Chess Interview

To preface: I have tried to send questions that our readers will hopefully be curious
about. I appreciate your time and will work with you to format the interview, as well
as seek your final approval on the final draft. I’m sending quite a few questions. In no
way does that mean you need to answer everything. I am also open to any suggestions
you have and will include anything you think worthwhile mentioning that isn’t
directly asked in one of my questions. Since you don’t have chess apps, a youtube
channel, or something else (at least that I know of) I decided to stick to mainly chess
questions unlike some of my prior interviews for the ledger.

Once I have your answers I will do my best to edit the interview with the help of
@petruchio, another lichess4545 moderator who is an English professor.

Lastly, I have published my previous content of the league newsletter under a creative
commons license (non-commercial - http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-
sa/4.0/). Please let me know if this is okay or you have other thoughts regarding that.

Personal Chess Journey

1. Thanks a lot for granting me this interview! Tell us a little about yourself?
My interests include reading, learning everything about the world and living a healthy
lifestyle. Hence I generally read opinion and historical papers and books on topics
such as politics and nutrition and neuroscience. I have some talent for speedreading
which just means I read more at speed and absorb the parts that interest me. Other
activities I do currently include soccer refereeing, chess teaching, which I do in
person, not online. If they are learning something from each game, that's progress.
My students have done a lot better than I expected. Two of them for instance shared
the mixed doubles prize at Million Chess 3 last October. I hope my students all
continue to improve rapidly so they can soon find a stronger or higher rated teacher.
I'm happy when nice people do well.

2. I’m sure you had other interests as a child. How did chess come to be one
of the main activities that you’ve continued to pursue?
I played nearly every sport growing up on teams and sometimes with friends. My
favorites were soccer, running and tennis. As I was busy with sports, school, and
many extracurricular activities, chess was low priority. I played a little in high school
and college. My team in my senior year of high school played at Nationals and in
college my team from Penn State played at the US Amateur Team East, which was an
 inspiration because before those experiences chess tournaments, competitive chess, or
a collective social chess environment simply had not manifested for me outside the
classroom. Chess continues to exist for me today because it is more fun than
alternative activities.
3. Were there periods in which you had doubts about chess? Are there any
negative experiences you’d like to share?
Of course I have lost several chess games in ridiculous fashion, losing with
advantages of several pieces of material, blundering into checkmates, missing
opportunities to checkmate my opponent. Once I was up a queen for a piece against
an IM but in my excitement, my queen flew out of my hand across the room barely
missing everyone and the glass window, hitting only the doorstop thankfully. In my
confusion, I promptly lost on time. My longest streak of losing successive standard
rated games was 10, shortly after I became a USCF expert. I really only felt like
quitting chess when my school studies occupied almost all my time. My experiences
have been overwhelmingly positive, especially over the board, when negative
attitudes and cheating is more of an outlier relative to the impersonal anonymity
online. I know some masters are discouraged by often having to compete against
professionals for small prizes, playing conditions, sometimes losing games to very
strong young players and the amount of work required to improve to play at a higher
level or jaded by playing the same positions repetitively, but the solutions to many of
these problems are quite simple. Play the chess and tournaments you like under the
conditions that are acceptable to you, work on your chess step-by-step and learn
something from each game that will apply to future games and the results will follow.
When I am mentally engaged, usually I am having fun; life is simple to me that way.
4. Was there a moment in your training where you felt things coming
together in a new way or your understanding suddenly changed? What
was that like and what led to it?
Few experiences are more fun in chess than playing against titled players in time
pressure with a crowd watching, when you have to be hyperfocused and really living in
the moment. It is a thrill to play chess heroes in that situation. I have realized that chess
players are human beings who can do really well or make big mistakes and who can
sometimes have perspectives outside the manifestations of my own consciousness.
Knowing how to make plans based on the pawn structure and which pieces you want to
trade is quite important. There is some science to analysis, but I see chess as an exchange
of ideas, and it’s usually a simple exercise of square control using the tools of the trade,
that is, tactics to facilitate a long term strategy.

