[Music] Hello everybody, welcome to the Nuenches Podcast where we talk to Grand Masters, authors, trainers and other personalities from the fascinating world of chess. Nuenches Podcast is brought to you by DGT, the leading producer of clocks and sensory chess sports. My name is Dick Jan Ten, Kyrzendom. Today's podcast once again reaches you from Paphos in Cyprus, where at the luxurious Cups and George Hotel, the candidate's tournament has come to an end after two weeks of excitement and tension. My guest is Anish Gehry, one of the main protagonists in this growing battle to determine the challenger of the world champion Goukesh later this year. Anish was one of the pre-tournament favorites and one of the absolute stars of the candidates, but in the end he too had to bow to the exceptional performance of the winner 20-year-old Yavokir Senderov from Uzbekistan. Anish finished the second place, one and half points behind the winner Senderov, but one full point ahead of third place for Biano Karwana, another clear pre-tournament favorite. Of course finishing second in such an elite field is a marvelous result, but it's also the cruelest of results in a cutthroat competition where only first place really counts. Anish, welcome to the podcast, great that you find time for us. How mixed are your feelings? I think to be fair, I was experiencing lots of ups and downs in terms of my hopes. I wouldn't call them expectations, but more in terms of like hopes of the tournament. Of course before the tournament, I was very hopeful. The first round was a big setback after that my hopes, you know, they fell through. Was it that bad? I mean, yeah, I think the few lose the first round. I don't, you're probably not better, but has there been any candidates winner who lost the first round? Could be a first there. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But I mean your very experience, your planning for 14 rounds. Yes, of course I was, but I, again, I don't think, I think maybe once in the weekend say I started with a loss and I did the very well. I don't know if I won that year. I think I lost a nape or first round and came back to the scrumnic in the second. But in the field, this strong and the tournament is difficult and anyway, it was an uphill battle to win it and also you started with a loss. I mean, obviously, it's not, I'm not saying that I gave up, right? I continue playing, but I'm just saying that my effected you. Yeah, well, not necessarily affected me, but it affected my, not, again, not especially with my state, like my hopefulness, you know, so I was very hopeful at the beginning. Before the start, I was very, that hopefulness sort of dropped to a big hit after the first round. Then it has completely researched after the fourth round when I got back with the win. Then it dipped a little bit after a couple draws and then it went the hopefulness sort of was speaking after a bit Fabius, I won two games. I'm first prog, then Fabius. And then this is in the second half? Yes, exactly. And at that point, I was extremely hopeful, of course, because my chances, well, they're still around 10% maybe, but it started to take some shape. And then, you know, they were sort of gradually crushed for the next few days to the point that, you know, yeah, I have experienced the gradual, slow pain that has picked in the round before last when the tournament was essentially over. And then since that moment, I've won against BlueBowl and I've had, you know, all these days to get used to the notion that I'm not going to win the tournament, that right now I feel actually on the high. I really? Yeah, I feel good right now because, you know, the delta of my feeling, like compared to the, it's been going up for the couple days, right? So I already knew that it's not going to happen when I played this general here after I lost after I didn't beat Vee, it was clear I'm not going to win the tournament because even if I beat Jover here, it was clear he plays last round with Vee and Vee just does not have the weaponry right now. Well, he probably has, but he just wouldn't be motivated to try to beat Jover here. And you saw what happened in the game, it would have been the same if I was training Jover here, it would have been the same. So he was over in like five minutes, I don't know how many minutes. Yeah, it was just a non-game, right? Yeah. And now there is a state of theory such that if player playing White wants to do it against someone like Vee and Vee has no incentive to play for a win, he can shut down the game and he will. So basically I had no real hopes after not beating Vee and already done for the next two days, yeah, I already knew I'm not going to win the tournament, right? So then it would be strange to then beat Bluebound and then feel upset, right? No, that was good. I already knew I was not going to win the tournament and now I knew that I was not going to win the tournament, but at least I beat Bluebound, so I was happy. And that's why the last day I felt good because it's been a good day, I mean. I thought after you recovered so well, strongly, I mean you're not only one several games, but you also won them in a very nice manner and very convincing manner. Then there was this game against Vee in round 12 when you actually have a winning position and it is difficult, but I can imagine that after that game you were rejected. Yes, though again to be fair, I was upset of course that I couldn't win this game. And of course if you like really zoom in on the situation and you could say that yes, it was a big miss because the chances went finally to zero, but it would be really also unfair to Jove here to say that I was close. I mean with three games to go I understood my only chances to win last three games. When does it happen that on demand in a top tournament do you finish with three wins, of which two games are black, one of them is against Vee, the white game is against the leader who is on +6 and beaten and you have the last round against BlueBam who is the most solid player in the world and is extremely well prepared and nobody can even touch him with white, let alone with black. So frankly it is such an uphill battle and my chances were so bad at that point, but of course there was a room for Miracle and the whole cycle you're hoping for those Miracles and some of them to happen like me qualifying the game through Grand Swiss is a bit of a Miracle as well. So of course I was hoping for Miracles and of course it was kind of shaping up to be one. Though at that point not only the problem was that I didn't convert the. I mean it's not like convert, like there were a few wins, it wasn't I didn't see a clear one. So let's say okay I felt I could maybe win somewhere. So not only did I not win but also Jove here saved the game I guess Fabi because of course the ideal for me would be if I had won that game and Jove here would lose to Fabi. Then the situation would be a lot better, then I have some real chance. Still another though of course but we'll have some real chances. But yeah it was. he played so well, Jove he played so well and he had such a margin that at no point did I get close enough I guess to truly experience the heartbreak of not making it. Well it's clear that with a tournament like this you not only have to play well, you also need luck and one of the pieces of luck you needed was him losing against Fabiano. And many more things yeah. Yeah and many more things. But at the same time I mean your finish in the Grand Swiss was also very confident and strong so you never know. And let's say going by the chest that you've been playing for quite some time now I mean I think I was not the only one who thought that you were one of the favorites. Yeah but of course I have the some tendency especially the way my opponents are playing against me often. They often choose some very solid setups and there is a tendency that sometimes it appears the game from the outside it might appear that I haven't taken enough risk to win the game. And I had that same feeling here when I'd say I made some draws with white against blue bomb and against Cipenko perhaps against Veivid white as well. But at the same time the event in Grand Swiss for example was the place where I did win a lot of these positions. So it's kind of difficult to say exactly what my chest looks like because I sort of depend on you know I'm off a lot of the games I'm playing them on like I'm trying to nurture a very small advantage. And sometimes I can convert a few of them in a row and then assemble the streak of wins like in Grand Swiss and sometimes it doesn't happen and sometimes something between happens like here. So like I won against Prague but I didn't win against Cipenko and so like you know sometimes people even could say that maybe with this approach sort of I'm not dangerous.
