About This Site
Welcome to my bio.
You might be an old friend, a curious visitor from one of my websites, or just someone who is looking for more information about me.
This is a page of general information.
About DANIEL PIECHNICK
Internet entrepreneur.
From Adelaide, South Australia.
Studied genetics at Adelaide University.
Member and former State Chairman of Mensa.
Current highest rated tournament Scrabble player in SA. (as of Feb '12)
Websites
I own and operate numerous websites. Two I personally designed are:
Website Setup Guide (2009 → ) This site teaches beginners how to set up their own website. It receives a few thousand visitors a day.
Pegaweb Web Design & Photoshop Tutorials (2002 → ) This site teaches beginners how to use Adobe Photoshop. I no longer work on it, and its visitor levels have dropped a long way from their height of about 1.5m people per year a few years ago.
Scrabble
My mother and grandmother introduced me to Scrabble at a young age. I attended my first tournament at the age of 12, and joined a club shortly thereafter. I began practising, and soon started winning tournaments.
I came close to winning the national championships in Brisbane in 1994.
These days, I just play for fun, and enjoy teaching the game to new players. I don't read dictionaries or word books like I used to.
My highest game score is 677, including five bonus words (where a player uses all seven letters in one turn for 50 extra points). My highest ever score for a word was for LOXYGENS (meaning "liquid oxygen") across two triple-word scores, for 257 points.
A memorable game:
It was nearing the end of the game. There were only a few letters left in the bag, and I needed a bonus word to win. I played off HOD, to make a spot for a bonus word next turn (hooking onto HOD, and turning it into SHOD). I kept IOS and a blank, and picked up the very unhelpful BWO. My opponent then played QAT parallel to HOD, blocking off the opening anyway. There was an N that I could play a bonus word through, but it was in the wrong spot to let me play WOOdBI(N)S. I was 91 points behind, so even if I did find a bonus, it couldn't add up to that many points anyway. So I just went to play off my tiles and get a few more points before the end of the game. That's when I spotted BIOW(E)a(P)O(N)S, through E, P, and N. I played it for 92, and won. I don't think I'll ever be able to top this as my all time best play.
Politics
These days, I'd describe myself as a fairly normal small-government conservative. However, this isn't where I started out.
I developed an interest in politics during the spectacle of the 1998 Queensland state election, where Pauline Hanson's "One Nation" party first appeared. What began my interest in politics was not the policies of the One Nation party, but the hysteria of the establishment against the party, whose policies I thought were actually fairly ordinary. This considerably lowered my opinions of the established parties, and furthered my interest in One Nation. I attended a few meetings of the party, and decided to join.
I held various positions in the party, including the position of State Electoral Analyst. I ran twice for the party, contesting the electorates of Boothby in 2001, and Mitchell in 2002.
People often ask me about my involvement with the party. My experience was that the party was a typical, mundane political organisation. It was comprised of normal, overwhelmingly elderly people, motivated by a strong sense of disenchantment with politics. The popular image of the party being a band of radicals focussed on immigration couldn't have been further from the truth.
Though I learned a lot about politics from being in the party, I'm glad to have left it behind. The party never escaped its poor image, its platform was one of simple populism and contrarianism, and it lacked people with the expertise needed for political success.
I still follow the evolution of nationalist politics around the world, but from an academic perspective. Since One Nation, I've developed a much better and broader understanding of government, political theory, and economics.
MAGIC: THE GATHERING (CARD GAME)
Magic: the Gathering is a strategy card game I took up while I was in high school, and still play. The game is nearing its 20th year, and now has an international circuit of tournaments, offering millions of dollars in prize money – second only to poker.
I came third in the 2005 National championships, and represented Australia at the 2005 World Championships in Paris. I also qualified for and played in Pro Tour Los Angeles and Pro Tour Kuala Lumpur.
Travel
I've travelled around Australia many times, following my Magic and Scrabble careers, but have also been to various parts of Asia.
I've been to the Philippines five times, and lived there for a short period.
"AMBIGRAMS"
An ambigram is a word or name written such that it reads the same when turned upside-down. I've done many of these, for family and friends. Here's my own name (one of my first ambigrams), and one I did for my father.
Daniel Piechnick
John Piechnick
Contact
Please click here if you'd like to email Daniel Piechnick.
If you'd like to see some of my websites, please continue to Website Setup Guide or Pegaweb.