5. Can you tell us about getting the NM title, your feelings when you first
realized it and your feelings about it now?
Amused. I obtained the title going 3/5 at a strong local tournament beating
two FMs and an IM and losing to 2400 rated players. It was a surprise to
 me when it happened. I liked getting the free lifetime diamond membership
that chess.com offers titled players and the red letters by my username.
6. What would you tell someone who has ambitions to become a titled player
or master?
Have fun. Learn from the people and players around you, the resources you
surround yourself with, your games and the games of heroes who play
similar pawn structures to you. Get inspired and always question why you
play the move you play every move and not some other move. Then find
the answer to that question! Make space for your pieces! Play the game
from the perspective of your opponent. Learn the tools of the game, tactics,
and learn to play many pawn structures to maximize your board awareness
and resourcefulness. Do not give up while you have active options for your
pieces.
7. Personally, what has your chess journey so far meant to you?
It has been expensive but worth it. Meeting people from all around the
world has been a pleasure.
8. What are your plans in terms of long-term career goals and how does
chess fit into that?
9. What motivates you to put in the enormous amount of time studying and
playing chess? In what way do you feel rewarded?
Fun.

Current Chess Activities

1. You currently are still very active with playing OTB tournaments,
correct? If so, can you tell us about your recent tournaments?
I have stopped losing to players rated under 1999 USCF since 2015,
probably about 90 games undefeated, which is pretty amusing to me
because I am used to having worse chess positions than my opponents. I
have been drawing more often against masters but I am still lacking in
experience playing and scoring against 2400+ opposition.
2. What tournaments are coming up for you and what are the plans for 2017
in terms of playing OTB?
US Open in Norfolk my one big tournament of the year.
3. In terms of the online chess community, do you have any plans to start a
youtube channel, stream, coach online, or play in any online tournaments?
I may consider playing in the upcoming Infinity Chess Freestyle tournament
which I played in the past. Occasionally I play in bigger Open online chess
events.
4. Do you do any work for any online chess entities?
 I have done some work in the past for chess.com and am currently as of
recently doing some part time work for chess.com on making their tactics
trainer better.
5. How would you describe you own style of play?
Petrosianic. Defense.
6. Do you also play serious correspondence chess? If so, why do you play and
how has it affected your overall chess?
7. What opening(s) do you least like to play against and why? And what is
your favorite opening and why?
I like playing asymmetrical positions when I have the Black pieces.
Otherwise I have no real preferences. I like having pieces on the board and
trying to win brilliantly, but failing that, I am more satisfied to play calmer
and better chess these days. Least like playing against: Petroff Defense.
Favorite Opening: Sicilian Najdorf. I like getting in my pawn breaks in the
center under the best possible conditions!
8. Are there any current, planned, or even dreamed chess related projects
(writing a chess book, chess-start-up, working with chess education etc)
that you’d like to mention?
All those things are part of a business plan I created for myself. But my
resources are limited and I prefer in-person relationships over Internet
correspondences. I think success will manifest itself organically should I
prove good results in what I do as a coach and a player, and I am working to
improve myself in terms of my resources as a player and a coach rather than
expanding my marketing and business opportunities at the moment.
Substance over marketing myself.

