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20 Questions

Interviews with the Movers and Shakers of the Chess World
 

We like to play here at Chessville, and not only chess!

Join us, as we play 20 Questions with some of the movers and shakers of the chess world.  Hear their views on chess affairs, both current and past, along with their thoughts on the future.

Our partners are not only players, but also chess organizers, arbiters, politicians, and sponsors.  Here are interviews with...


                    

 

GM Joel Lautier
of the Association of Chess Professionals

(December 2003)  GM Joel Lautier, former World Junior Champion (1988), is currently ranked #32 in the latest FIDE rating list at 2666, and is a founding member of the Association of Chess Professionals.  GM Lautier recently agreed to play 20 Questions with Chessville.  "I'd like to state the obvious: the professional chess world is currently in a complete mess.  Matches for the reunification have been announced and cancelled several times over the past year by the FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.  The final result looks like a joke..."

GM Mark Taimanov

(April 2004)  International Grandmaster Mark Taimanov was one of the best chess-players in the world for more than half a century.  He was twice a World Championship Challenger (1953, 1971), Chess Olympiad World Champion (1956), four times the European champion, World Champion among students (1955), twice the Senior World Champion (1993, 1994), USSR Champion (1956), and the winner and/or prizewinner in more than 80 international tournaments.  Taimanov is the author of more than 20 books on the theory and practice of chess, and has been published in many different countries and languages.

Taimanov's parallel career as a concert pianist was also of world-class stature.  He and his long-time partner, Lyubov Bruk, were recognized as the best piano ensemble of the Twentieth century, and were included in the series "Great Pianists of the Twentieth Century" by the Philips and Steinway companies.
 

Chessville is both fortunate and honored to have been joined in preparing these first two interviews by Dr. William Hyde, who previously wrote for the now defunct Kasparov Chess site..

Dr. Hyde is currently a research scientist at Duke University.  In the past seventeen years he has held academic or research positions at Goddard Space Flight Center, Dalhousie University, and Texas A&M University.

Chess history has interested him "ever since he noticed that Staunton won quite a few matches without, according to Horowitz, Chernev, et al, really knowing how the pieces moved.  Into his then-young mind came the thought that perhaps chess history books tended to be slightly less than reliable.  This inspired a change in his chess-related reading, so that he now knows more about, e.g. Lasker than about Lasker's defense."


USCF President Beatriz Marinello

 

(June 2004)  USCF PResident Beatriz Marinello is the first woman to hold that post, and the strongest chess player to hold the post since GM Max Dlugy.  A National Woman's Champion of Chile, her native country, at age 16, she became an WIM in 1985.  She started organizing chess events at the age of 20, and befcame involved in promoting Scholastic Chess in 1991.  She takes over the righns of the USCF at a crossroads in the organization's future.  Decreasing membership, financial instability, controversy ofer the selection of the Women's Olympiad team - she has plenty on her plate these days.  Chessville appreciates her taking time to play 20 Questions!

 

 

GM Susan Polgar


(July 2004)  GM Susan Polgar, 4-time World Chess Champion and 3-time Olympic Champion, and a living legend in the chess world, despite her still young age.  The list of her achievements and firsts in chess is truly impressive, not the least of which is being the only World Champion (male or female) to win the Triple-Crown in Chess: Rapid, Blitz and Standard Time Control World Championships.

See what she has to say on topics like: her upbringing, her goals and aspirations for promoting chess, training with the World's #1 Garry Kasparov, the state of chess (and chess politics!) in the US, training secrets, the use of technology in chess, and much more.

 

 


Taylor Kingston


For the past several years, Taylor Kingston has been a frequent contributor to chess literature, as a reviewer, reporter, analyst, author of historical articles, and book editor.  His book credits include Heroic Tales: The Best of ChessCafe.com 1996-2001, which he edited and co-wrote, and The Life and Games of Carlos Torre by Gabriel Velasco, which he translated from Spanish.  An avid student of chess history, his historical articles have appeared in Chess Life, Inside Chess, Kingpin, and Chess Horizons, and his many book reviews at www.chesscafe.com have earned him a reputation for both fairness and stern candor.  He has ranked among USCF’s top 50 correspondence masters, and is a Class A OTB player.  A native of San Diego, California (born 1949), Kingston now lives in Vermont with his wife and two daughters, and works as a computer programmer in the banking industry.
 


Tim Krabbé

It was some years ago that I had first had the pleasure of discovering Tim Krabbé ’s wonderful Chess Curiosities site at http://www.timkrabbe.nl/chess.  What a wealth of information! Problems, studies, games, comments on current chess events ~ all instructive and entertaining, and often provocative.  Like Tim Krabbé himself.

Tim Krabbé writes of himself:  Born 13 April 1943, writer, chess lover, former bicycle racer.  Claim to fame in cycling: my novel The Rider.  Claim to fame in chess: my web-site Chess Curiosities.  Good friend & ex-wife Liz gave me 1 son: Esra (17) who speaks, understands, reads and writes Japanese fluently.  Hats off!  For more, see http://www.timkrabbe.nl/text/bibleng.html or http://www.timkrabbe.nl/chess/bio.htm.
 

GM Maurice Ashley
 

Born March 6, 1966 in St. Andrew, Jamaica, Maurice's family moved to Brooklyn when he was 12.  He is the first and only African-American to attain chess’ highest title of International Grandmaster.  Active in many different areas of chess promotion now, Ashley remains dedicated to promoting chess with children.  Find out who motivates him, what challenges he faced as a pioneering Black chess player in the USA, the latest in his fight against the so-called "GM-draw", what he thinks needs to change for the US to produce more home-grown GMs, and what he thinks is really going to make the difference in chess.

 

GM András Adorján
 
This fascinating interview with the famous author of Black Is OK! runs nearly 15,000 words!  Former World Championship Candidate, he was also European Junior Champion and finished 2nd behind Anatoli Karpov at the World Junior Championship in 1969.  Read in Part One what he has to say about working as second to Kasparov & Leko, China's emergence as a world chess power, short draws, the world championship, and teaching chess to young people, among other topics.  In Part Two, GM Adorján expounds on such subjects as the state of chess in his native Hungary, his Black is OK! philosophy, match preparation, the Elo system, chess psychology, plans for the future, and more, including two of his poems!

 

GM Alexandra Kosteniuk
 

Alexandra was officially awarded the GM (men's) title at the 2004 FIDE Congress.  She is the 10th woman in history to get that title, and the first Russian.  She recently became the 2005 Russian Woman's Champion with an incredible result or 9/11.  Chessville appreciates Alexandra's willingness to play 20 Questions with us!  Read what she has to say about childhood heroes, her twin careers as GM & Super-Model, the tension of playing against male chessplayers, family and more!

 

GM Raymond Keene
 
GM Keene has been an influential figure on the world chess scene for over thirty years, as a player, organizer, and author.  Read about smuggling secrets past the KGB, see what he thinks about the "modern" game of chess, his most-feared opponent, and why Kasparov dominated chess for so long.  Find out his prediction for which country will soon surpass Russia as the dominate chess power in the world, the critical challenge facing FIDE, and what he found amidst a cache of chess materiel discovered at the home of Marcel Duchamp, in France.


Other Interviews at Chessville

 

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