there is enough to win Canada's tournament, because there is a tendency that a lot of my games don't really generate enough winning opportunities. Well, the generating winning opportunities is something that also depends on Europe and… For sure, but again, if there is a tendency, if you look through my games, maybe more so than other players, I tend to go for a small advantage, just quite a lot. And I sort of really insist on it quite persistently. And sometimes it seems a little bit… Even to me, from the inside, but also from the outside, it seems a little bit like… Am I not overdoing that a little bit too much? Too many. Yeah, shouldn't I do something a little wilder? And if it doesn't work, then it's tempting to think that maybe I should have tried something more wild. Because I'm likely with an approach of going for small advantages, that you will be able to score six wins like Jouahir Red. He had… I mean, his tournament had his own story, and a lot of it was some sort of wild counter-attacking thing where like in his panko he came back from behind in a very… It's a very complex position though, you know? So you could argue that maybe sometimes it's better instead of having a small advantage to have a big disadvantage and then you have a sharp position, right? And doing like Jouahir B2 Spanko. So these are always questions that are hard to answer and certainly when the result doesn't fully go your way and here it's a result of the first place, then you can start questioning the entire strategy, let's say. But I think overall, I mean, I won four games here, which was very good. I also was quite happy for the tournament when I played in Vicanzea. I won also quite a few games there. I think something similar. I think I also won like three games maybe, which was a good sign, you know? So I could still win games against top opposition. So I think winning four games is pretty good. But I could even maybe have won a few more. But yeah, there was a special tournament also in a sense that I think the kind of this sometimes this result is even good enough for a first place. Yeah, that's what I wanted to say. I mean, it might as well have been a time for first or? Yeah, but at the same time, if you look at that I was behind the Cindaro by one half point, you might wonder, you know, let's say after having beaten Prague and Fabi or after having beaten the Spanko at first game, maybe I should have tried to make something more of my next games, you know, because if I look at those games, it looks as though there was not anticlimactic, you know? Like I was sort of building towards, like my play was improving. I was building towards Strikow-Wins. And then there is this game, like let's say against the EU or BlueBomb, that you would click through that game and you wonder like, did you even really get to press, you know? Or rather like, yeah, I mean, shouldn't I have done something better there? But I think it's difficult to judge because you know, sometimes it works out, like if I look at the Grand Swiss, you know, I've beaten Jordan and Hans also from a very, very small advantages. Because the truth is that if the players with the black pieces, if they want to suffer nowadays, it's very hard to stop them from suffering. Yeah, but in those two games that you mentioned, then I mean, the position may be equal, but in both cases they were trickier for your opponent. As was the case here, also against the EU and BlueBomb and Spenko, but here it didn't manage to win them. So it's kind of, it's a tricky approach, you know? Like I think maybe like going for some wicked attack, you know, and just more of a like a door-dye approach, it would seem a bit more intuitive, maybe in those moments to do that. And I was ready to do it in certain games, but my opponents really tried to, like, they really want to suffer sometimes. And I feel sometimes like, who might have stopped them, you know? Well, it's, I mean, you're not the only one who's now thinking about what possibly you did wrong or you could have done slightly better. Like someone like Fabiano, who was probably the person who was named most of the time as the outspoken favorite. How do you see his performance? Yeah, well, his story is very different. I mean, okay, he was, although he was a favorite to win the tournament, of course, he was not a favorite against the field, right? It's not like he had more than 50 percent chance. So just saying that he didn't win, so he failed is also wrong, but he did underperform. I think he even lost rating here. Which is, yeah, just not good for him. Of course, he doesn't want to underperform. You need to overperform massively here. Like, I gained a lot of rating here, but it's not enough. Fabiano of course needed to gain a lot of rating too to fight for. And his result, I think plus one, finally, plus one is never enough for the first place. So he's definitely not happy with his result. And, yeah, I guess his tournament sort of broke in the middle somewhere. If you look at the scoreboard, you could say that he started well in terms of points. And then you could see that, okay, after he lost just a bunch of games, he lost to Joe here, mutual encounter, which was really important. I think that game must have been very painful for him, because I think that game he questioned his entire strategy. And then after that, he lost one more to Hikaru. Again, he has lost many games to Hikaru in this very, very unpleasant way, where it looks as though Hikaru isn't playing for a win, which he does, because he beats him all the time. But Fabiano must be puzzled, like, how can he keep losing to Hikaru? And every time it happens, he's probably already having these fears, like, oh my god, it's happening again. And then he lost to me in a game where he was already in a must-win and desperate state. And after that, he felt there is no coming back, and I think there was no coming back. So after that, he just basically finished the tournament, and towards the end we saw again, like, I mean, we will see the same thing. I think the tournament will finish. Fabiano will be back to the end of the year, but next time he will be again in the favorite, there will be again some young World Champion who will again be very unstable. It will be all the same all over again. Could be. I think so. Yeah, but let's say in Fabiano's case, there were also people who were saying, well, he was taking too much risk. Yeah. He already knew it, and he was trying not to. I'm not sure if the risk is the right word, but I think what happens to Fabiano is that I am absolutely sure he lost belief in his own strategy. I think he started questioning it. And how would you describe his strategy? OK, I mean, I don't want to sort of over elaborate on these things, but I saw a few interviews of his and I think this whole idea of taking risks appropriately, it is bugging him. He mentioned in various interviews before the start event that he's not very good at taking the right amount of risk, because he feels he does it too much. He was already worried about it. And I think he sort of saw it like, yeah, I think it's a bit of his head as well. I think he is currently feeling that he is not able to find the right way to take the risks. And it could be one of those