Chess Training and Improvement

1. Can you give a bit of background to your personal chess training? Did you
have a coach and how was your training structured as a scholastic/younger
player?
I am self taught and lost hundreds of games in blitz chess. I repeat some
openings in some lines and try to make improvements, which I have read is
akin to Hikaru Nakamura’s method. These days I tend to use online chess
as a means to exorcise the creative ideas I should refrain from playing in
OTB chess. I liked doing many of the Chess Mentor program puzzles
which provides feedback on logical incorrect answers in addition to the
correct solution. A few friends introduced me to the game when younger,
but I only started playing tournament chess regularly at the age 21. My first
non-provisional rating was at the age of 20 with a rating of 1348 I believe in
the year 2009. I became a master in 2013 and see no reason why people of
 all ages cannot improve themselves in some way although we all have our
challenges.
2. Do you have any specific resource recommendations (books, videos, chess
programs, apps) for the typical club level player?
Amateur’s Mind by Silman for mistakes in thinking. I recommend books
and channels that inspire you, whether GingerGM, Ben Finegold,
Chessexplained, John Bartholomew, etc. David Pruess and Yasser
Seirawan are probably my favorite video authors because of the clarity of
their presentations. Yermolinsky would be near the top of my list of course.
Recommend the chessbase starter package for openings database
management (2000+ level). Chess24 has great broadcasts and higher level
opening theory, chessopenings 24/7 and chesspub are also good on opening
theory of course although I have not focused too much on the details of
memorizing openings, which I will do should I ever be a pro player.
Currently I only have a paid subscription to chess24 and Chessable mostly
because I like what they do although I should use their material more as an
aspiring player!
3. Right now, what aspects of chess improvement are you mainly focused on?
Early middlegame plans, how to finish development of pieces and change
the pawn structure and exchange pieces if applicable.
4. What are your thoughts on chess openings? Is there a rating level where
players should or should not start studying theory and what do you find is
the best way to begin studying the opening?
Play the opening, see if you like it, then look up game collections, famous
games in it and the options for both sides via an openings book or database
or explorer. Annotated games are a great starting point in analysis.
Knowing your heroes in a given opening system helps so you can look up
their games and incorporate their ideas efficiently.
5. Rank the following in order in terms of importance for chess improvement
and maybe give a bit of explanation: 1. Practicing tactics (tactics trainer) 2.
Analyzing your own games 3. Analyzing grandmaster games.
2, 1, 3. Analyze GM games to understand the tactics and annotations.
Study games in game collections by the theme stated in the game collection.
For instance, in a game collection for awesome endgames, study the
endgames of those games, which you can get at a site like chessgames.com
or lichess.org in the Study section. I like using the chesstempo tactics
trainer but as the chess.com is and will be my job to make it better please
use that one too!
6. What are your top tips for the endgame phase?
Do not agree to early draws. Stay flexible in your thinking; be especially
careful when making assumptions. Keep your pieces active!
 7. People often get discouraged during especially since chess improvement
takes a lot of hard work. How do you make chess improvement enjoyable?
8. How do you balance chess with work, relationships, family, social life?
It helps to have relationships in chess if you travel. If you do not travel too
much, relations can happen in the community normally.
9. How did you / does one determine a realistic goal for your chess career?
I do what I like to do if it helps me move forward and pays the bills
especially if it helps other people and makes me grow as a person.

Random Questions

1. Who are your favorite chess players/heroes?

In terms of chess content, my favorites are Ivanchuk, Tal, Bronstein, and
Kasparov among many others. All the champions made a contribution to
chess in some way.
2. What is your favorite chess game (maybe one of yours and one game that
someone else played)?
The game below is probably my favorite recent game of mine because it
was an important game for me because I do not play in many big
tournaments at classical time controls or chess openings very well at all and
it was a key victory for me to qualify for the FIDE U2400 tiebreak at MC3.
But somehow the game went very smoothly.
[Event "Millionaire Chess 3"]
[Site "Atlantic City"]
[Date "2016.10.08"]
[Round "5"]
[White "Della Morte, Pablo"]
[Black "O'Brien, Matthew"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B51"]
[WhiteElo "2337"]
[BlackElo "2031"]
[PlyCount "112"]
[EventCountry "USA"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ Nd7 4. d4 cxd4 5. Qxd4 a6 6. Bxd7+ Bxd7 7. Nc3 e5 8.

