For a man who has always "considered myself a club player", Press has carved out a chess career befitting a Grandmaster.

The Canberra man has represented Papua New Guinea on multiple occasions in the Chess Olympiad, and recently lined up against the then World No.3 Ding Liren in the World Cup.

Even more impressively, Press's incredible journey has sparked several major rule changes which have helped shaped chess across the world.

"It's just the luckiest chess career of anyone," Press says.

"I don't know why but that's just how it's turned out. Some people remember me as the guy who refused a drug test, I do get that on occasion. Or that guy that fluked a spot in the World Cup."

The 2004 Olympiad is where Press became an international chess headline.

He'd not long finished a game representing Papua New Guinea, when he was asked by tournament organisers to provide a sample for a drug test.

"I refused the drug test on the grounds that I hadn't taken any drugs that day, and didn't need to prove that I hadn't taken any drugs that day," Press said.

"They insisted and then in the end, because I refused, they took my points off the team score. For subsequent tournaments they restricted the players who were to be tested to the elite Grandmasters, and their support staff.

"One of the reasons they did that is because they didn't want randoms like myself sabotaging the whole process by making protests."

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Since then, only the top echelon of chess players are subjected to drug testing. As Press jokes, there's not a single drug that could enhance someone's performance at the board.

Born in Papua New Guinea where his father was stationed at the time in the Australian Army, Press moved to Canberra in early high school and began playing chess regularly.

His administrative passion emerged early on in the piece too - as a 17-year-old he was already helping organise junior chess tournaments.

Press had plenty of talent over the board which started to shine, but he never reached the top bracket of Australian chess players.

But his rating was exceedingly high by Papua New Guinea standards, and given he was born there he was eligible to represent the country at the biannual Chess Olympiad.

It offered a window to the elite, and all of sudden Press was pitting himself against Grandmasters from all over the world.

"It really wasn't until 2000 that I put on the Papua New Guinea jersey and went out to play that it all changed," Press says.

"One was understanding that I needed to play chess more seriously, and two just having those opportunities to play in all those big events.

"It just really came down to luck of birth. Born in Papua New Guinea, therefore could play for Papua New Guinea, if I was born in Australia, none of this would've happened."

His biggest match came in 2019 when he unexpectedly qualified for the FIDE World Cup, a 128-person knockout competition which offered the winner a place in the Candidates Tournament which is used to determine the World Championship challenger every two years.

Press had gone to Guam for a meeting as part of his role as treasurer of the Oceania Chess Federation, and decided to contest the zonal tournament being played at the same time on the island.

"I was about the 10th seed and again, lucky chess career, things just kept falling my way through the tournament," Press recalls.

"I never played [tournament winner] Max [Illingworth] for example, because he lost in the first round. And by the time he caught up to the leading group, he went past me.

"Suddenly I've landed in second place, Max has won. Then Max decided he couldn't go and so it was me."

Ranked as the lowest competitor at the World Cup, Press was paired with tournament top seed Ding Liren in the first round. It meant two games against the Chinese superstar, one as white and one as black, with the winner to advance to the second round.

"You don't want to look like an idiot, essentially," Press says.

"It was like my goal here is not to lose in 10 moves and look like a complete fraud. I'm playing the world's No.3 player, if I can last 20 moves without losing, that's the best I can hope for.

"In the first game against Ding ... I lasted long enough that I felt I'd achieved something even if I didn't win the game.

"I did a little bit of preparation before I played him seeing what opening I would play. I looked at his games, he played [world champion] Magnus Carlsen a couple of times recently, a couple against [World No.2 Fabiano] Caruana.

"He played e4, e5, the Ruy Lopez. I said, 'I'll copy that'. We sit down to play, I played e4, and the very first move he played was c5, the Sicilian Defence.

"He'd looked at my games as much as I'd looked at his games, and he knew that I played a certain line in the Sicilian which wasn't particularly great. He said, 'My work's done here, I'll just play this line against him and win' and that's what happened essentially.

"We tried to outsmart each other, he was just smarter."

Press still plays weekly at the Gungahlin Chess Club, but most of his energy these days is devoted to administrative duties, and expanding his chess book collection which numbered 1050 volumes at last count.

He will run this weekend's seven-round ACT Chess Championships at Campbell High School, which is expected to attract a capacity field of 60 entrants.

Canberra International master Junta Ikeda was the highest-ranked entrant as of Thursday night.

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