılkefeli, 2100+ ELO, ranks 72th in Turkey)

        - International players that I beat

Cantbebeaten (2250+, USA FM)

fiend22 (2250+)

I_Spy (2200+)

tha_ranger (2200+)

patrimi (2200+)

dmlarge (2200+)

KingSac (2000+)

   So, after ZORteam had many members from many countries worldwide, we faced a management problem. Things were never easy now. So, I was selected as the new ZORteam Chairman by the ZORteam Council. During my chairmanship years, ZORteam became much more popular, one of the strongest chess clans worlwide, like an empire. As a result of this, MSN Gaming Zone congratulated ZORteam and me. Then, ZORteam became a news on Microsoft website. Also, ZORteam became a news in a computer magazine. All these made me the chairman who is loved most through the ZORteam history. So, I was selected as the "ZORteam Legendary Chairman" in late 2000. Thus, ZORMaster (Arline Taffijn, Holland) and zorxz (Art Grenier, USA) were assigned as the new ZORteam chairmen.

_NATION_ (USA)

chess (USA)

_checkmate (USA)

RAGE (Sweden)

Nordic (Norway)

Phantom Mystery Tournament (1 time champion, 2 times second place)

Tournament of Dragons (1 time champion)

Chesslogic Tournament (1 time champion)

Jeuez Des Echecs (2 times champion, 3 times second place)

Dounderella's Chess Tournament (1 time champion, 1 time second place, 1 time third place)

Hasbahçe New Year Cup (2nd place) - Hasbahçe New Year Tournament (Turkey)

Hasbahçe Blitz Cup (2nd place) - Hasbahçe Blitz Tournament (Turkey)

Hasbahçe Chess Championship '2002 Certificate (2nd place) - Hasbahçe Chess Championship '2002 (Turkey)

My Administrative Career of Chess :

Administrator, Turksatranc - since 2001

Legendary Chairman, ZORteam - since late 2000

Chairman, ZORteam - 2000

Vice Chairman, ZORteam (1999 - 2000)

Chairman, Hasbahçe Chess Club - since 1998

Tournaments Administrator, cevdetchess - since 1998

Tournaments Administrator, Hasbahçe Chess Club - since 1998

Tournaments Administrator, Turkchess (satranc.org) (1998 - 2001)

My Teaching Career of Chess :

Trainer, Hasbahçe Chess Club - since 1998

My Editorial Career of Chess :

Editor, cevdetchess - since 1998

Editor, Turkchess (satranc.org) (1998 - 2001)

My Game Style :