Qd3 h6 9. O-O Rc8 10. a4 Qc7 11. Be3 Nf6 12. a5 Be7 13. Nd2 Be6 14. Bb6 Qc6 15.
Rfe1 O-O 16. Rac1 Bd8 17. Bxd8 Rfxd8 18. Qg3 Qc5 19. Ra1 Qb4 20. Reb1 Rc6 21.
Ra4 Qc5 22. Nf1 d5 23. Qxe5 Nxe4 24. Nxe4 Qxc2 25. Nc3 Rxc3 26. Raa1 Rb3 27.
Qd4 Rc8 28. Ng3 Qc5 29. Qf4 Rb4 30. Qd2 Qd4 31. Qe2 Bg4 32. Qe1 Rxb2 33. h3 Be6
34. Rxb2 Qxb2 35. Rb1 Qc3 36. Qe2 Rc7 37. Kh2 Qxa5 38. Rb3 d4 39. Rd3 Rd7 40.
f4 Qd8 41. Rd2 d3 42. Qf3 Qf6 43. f5 Bc4 44. Qf4 Bb5 45. Ne4 Qc6 46. f6 Qc7 47.
Kg3 g5 48. Qxc7 Rxc7 49. Rb2 Rc2 50. Rb4 Rc4 51. Rxc4 Bxc4 52. Kf2 b5 53. g3 a5
54. Ke3 a4 55. Kd2 a3 56. Kc3 b4+ 0-1

Very much enjoyed the correct (!) and beautiful transitions made by the winner in the following
game to convert an openings advantage for Black despite Black being down a piece!

[Event "Student Olympiad, Marianske Lazne"]

[Site "?"]
[Date "1962.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Eduard Gufeld"]
[Black "Lubomir Kavalek"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C64"]
[PlyCount "69"]
[EventDate "1962.??.??"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Bc5 4. c3 f5 5. d4 fxe4 6. Ng5 Bb6 7. d5 e3 8. Ne4

Qh4 9. Qf3 Nf6 10. Nxf6+ gxf6 11. dxc6 exf2+ 12. Kd1 dxc6 13. Be2 Be6 14. Qh5+
Qxh5 15. Bxh5+ Ke7 16. b3 Bd5 17. Ba3+ Ke6 18. Bg4+ f5 19. Bh3 Rhg8 20. Nd2
Bxg2 21. Bxg2 Rxg2 22. Rf1 Rd8 23. Ke2 Rxd2+ 24. Kxd2 e4 25. Bf8 f4 26. b4 Rg5
27. Bc5 Rxc5 28. bxc5 Bxc5 29. Rab1 f3 30. Rb4 Kf5 31. Rd4 Bxd4 32. cxd4 Kf4
33. Rxf2 e3+ 34. Ke1 exf2+ 35. Kxf2 0-1

3. Do you have thoughts on lichess4545? What are some ideas you have to
improve it?
It’s a great concept! I prefer 30/30; I believe it to be sufficient time for
ideas.
4. Are there other interests outside of chess you’d like to share about
yourself? Feel free to say as much or as little as you’d like.
Trail running is fun.
5. What TV shows/movies/music/books do you like or recommend?
You can usually tell whether or not you like a book by the first few pages.
Scan it and if you really like it very much, read it, and if not, discard it. I
believe music can improve the quality of a work environment. I find a few
old episodes of Doctor Who charming.
6. What is your favorite dish and favorite drink?
Normally I eat vegan at home, but very occasionally I will enjoy chicken
fajitas. I also dark chocolate. I like orange juice.
7. Okay last question: tell me a chess secret or a really important lesson you
learned from chess.
 It is OK to play chess on intuition, you use analysis to verify your instincts.
Chess masters do not calculate more in terms of ply depth than 1800 players
except in endgames, they simply do more relevant calculations more
quickly. Not knowing what else to do, improve your worst placed piece. If
you want to know chess gossip, simply ask the tournament director.
8. Anything else you wanna mention?
Always happy to see positive energy on and off the board. Cheers.