BOTW: 2015.08.13
Practice. Simply playing over and over again: blitz games (5-minute games) plus tournaments. I think this is still the best way to get better at chess. The thing is: if you learn something through coaching or you try to read it from books, you don’t get this feeling of playing it over the board – it’s very abstract in your head – whereas if you play it a few times you get this kind of real-world practical experience and you understand the concepts much better.
Vishy Anand lecture at Madras Tech
That's one of the things you'll hear from the five-time World Champion during this 60 minute talk at the Indian Institute of Technology at Madras.
Some of it will be familiar for those who know Anand's career -- learning the moves from his mom, improving by playing "winner sits" blitz for hours on Sundays, the concerned advice about the dangers of a chess career from an old man on a train who didn't recognize him -- but there's new stuff on how he's rebounded from a few years of sub-par performances.
After a short intro, Anand gives a 30 minutes summary of his career, then there's a Q&A, including:
- What do you do to prepare for a specific opponent, and more generally?
- Luck, success, passion, and making a living...?
- Which chess piece do you identify yourself with?
- Define Magnus Carlsen (?)
- Do you remember ever going completely blank during a game? (A: sadly, more often than I'd like; e.g. blindfold games, calculating complex variations and forgetting where he is.)
- Being asked about retirement? (...again and again, sometimes by the very same journalist)
- Most memorable games? (e.g. 1997 over Lautier at Biel; last three wins against Aronian; against Nakamura in Zeurich)
- Other sports? (badminton, tennis, table tennis, swimming, running, cycling)
- Indian dish (I didn't recognize) vs Spanish Paella? (I've never missed paella)
Lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnXsY6s31Uc
Slightly poor audio quality (a lot of buzzing) is a mild annoyance. If you'd prefer a summary with quotes, you can find it on Chess24: https://chess24.com/en/read/news/an-hour-long-lecture-by-vishy-anand
Russian Championship (Aug 9 - 21, 2015)
The men's event is a 12-player RR with an average Elo of 2694, including Karjakin, Jakovenko, Tomashevsky and seven-time champion Peter Svidler. The women's event is also a 12-player RR, with an average Elo of 2460, and is currently led by former women's World Champion Alexandra Kosteniuk, women's world rapid champion Kateryna Lagno, and 17-year-old Aleksandra Goryachkina with 3.5/5.
There is commentary in English by GM Evgeny Miroshnichenko (and Russian by Sergei Shipov), but they are playing in Chita, Russia (due north of Beijing) and so there is a huge time zone difference, with games starting at 3am EST.
90th French Championship (Aug 9 - 20, 2015)
Top seed Etienne Bacrot is one of five 2600+ GMs playing in the 12-player RR. Almira Skripchenko is the top woman in the women's 12-player RR. Games start at 3 pm local, 9 am EST and they have live commentary (en Francais) with GM Eric Prié.
http://saintquentin2015.ffechecs.org/live-2/live-national/