things where the problem is in your own head there, but it's there already. Well, that's what I was thinking. I mean, he, there was every reason for people to think that he was a pre-tornement favorite. He had every reason to think so and we'll have told himself, don't think this, but at the same time, this also may work against you. I mean, subconsciously. I think he didn't like the start of the tournament the way the games went. I mean, he was a pre-tornement favorite. Absolutely. We play again in a week or maybe in a month. I'm betting on him again. Everybody's betting on him again. He's a real favorite. And you could even see, like even the last game of him, like he, a bit of a spec, just looked through the game. He's extremely strong. It was a very complex game and he just played like a machine. He is really, really good. And even the final result is decent. He only lost rating because he's rating is extremely high. So he's good player. But I think that the way the tournament started, the way the games went, he didn't like how they went. And I think he started, and I know that for myself, that's something I was also working on before tournament a lot. I think when you start questioning your strategy in the middle of the event, it's a very bad thing, like the Ulysses Conference. And how was that in your own case? I mean, you lost this first game, but it looked as if you recovered that probably. It's, I mean, just forget about the first game. We look at your tournament. It's a great tournament. Yeah, I did find it. Of course, a lot is dependent on good luck and bad luck. The first game was bad luck. The case were good luck. So all that of course. Yeah. But as I said, I have recovered, of course. But not to the point that I could fight for the first place because I think again, it difficult because you know for a
every loss you have you need to win too. So it's expensive. So I wanted to not lose but it's difficult because I wanted my plan was to win and not lose and it's very difficult. This podcast is brought to you by DGT, the chess innovators. At DGT we want to bring people together and help them grow through play by supporting chess and creating innovative high quality products for players everywhere. To find your nearest DGT dealer please visit our website at dgt.nl. Well there was this tricky time control here without increment which was also used in vegansay so it gave you some practice there. Yeah that was useful to have that training because I think switching from increment to non-increment is huge. No I think it was massive help to play by can say. I mean I was totally culture shock the first few rounds there. Just it was completely new to me the whole thing because I maybe I played with this before but I completely forgot how it was and I was highly disturbed by the time control at the beginning. Even if you remember by can say it okay also this whole protest thing was highly disturbing. And the first round. Yeah yeah this first round you remember this for the sake of resigned after 10 months or something you blunder something I blundered to Vincent. Ridiculous thing that I just never I mean I usually don't blunder so I just blundered a question. Can you fill the connection with the protest? Not only but time control especially and this whole yeah the whole I mean for me it was a combination of like anxiety of the start of the tournament and the time control and of course certain things particularly technical in the game that went not my way but of course when things already go wrong like this weird because you know in general when you play chess or maybe it's true for all sports but for chess at least I know because I played you do so much to protect your routine because it's you know like even breakfast I take exactly the same things after the first day okay maybe you can say that just because I'm a weirdo but I think that it's really a thing that most sportsmen do they protect their routine and this is where you know they have some some peace of mind and even the smallest disruption to that could be unpleasant but there we had the the whole like it was completely ridiculous like we came to the playing venue there was no way to enter there was tall chaos there was very weird contact with organizers like it was not clear where they are what we have to do many people thought the round maybe already started starting so we all forced our way through inside turned out there was no one inside so there was no need to go in some people got emails that actually they can stay in the room some emails but they some people from one hotel heard it you know the other from the other hotel didn't some people went back to the room some people stayed it was highly disturbing of course and the whole tournament started off extremely strange for most players they all played very strange and time control added to it a lot and finally after some time it's all stabilized somewhat and by by now I've already played this time control in a lot of games it was 30 plus 14 that's crazy it's played so many games with it that by now I sort of I have sort of you know have some feel for it but it remains a difficult time control because managing your time without increment this is a very difficult skill I was wondering if this was again the goes to an influence of Magnus hovering over the chess world because everyone was so happy with the much more honest increment method which well we we had Bobbyshia to thankful and Magnus Skullsson has often expressed his wish that Tanya Froh should be unforgiving which this one is very much I mean you have to to manage your time otherwise you're in big trouble how good is the idea I mean what on which side are you no I mean it makes sense I mean I'm conflicted because I there's small conflict of interest there in there plus there is you know sometimes for example a good example is that I think I perform really well in morning games I have noticed I didn't run the numbers but I have intuitive feeling that I'm overscoring crazy in morning games but I hate them but I'm sure my opponents hate them much more so you could dislike something and yet it could be to your advantage and I think everybody dislikes this time control but it is the advantage of some people and there is definitely something to say for making chess more challenging for players because of course yeah you want to make defense harder because well obviously with better defense it's harder to win games and yeah you want less of course you want more variety you want more more wins you want more more mistakes as on one hand the players get stronger and stronger at the same time you do want to keep you know the them you know with the pressure and so I see the the point and also you could argue you have no less time that with increment you just have you just have to manage it better so it's very sensible very sensible I mean I think increment is really helpful in bleeds games because then without it it's decided by some chaos especially over the board online bleeds you can play without increment because there is clear environment right where nothing can go wrong and the server will decide who won who lost there is no arbitration there's no nothing but an over the board chess can get very messy but