Perpetual Chess Podcast

I'm Ben Johnson and I welcome you to the Perpetual Chess podcast. In this quick-hitter I explain why I created this podcast and what my goals are for it. I hope you enjoy it. Learn more at PerpetualChessPod.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Douglas Griffin is a chess author/blogger, translator, and an indispensable source of historical chess perspective on “chess twitter”. He is particularly interested and knowledgeable about chess in the Soviet Union. Doug is also a strong player. As a teen, he was one of Scotland’s stronger junior players. His FIDE rating reached about 2270, before his family, his work and his strong interest in chess history overtook his interest in tournament participation. While Doug may not be as well-known as some of the Grandmasters and personalities that have been on the show, our talk was one I looked forward to, and sure enough, it was highly informative and inspiring.. For more information about Doug, you can check out his blog, and his twitter page. Please keep reading for timestamps and many fun links and resources. 0:00- Intro and discussion of Doug’s intro to the chess world. Mentioned in this segment, GMs Anatoly Karpov, Tony Miles, VIktor Korchnoi. The BBC show, The Master Game 6:00-How did Doug improve in chess and develop an interest in Soviet-era chess and the Russian language? He owes a debt of gratitude to his former teacher IM Danny Kopec, among others. 9:00- Doug transitions to telling some stories about some of the chess greats he encountered early in their careers. Players mentioned are those he saw at the Lloyds Bank London 1984- GM Vishy Anand, Ivanchuk, Spassky, Nigel Short. You can read a bit more about the Lloyds Bank tournament in this Chessbase article by Priyadarshan Banjan Read Doug’s blog post about the Troon 1984 tournament he mentions and about GM Lev Psakhis in his blog post here. 14:30- How did Doug learn Russian, and where does he get all of the original sources for his blog? Magazines mentioned: Shakhmatny Bulletin , Chess in the U.S.S.R. and “64” Doug bought a lot of his Soviet chess magazine’s from Kimmo Välkesalmi's website. Translator named in this segment: Ken Neat 25:00- Friend/supporter of the podcast, John Hartmann of Chess Life Online (and author of CLO’s Throwback Thursday) writes in to ask whether Doug has any plans of turning his material into a book and/or launching a Patreon page. Mentioned in this segment; Ilan Rubin of Elk and Ruby. . 31:45- We discuss an excerpt of Doug’s most recent blog post, which unearthed a great and prescient quote from former World Champion GM Mikhail Botvinnik regarding an ascendant Bobby Fischer. Read Doug’s blog post here. 38:00- Are there any Soviet periodicals or books that Doug is especially excited to translate? Mentioned in this segment:, IM John Donaldson and IM Nikolay Minev’s books about The Life and Games of Akiba Rubinstein, GM Razuvaev and Murahveri’s Russian language Rubinstein biography. Nikolai Krylenko is also mentioned 43:00- Chris Wainscott writes in to ask if Doug has favorite lesser-known Soviet chess players. Doug mentions Andor Lilienthal, Isaac Boleslavsky, Semyon Furman, Ratmir Kholmov, Grigory Levenfish (about whom Doug is writing a book) Books mentioned by GM Genna Sosonko: Russian Silhoettes, The Reliable Past, Smart Chip from St. Petersburg and other tales of a bygone chess era Also mentioned GMs John Shaw and Jacob Aagard, co-founders of Quality Chess 53:00- Doug and I wax nostalgic about The Chess Informant and he discusses some exciting upcoming projects on which he will work with their publishers. 56:30- Doug names of a few of his favorite chess books amongst those that have been published in the English language. They are: Botvinnik’s Best Games, Smyslov’s Best Games, The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal , Anatoly Karpov: My 300 Best Games , Kasparov on Kasparov, Leonid Stein: Master of RIsk Strategy 1:00- Doug reflects a bit on what helped him become a strong chess player. He credits reading voraciously and being blessed with a good memory. 1:05- On the heels of GM Neil McDonald’s story of meeting legendary GM David Bronstein, Doug shares his own story . Also mentioned in this segment: Jon Speelman, Julian Hodgson, Paul Motwani, Colin McNab, Jonath Rowson, Bojan Kurajica 1:09- Reluctantly, we discuss non-chess related stuff. Doug discusses his day job and his affinity for hiking and photography. Check out his landscape photography site here. The Dutch online photo archive Doug mentions is here. 1:13- Goodbye! A friendly reminder to read Doug’s blog here, follow him on twitter here, You can email him here. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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This week we have a special edition of Perpetual Chess, as the two first adult improver guests return to the show to update us on the state of their chess games, their lives, and their improvement regimens. The guests are Andrzej Krzydwa and Stacia Pugh, who both originally appeared on the show 2+ years ago (links to their interviews below.) Andrzej is a Polish small business owner, dad and programmer who manages to devote a ton of time to his chess improvement. At the time of our first interview he had just earned an IM norm by posting a dazzling 2579 performance rating in a tournament called the Katowice Spring 2018 . Stacia is a former professional cornhole player who now devotes all of her time to studying chess and teaching with Ohio’s Progress with Chess. At the time of our first interview she had gained 300 rating points in the prior years, and Stacia exuded an evident passion for chess improvement. Both guests come back with new improvement tips in addition to a continued appreciation of some of their favorite study methods mentioned in their first interviews. Lastly, I wanted to thank another former adult improver guest, Jason Cigan. A follow up with Jason was originally planned to be part 3 of this episode, but through no fault of Jason’s we encountered technical issues that forced me to postpone that interview. Please read on for more details and show notes.  Episode 76 with Andrzej Krzydwa, June 3,2018 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-76-andrzej-krzywda-adult-improver-series/id1185023674?i=1000413058930   Episode 87 with Stacia Pugh, August 14, 2018: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-87-stacia-pugh-adult-improver-series/id1185023674?i=1000417781378 0:00- Here is the info you need for the announcements made at the top of the show.    If you are interested in signing up for the randomized trial of best improvement methods sign up at the following link or email [email protected] I make a couple of announcements at the top of Tuesday’s episode.   First, a devoted improver is going to run a proper randomized trial of best improvement methods. It is only for certain ratings, but go to the link below to get all the details. Matt is hoping to run a similar study in the future for higher rated players as well.  https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=DQSIkWdsW0yxEjajBLZtrQAAAAAAAAAAAAN__g8mdqpUOVhEQTBKRUlKQzNDQTlVMDdWUkpOR0s5Ti4u You can find more information about the Perpetual Chess Happy Hour here:  https://www.perpetualchesspod.com/happyhour    6:00- Andrzej  Krzyydwa rejoins the show, and we dive right into an update of how his chess games have been going.  Mentioned: Kasparov on Kasparov    11:45- What does Andrzej  notice from analysing his games? What are the tournament fields like in Poland?  Mentioned: GM Bartosz Soćko     19:30- Andrzej  discusses the ways that he finds chess competition meditative, and also discusses his actual meditation practice.    23:00- How is Andrzej able to maintain his morale when results aren’t going as well as he would like? He also answers a question from the Patreon mailbag about whether or not he ever suffers from chess burnout, and he gives a few improvement recommendations.  Mentioned: GM David Navara, Perpetual Chess Episode 173 with Philemon Thomas, 365ChessAcademy.com, Chessable.com, Hiarcs Chess Explorer, ChessPublishing.com, FM Kamil Plichta    32:00- Thanks to Andrzej for coming back on the show, you can keep up with him via the following outlets: Facebook page- https://www.facebook.com/From2100ToInternationalMaster Twitter- https://twitter.com/From2100ToIM   33:00- Perpetual Chess Yasser Seirawan’s classic book Winning Chess Strategies is now available on Chessable.com! Check out a free sample of it here:  https://www.chessable.com/winning-chess-strategies-free-lesson/course/50034/   33:30- Stacia Pugh rejoins the show to talk about how her life and chess have progressed since our previous conversation.  NM Michael Joelson, IM Calvin Blocker, IM Marc Esserman, Stacia’s blog is here: https://www.chess.com/member/midnaslament    44:00- Why did Stacia revamp her opening repertoire, and how has it affected her results?    49:00- In our first interview Stacia was an advocate of the use of flashcards, does she still believe in them? She also delves into her current chess study regimen.  Mentioned: The Art of Checkmate, Progress with Chess’ Tuesday Tussle    56:00- We revisit Stacia’s top 10 improvement tips, shared in our first interview.    59:00- Stacia shares her advice regarding how to deal with burnout in chess.    1:00:00- Have Stacia’s goals changed since our first conversation?    1:01:00- Thanks to Stacia for stopping by and catching up.  Here is how to keep up with her: Chess.com blog-https://www.chess.com/member/midnaslament YouTube- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn2k14U03rNRHApDIloxOkA Twitter- https://twitter.com/StaciaMelinda See omnys...