in but in classical it doesn't come down to seconds usually yeah so I think classical chess with no increment is is okay there's something to say for it well and the other thing is again that like maybe it's good but we have a lot of different controls everywhere and maybe that makes chess more rich and more challenging and more interesting but it does make it harder for players so maybe that's good again but it's something to acknowledge like we have and and something to acknowledge is also that it's really hard to switch for a player from one to the other like it's really different to play one control all the other yeah but in general in general I think in terms of the percentages of draws in tournaments I think we are in a fine place right now and at some point did some brief comparison to the years of top tournaments and I think it's not getting worse like the drop percentage doesn't increase and I think we have I think this natural because you have certain players that are stronger than others or think they are stronger than others mostly are also and they need to find ways to show to show the stronger than others by winning those games and they find ways to like they basically it's kind of like survival of the fittest in a way yeah and the game offers enough game is rich enough to to give room to players who think they are stronger than others and play for a win it is probably easier to play for a draw now than before but if you are if you believe that if you go into a tournament you believe you're the strongest player you're not gonna be playing for a draw right because what is good is achieving draws with this you did it right you are the great one right so and maybe you are the great one is maybe you have a high rating let's say if you have a let's say another break with 2780 going into tournament full of 2700s he has to win games so he will play he will do whatever he can to try to win games but if you are a 2680 player entering 2750s and draws a good for you it is now easier than before to make those draws I to try to make the draws I believe I believe it's kind of easier but okay now I want to contradict myself because you know how can be easier for one and not the harder for the other but you know basically let me just say that if you have a player let me put like that a player from the past if you freeze him and bring to the current time it is easier now for a week of player to draw the dinosaur from before that's what I should that's right to put it another back will be hard to draw regardless yeah not the back of the set or we're talking about because these days term so actually any nother back for the hard to draw and the java here also and the java gear and let's talk about java java gear sindaro who he's had a great year he's not exactly appearing out of the blue but still the way he won this was I don't think many people had expected that I mean for me he was one of the dark horses and and an impossible favorite but but not like this how does it happen a thing like this is is that yeah you need probably some time to see whether this is sort of peak java here you know that has jumped a couple heads above his regular level or if
Or if he's improving, let's say, so much that in fact this is not that much above his level, this is maybe this is the level. For all the stars we're aligned. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, they were anyway aligned. But the question is like, basically, is it a 2750 Java here who got very lucky? Or is it a 2790 Java here who got a little bit lucky? Or do we have a 2830 Java here who just got very slightly lucky, protection normal? Yeah. Or maybe is it a 2900 Java here? He just underrated. Yeah. And he just evolved in last few months because actually if you look back, you want the World Cup, you almost won like I can say, you now won this. Performance over the last half year is huge. So maybe he's just improved to the extent that this is just normal for him and he will just crush everyone from now on. I'll be really surprised with that. I'm kind of skeptical. I mean, he's great. He has a lot of great qualities, but he's already 20. And you improve at this age for sure. But, yeah, if you would be sort of the new dominant force in chess, you would have probably noticed already by now. But maybe, maybe not. We'll see everybody has their own progress chart. In any case, this result was tremendous. And even though the stars were aligned, it's not like everybody blundered rooks against him. He did a lot of good things and he has a very nice style. We can, there are like two things that are striking and everybody noticed those things. It's not a secret. So one is that he's very fast. And the other is that he's really a very universal. He has displayed multiple qualities across. So like, and he seemed good in complicated positions and in the simple ones and on the offensive and on the defensive. And that is actually a rare. So in that sense, yeah, if you say that the player is very universally good and he's fast, yeah, that player could potentially be the best player in the world. I can't imagine that. But the thing is also, it's very tempting because whenever you see somebody in good form, he always looks magnificent. And whenever you see somebody in bad form, it looks bad. So I imagine maybe his bad form would look that he's too fast, impatient. And the fact that you don't have big weaknesses usually also means that maybe you don't have extreme strengths either. So it's all different sides to the same coin. But we'll see. In any case, it's very exciting that somebody had a result like this and everybody is looking forward to more of his results, for sure. Yeah, well, some people they were drawing parallels with Goukesh. I mean, who had these fantastic results and then kept that with a candidate's win and then well, stalled and now is trying to find his all self. Exactly. So exactly. With Goukesh, you would expect that he was growing towards something. But it seems that there was as though almost degradation. Right? I mean, in terms of his rating, it definitely degraded. But in terms of his growth curve, it seems like he started going down from some point onwards, yeah, which is not at all what he would expect from a young player who was coming up. So now with this example of Goukesh so far, I think everybody also calls him a "finger". He's cautious to not take away the C-approach with Goukesh, not proclaim him as the next best. In fact, if you really want to replace Magnus and you desperately need the candidate for that job, I would vouch for Erdogmus. He is only 14. The young Turkish player. He's about to break to his 100 right now. He's like one win against Topal of Away. He already won a couple of games in the past. He lost what I saw as he was two up, but he's. Yes, so one more win and he is 2,700. And that is a trajectory that hasn't been seen before. So yeah, if we really are looking for a player who would somehow find the way to dominate modern chess, which I believe is extremely difficult, and I don't think it's impossible, but I think it's very, very difficult. But if you are looking for a player like that, Goukesh is a good candidate, but Erdogmus also looks very good. So I think it's an exciting time. So we're about to witness. Yeah, we all also saw Erdogmus in "Vigon's A", where he was doing very well to a certain point. And it was clear from the way he behaved that he was thinking about tournament victory. I mean, there was no mother's team. I saw from up close, he's amazing games. So I see the miracle. But it so happened that against me, he did play a bad game. He did play a bad game against me. I haven't yet witnessed it from across the table, but I am sure I'll get to soon. And I saw some of his games, like this game against Arjun was absolutely extraordinary. And also he has this thing that he thinks in the opening, like for very long, and then he either remembers the prep or he finds it, he has this weird thing where like he spends like 40 minutes. He did against me too. He spends like 40 minutes in a position that he probably has looked at and starts making the top engine moves. And I think he is probably recollecting his prep or maybe he sort of combines recollecting and calculating. But yeah, this game against Arjun worked perfectly. Against me, it didn't work very well because position remained slightly worse for him. I'm pleasant and the time deficit cost him. But against Arjun, this time investment he did worked out well. Okay, right now of course he is also quite a slow player. But okay, I mean, 2,700, that 14, let's not look into the small finesse, because fix, I mean this is just extraordinary. Yeah, and well, he often got into time trouble, but there he is still most of the time he seemed in control. Yeah, exactly. And again, I don't think we have seen the final form of his right, he's just 14. So the player that he's right now, he just showed me his, I'm not so impressed with that player. But if you tell me he's 14, then I'm impressed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I think right now he has flows and I'm not scared, I've seen right now. If I have to play him tomorrow, I'm not scared. But yeah, if I imagine I have to play him in 5 years, I don't want to battle myself, let's say. No, it's funny that we were watching the boom in India and we were talking about India for a long time and now suddenly it's, well, the people breaking through when it's Bekistan and Turkey is huge. Yeah, Bekistan having crazy run, like both, it was also an underback. Outside the watch on the motorcycle, he's insane run of great events. But when we're talking about, well, I said the predictability of his success in St. Aurofs case, there might be people who say, well, he's been working with his new coach, Roman Fedonjak from January last year till now and up, up, up, stable improvement. He's caching in on that. I mean, he's just grown with his new coach. Well, I actually also had a chance to work with his coach. Yeah. Oh, well, that's what I wanted to ask you. Yeah, so at least I don't have to fear the unknown. I can fear the known. So you also work? Yes, we didn't get to really do it in full. How long was your session? We had a few sessions. A few days, even. Yeah, a few days, a couple of times. So we, I think, first, he worked also with Jordan at some point and then he was a coach of our national team briefly. That's how I got my personally and then I did a few things with him on my own. I think to be honest, I think the training methods he uses, I think they could be very beneficial if they are like, if they sort of lay down on a, if you sort of put those things on a very talented player who has a, like, I don't think anybody going through his coaching would transform into an amazing player. Unless you already have the, yes, I think certain players maybe are perceptive. So he basically works on certain areas of your game and I think that maybe in some players, this work could really, like basically he taps into your potential in one area of the game and some players have a big potential there to tap into and some probably don't. And it probably is the case that the Java here, this has been very useful. I also have a feeling, I don't know if that's just maybe my feeling from the outside, that Java here is enjoying the same thing that NEPA was also enjoying is that if you were a player who has been improving and neglecting a big part of Java bringing
Like for example, like open appropriation. If you've been, and despite that, so you say you're improving, and you just don't really work on your openings for a very long time, and you keep improving because of your national talent. At some point you end up reaching a twin-sum hundred level, then you probably start stagnating a little bit. If at that moment, you suddenly start working like mad on the openings, for example. You experience a massive boost, and usually players tap into that potential at an earlier stage when they are weaker than masters, and they take experience of boost earlier. But these guys, they have tapped into it at the last stage, and they have this final boost, with Kata Pusdom from 2,700 to watch episode kind of it. I think this is also what he's going through right now. I think Joe here has never been this well prepared in his life at all. And. That's the funny thing that Fidon Yakis says, "I'm not interested in your opening." Oh, that's the other thing, exactly. Yeah, so, and at the same time, he's also working on his other chess skills with Fidon Yakis, so he's been doing a highly balanced training for a year. And probably before that, he was mostly relying on his natural talent without having all this untapped potential. Basically, I think he was an amazing player who reached 2,700. To simplify more or less on his raw talent, and after that, he started tapping into the Fidon Yak potential and the opening potential at the same time. And so now he's basically, he's on a complete high channeling from two sources of extra power, experiencing a massive double boost. I think the challenge comes later for him. At some point, this potential will expire somewhat and then against will start being marginal. This is what NEPO is going through right now. Like, NEPO can no longer tap into that potential because he's already tapped into it. And then you start stagnating again. But the question is, how far do you reach until you stagnate again? And maybe for Java here, this is World Championship, 800 and so on, so you'll see. Yeah. But yeah, you also mean that. Well, he was a huge junior talent. He was a prodigy. He was very young. So there was lots and lots of raw talent. And this is the next. Yeah, the thing is that a lot of players started tapping into those reserves when they were 2,500 to 2,600. He wasn't doing it until he got to 26,8, let's say. And maybe the other players could not reach 26,8 without tapping into them. But I see the repeat of NEPO phenomenon, but much faster. Because NEPO has been having a bunch of years where he wasn't moving. I need a person down. And Java here timed it quite well. So I personally started working like Mad on openings much earlier. I experienced massive growth from 2,500 to 2,700. But by the time I was 3,700, I already tapped into that opening work potential. It's like this big box with the turbo boost that you can open it, any moment of the player. You can open it when you are weaker, you can open it stronger. And if you open it, when you're already top-layered, you get. I mean, multiple players, I think, Ravitch Tambaram had that thing too. Some people, for example, they cannot. Let's say you have guys who are always with that openings. Blue bomb is great openings. Blue bomb is great openings, right? They don't have that reserve. They can't be greater at openings. But the guy who is not good at openings, he can now start working on openings and just kind of pulled. But at some point it ends. It's a boost, you could say, maybe it's 18 or 15 or 15 or 15. So I think the job here is now going through a big growth. But I guess at some point it was stagnated. The question was stagnated. So in 780 or 2850 or where? So that's a big question. But I think that this work hit us with Roman. And at the same time, the prep. I mean, okay, it's all nice that they work on the board. But bleating out 20 moves of theory every day. I mean, it's not coming from the board. There's laptop in there somewhere. Yeah, you mean that. Well, when he's working with Roman, then they have. They just play about no laptops. Yeah, yeah, that's what. So they work on that. But he also works on his openings. I mean, there's evidence to that. I don't need to see interviews. I see it bleating out most every single day. That's the laptop. That's the laptop. The laptop is there somewhere. At some point he goes. Roman goes home. You know, on my father's sleep. And he jumps here and opens his laptop. So there is that. And he probably goes through a very balanced, nice chest training, where he gets to combine the working at the board and working on the laptop as well. Do you think that is the big gain in the level of chest that people will work more. Generally, work much harder than in the old days, that let's say the way you work on openings or that many leading prep masters work on openings. I think the laymen at home have no idea how intense and how deep that goes. And then you have these new training methods. I mean, I was listening to the kind of tests that he subjects his pupils to, I mean, Roman Fidonjak. And that sounds pretty tough. And then you have all these things. And I think it's entirely new to be fair. I mean, I think essentially it is a version of Wreski. It's a version of Wreski. But did he also, let's say, I was thinking about the official visualization test that Ramesh does, where he really expects extraordinary strength at that level. And you think that comes from Doraetski? I don't know maybe it was already before. I'm not really big on chest coaching history. But essentially this whole idea of working by calculating certain positions, trying to solve certain positions, I know it is a Doraetski thing. Maybe it must have been before as well, right? Maybe not better. I don't know that. I think the toughness of the. How deep they went and how far you are? Yeah, in fact, I spoke to Roman. He was educating me a bit on this. He was telling me about influence that he had from coaches in Lviv. Ukraine, back then USSR at some point. He was telling me about older coaches that had influence on him. I don't know what the timeline was if these coaches were before Doraetski or During. But one of them that he mentioned to me was Doraff Mungoz, if Doraff Mungoz. But I met someone else. Doraff Mungoz is not. I met someone from Lviv from Ukraine. He was very specifically if you call it just from Ukraine also. Doraff Mungoz. Yeah, I think the most between the chest professionals, Doraetski is like the OG. He's the OG. But so I think. Personally, I think Roman is. I find him a very likable, very humorous, funny. I had a lot of funny stories with him. I can't even tell. But we had a lot of fun. He's such a. I think he has great vibes. The whole team, I think, there is very much united with that. I think Sinderov, Joe here himself, I think the Skidma Daminov looks super friendly. And the vibes are very good. They're very positive. And I had very pleasant experience working with Roman. So I think that is very important as well to have just be a very positive person. Yeah, that's what Sinderov also stressed. We have a lot of fun too. No, no, no, he's. It's really. He's a very good vibes person. But in terms of how I would view. I mean, I hope he doesn't feel it as an insult or an animal means. But how I would view the training, I would just say that it is his. to Easter his vision on essentially the method of solving positions, which is not new by no means. There are tons of books with solving positions. There is tons of coaches now and before. And of course, Ramezh is very well known. Varysky was known before that. I worked as a kid growing up with this barri of chess school. We had this guy's like some Czechofer, hip-hop, this real master from Russia, giving us positions to solve, blindfold positions to solve. I mean, it was all there, always. It was there. I don't know, a coat of wrote the book about calculation, right? He was probably the OG. Do you think like a grandma's store? Yes. I don't know if he also was encouraging solving exercises or not. But he was the first person I know who was really talking about the theory of population. He was got for some time and now I think it's. You should say that it makes no sense at all. No, of course, let's say he was the first guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Of course, it makes no sense, obviously. But he was probably the first guy who put into writing. Let's us talk about calculation. Like we just acknowledged the elephant in the room. And now I forgot to mention Jakob Agard, Jakob Agard, also prominent. Probably you have to also employ, right? So, Chris, Jacob, in every podcast.
- It is definitely, well, very much influence. - Yeah, and I also had indirect, like I didn't get a chance to, but I indirectly also know Jacob very well and his material has also been very helpful for me as well in the books and also, yeah, he has this whole thing with a lot of positions. So I do not think that Joe Hirschotch, Roman has some kind of sacred, something, and I think that if you give that sacred something to an ordinary player, he will remain an ordinary player but slightly improved. But I think that maybe Joe Hirsch has a special talent which he is able to unleash thanks to work with his coaches. - Yeah, he is. - So I would credit both of them. And not, you know, if you are an ordinary grandmaster, don't, doesn't possess the talent of Joe Hirsch and you instead, you know, you say, okay, Roman, I'll pay you, it's quadriple, leave Joe Hirschum to me. He will do the same with Joe Hirsch, the effects will not be the same. Like I think it really is that he is able to and have a potential of a gruby talented player and I think we should credit Joe Hirschotch as well, a lot of the time. - Well, what I understand is that the philosophy kind of is that you can train your muscles while you can't train your brain so you can make your brain better. And but you might argue that that is already something that started with Vradsky by giving more complicated tasks than people were used to. - Sure, and also there is a thing of like, sorry, but when you're playing a game of chess, you are training those muscles. He's like, remember, you told me that at some point that somebody discovered that the best way to train for penalties was to penalties, right? - Makes sense. - Yeah, because you've missed them. You told me that some football people discovered that. But again, also for penalties, you can probably train shooting from different distances and train other things and shooting into smaller goal and stuff like that, but probably the best way and also probably the best way to improve a chess is to play chess. And you have lots of great players. Magnus is well known hater of solving positions, well known publicly as many times. As many times said that he thinks it's completely useless and he does not really. - So something, yeah. - Yeah. - Something says, Magnus famously says that he says that he thinks it's useless. He says he thinks he's bettered it and he's never really done it and he thinks that he's not needed. So he was able to become who he became without this. - So we believe him that he. - No, no, again, I'm saying that maybe for him, by the way, this is not a big area of. - That he didn't need it. - Or maybe he did. Maybe he became amazing despite this. Maybe imagine Magnus who would be working with Roman. What would you get, Jesus, yeah? Go imagine that. Imagine Magnus and Roman. Oh no, oh no, give me out of here. Yeah, that would be something, right? - It's funny because I asked Roman, if you look back at all the world champions from the old days, I say, what are any of them that you would have loved to work with? I mean, started to glow and he said, "Oh, I love them all, I love them." - Yes, I think Roman thinks for sure, he thinks that if only this Magnus guy would listen to me. We could do so many great things together. He could finally crack 20-100. He could finally, you know, like, I don't even know what is there to achieve for Magnus. And 20-100, maybe 3000. So. - Just imagine what you could talk to the people. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not so simple, let's say. We have John, he also have Magnus. And again, I think that Roman has his own view on this. He has, he's putting in amazing work. Let's say his own twist to this is quite a twist. He puts in a lot of thought into this stuff. And not to take any credit away, he's doing a tremendous job. But I don't think he has discovered entirely a new field of chess, you know? Essentially, essentially, it is a variation on this whole notion of working on chess by solving positions, which is, yeah, Dwarevsky, Agar, Tramish, many others are essentially doing that. - Well, I think he also makes connections to sport science because that was what he was trained in and to his mind, chess is in certain areas, chess is totally underdeveloped. So. - This is absolutely true, of course. And, yeah, I mean, it's very interesting to talk to, I talked to him about all these things. I was very interesting. And I think he has impact on me as well, for sure, without a doubt. And I think a lot of my results lately are also owed to. I didn't do the work with him that Joe here did. But I did do some work with and without him also, where I think he definitely, yeah, he has inspired me, for sure. And just when I met him, it happened to be that I was in a horrible shape. I was at my lowest when I met him first time because I was at the team training camp and I was at my rating low before Olympic. And I remember he told me, right, he said, "It told me that I should just try to become a champion." And I looked like, like, right now. I mean, can I get back to 2730, please, or whatever it was? Why now, do you think I should hear that I want to be. Of course, I want to become a champion, but like, you should have told me that half year later, why now? Like, can I please just. And, yeah, he was very inspiring. And okay, I really thought a lot about the work we did, and tried to implement a lot of things as well. And, yeah, he works very well for Joe here. But again, yeah, it works with Joe here. Magnus didn't do that, right? So everybody has their own approach. And everybody has unique talents, and everybody has certain potentials that they can tap into. And everybody has to discover it for himself, what it is for them. Yeah. And as far as I understand, I mean, all the listeners at home can try it at some point because he's writing a book on this method, so it's. Yeah, but honestly, for the listeners, like, there are plenty of materials. Like, I can only recommend. Of course, there is the whole Dwarisky use of. I think there is. There are. Aguard books are incredible. Like, he has. Okay, again, it's like a sponsored podcast, but it's really. It's well known. I mean, I remember there is this book called "Defense Manual" or something like this. And it has this hammer, yeah, with this. I'm a nice board. It's epic design of the front page. Something camera and some kind of chessboard, I think. There's an attacking manual and a defensive manual. And defensive manual is absolutely epic. Like, the positions there, as a young player, I remember. The. It was a collection of exercises. They were so beautiful all of them. Somehow, I found the defensive exercises more beautiful than attacking. Like, I was already like attacking, of course, I was a big fan of Kasparov. Generally, I love attacking chess as a kid. But all these amazing defensive resources, I found them in some sense, so much more pretty. And I think there is plenty of literature on. Topic of chess calculation, but. And positions to solve. They're all the puzzle books. Yeah. And also, Liches. Has now incredible puzzle database. Liches puzzles are amazing. Really, really amazing. Like, I sometimes solve Liches puzzles, and I start to wonder, like. What else do you need, really? Like, honestly, it's really good stuff. Of course, professional coach. I mean, there's a difference here and there. But it's really good. Yeah. But, you know, it sounds tempting, but it's one of the hardest things to consistently do these. collection exercises. It is extremely hard work, and I'm curious which of the listeners will sustain it. Because it is really, very hard work. With the very little dose of dopamine in the end, far less than what you're used to. Yeah, yeah. Well, then fortunately, that's also other ways you can enjoy chess. Yeah, it's much easier to enjoy it in the other ways. So definitely, yeah, yeah. Sure. You love chess. Why don't you try new in chess? With readers in 116 countries, new in chess is the premier chess magazine in the world. What will you get? Exciting chess games, explained by the best experts in a clear and accessible way on the spot reports of the biggest events. Top notch instruction, independent journalism, chess history that comes to life, and great interviews. New in chess, the way you want it, the beautifully produced paper edition or the digital edition for phone, tablet or PC. Give it a try. Go to our website, newinches.com/magazine for more information about subscriptions and special offers. Now, I think this has been a great and issue or take on the candidates and you own results. The success of Sindarov. The new name that you have to remember listeners, Roman Vydonjak. We haven't spoken about untold chess mates. Shall we skip it? Well, it's painful. It's such a good topic to talk about. Well, let's keep it simple. So we're talking about the Netflix documentary.
entry on Neeman and Carlson. Did you like it? - Yeah, yeah, I was surprised to see, I sort of knew that, not fully, but I had already guessed what has transpired. I had guessed that basically Magnus felt misled by batches that come by Danny essentially. I have felt that, but he just literally said it, it shocked me. I mean, but I guess they have agreed that, they'll make Danny a scapegoat, Danny's a nice guy, he has a book on his crazy life. He was wrong, he admits it, it's okay, he moves on, just a con logo is on the Netflix, it's also good. But I was surprised, basically as far as I understood, they just made a scapegoat out of Danny, put all the scenes on him. And Magnus is good, Hans is amazing, everybody's good, even Eric Calabest is good, he's just Danny's fault, everything for him. And Danny's there like, yeah, I was wrong, whatever, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and I was like, yeah, sure, they'll love you. You're also like of Lenny, and you can make mistakes, and he already made Lenny and his nice guy. So I think it was a happy and story, and now Hans is also, he has his end-game AI venture. And I also, I also started my thing, which is what I wanted to write. And in a way, it's so nice when you have something of your own, and not just working for others, as an ambassador to other projects, which is what Monsters players did for a long time or do. It is so nice when you feel like you have your own project that you can, in your free time, you don't have to anymore think about what else you're doing, which contracts you have with Vitch Company, what is their vision, that's the line with yours. Do you like chess.com, you wanna work with them or not, or is there a competitor now, like we'll do these things, and what do you want to promote? And just doing some project where you can do what you really want to do without having to compromise with anybody, I think for Hans, it's this end-game AI thing right now. For me, it's my project as well. - Tell us about your project, or what is it called and what does it bring? - Yeah, basically I started this chess monitor. It's already a website that Company basically that already existed before me. Somebody I discovered it, it was a nice tool to quickly look up games of players on their liches or chess.com accounts. And it basically had like a database, very nice way to see the games in like a three form, there was like a chess engine. So I was using it to just look at online accounts of players, because you have sometimes not preparing for some players that play a lot online, like he carls, let's say. And there was very easy to look up all his games online, because you know, what I used to do, like on chess base, you could just see the regular games, but here it was very easy and very fast. So I liked to use it a bit, but I thought it's a very small niche product that, this was very nice, clean, very little, like very small, and then I got in touch with the developer, and eventually, you know, I realized that I had a lot of plans that I wanted to do, a lot of projects, like mostly, I want to of course bring out my opening content, like how I did for Chessable, but to do it in a way that I want to do it in a format that I want to do it without having to compromise. And I realized that just under kind of a perfect foundation for that, because to build it in an environment that already has the like, he has, you know, basically the backend for like the database, and he has all these things that he already built, and what I want to build is basically, he basically restarted. And I can just sort of continue where he left off in a way, and he can continue together, and I can then do all my opening content there, and I don't have to, because you know, sometimes I wonder, with Chessable, they tell me, "Yeah, make this." At some point, they said, "I have to make neither for noobs," you know, sounds very good, by the way, but catch a name. I give that. But you know, I mean, they had their own vision because they want to go for a wider audience, which is even weaker, which I think doesn't need my courses. They need other courses. He won Roman history early for them, right? So here I can do content in a way that I want to do, and I was really lucky that I met Thomas, who was behind this Chess Monitor, who could do it with me. And I think it's really a nice thing that you can have something build something like this yourself, and there are only few players that are blessed enough to have that. And Magnus is one, of course, who had this epic set of companies that he was a part of, and Hans is our Chessmate. He also has it now, and I was very lucky that, even though I don't have their kind of fame, I was still able to be lucky enough to find partner in Thomas, and I can do awesome on project. And it's a very slow thing, because you know, I'm also really busy now playing. I was planning to do more there, but with Candidus, of course, I had to delay my content production. First, I have to use my content for my own games. But eventually, I will, it's a slow project, and now also we actually even have a nap, where I can prepare for the games. It's kind of like a little. Everything is there. You can look up the player. There's a mega base. I could make a base. There's a master database. The engine is there, so all the essentials are there. And eventually, I also want to put my content on the app, and then basically you have a nice app for preparation. It's a very niche kind of product, right? It's for people that actually prepare for their games, which is not that big market that just at Comis all aiming for, but it's something that, you know, where I feel I can make the most impact. And I think there is a big potential there, because it's a lot of players that are young and up and coming. You know, the future, like the not even fast in a row, but even the smaller one, like the future top players, the future grandmasters, or chess fans that are very serious. We have those chess fans that play weekly games in their club, but they are preparing very hard. In Holland, it's very popular. In Holland, you have a lot of these guys who are like feed the masters or even club players, and they are not very strong, but they re-like their openings and they prepare. So it is for people that actually prepare, you know? And this is a small market, but on one hand, it's a market of people that are actually ready to spend on chess, which is nice. But more than that, why I would do this, because that's where I can make an impact, right? Because this is where, for them, it makes a difference. Is it my course, or is the course of a random player, who is also good, but not as knowledgeable as me in openings? Whereas for a beginner, I can't make that impact. In fact, if I'll teach a beginner, I will do a worse job than a teacher of the beginner, because they know better. Sometimes I see some videos like Lavi, Guestilo, whatever. He knows he can predict moves of beginner so much better. He's been a coach for young kids, and he can teach kids a lower-rated player so much better than me. But what I do best is do this opening work for serious kind of apps, players that are serious about openings. And I think that this is something where I can make an impact. And okay, whether it will be like a big business thing or not, I don't know, but at least it's something where I know that if I have free time outside of my chess, or if I want to do something for the future, then this is something where I can do it. Yeah, my soul. - So chessmonitor.com. That's where I can find more about this project. - Great, Anish. Well, thank you very much. It's really nice to meet here in Pufffles Cypress. We're sitting on the seven floor of a fine hotel. - Yeah, the view is amazing, for sure. - The Mediterranean is out there. - I took the picture of this little, I don't know if it's an island or a rock, like it's something in between. I have taken a picture of the thing from all angles. I have a phone gallery of this little rock. It's just, one of them is uploaded on Twitter, by the way. It's just a. - Oh, okay, okay, it's beautiful thing. I don't know, do you think it's an island or a rock? - Yeah, both. (laughing) I will check on your Insta page on this island rock. Okay, well, thanks a lot, Anish and a good luck with everything you're doing. - Thank you, Rican. Thank you very much, Scott. (upbeat music) - Thank you for listening to this episode of the New Inches Podcast. The New Inches Podcast can be listened to on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and the New Inches website. To leave a comment, go to our socials or email us directly at
[email protected]. If this podcast has gotten you in a mood to redefine chess book or to subscribe to the wonderful New Inches magazine, then please have a look at our shop on our website. Newinches.com, where you can treat yourself to a great read. We thank our sponsors at DGT for their support and hope to have you back for a new episode of the New Inches Podcast. (upbeat music)
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