Top Grandmasters VS Our Students



Most chess learners enjoy watching/reading the games’ analyses made by top Grandmasters. This is exciting indeed!
At the same time, however, these comments are often not very clear to the viewer/reader.
To illustrate this idea, I’ve selected a random game from YouTube to analyze. The video started from the following position:
Anand-Gelfand, WC 2012

White’s turn
Svidler, a strong GM who was commenting on this game, said the following: “Obviously White played 10.Nd2 here, because in case of 10.Bb2 he disliked that Black can play 10…c4 or 10…e4.”
Yikes! Is it clear to you why the above mentioned moves are the best? And is it so “obvious” to you? :)
The problem is: those 2700+ players are too far away from you. Maybe their rating is 1000 points higher! Yes, they were on the same level with you, but that was 20-30 years ago!!
It’s not surprising that their comments have little in common with you. In fact such analyses can be completely useless. For example, despite your best efforts, you can’t adopt their ideas because they are too “distant” for you.
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That’s why I decided upon a bit of an unusual idea. Instead of using Grandmasters’ commentaries, sometimes I’ll publish games of the students of our Remote Chess Academy. They are “normal guys”, just like you. :) Not too long ago they had a rating similar to yours. Thus you can understand and adopt their successful techniques more easily.
During my coaching experience, I’ve noticed one typical thing. It’s very useful for a chess learner to communicate with other learners who are a BIT more advanced.
Since they are more advanced, you can imitate their successful ideas. Also, since they are not too distant from you, you really CAN do it.
Besides having an impact on your chess development, it INSPIRES you. You see that other people, who were similar to you, are seeing good progress now. And you ask yourself a good question: “Why can’t I do the same?”
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A few days ago I received a message from one of our students. Recently he got a quite good rating progress.
I asked him to comment 1 of his games, and expose his thoughts. I’m sure it’ll be interesting and useful for you to observe it.
You can download the game here –> LINK
Notes:
- All comments are written by Jose, we only corrected mistakes in his English.
- If you don’t know how to open *.pgn files – read this: LINK 
Below is an e-mail that I received from this player.
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Hi my dear friend Igor,
I am Jose Gascón! (http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=3902463) I want to talk about the course Endgame Expert, and how it made a great impact on my chess skills and results…
Like the big majority of young players, I was a player who always tried to avoid the endgame, simply because I didn’t understand it… but you made that change! The clear way that you explain how the GM thinks during an endgame made me open my eyes! And the results are proven by practice because I was able to draw in slighty inferior endings against GM Jorge Cori in the WYCC 2011 and also against GM Walter Arencibia in the Douglas Martinez Open 2011. I also beat Elite GM Lazaro Bruzon and GM Carlos Matamoros in equal endgames. Both of those games were blitz, but using the ideas that you give in the course, you can find strong moves very very quickly!
In the last months, I’ve improved my rating from 2182 to 2251 in a country where it’s not easy to increase your rating, and I thought that my new endgame technique helped in that!
I wish you success,                                       Jose Gascón
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If a 16-years-old boy from Venezuela was able to improve his endgame skills (and even beat some GMs!), then why can’t YOU do the same? Of course you can (and should) do it!
In order to support you on this way, I’ll keep publishing games and stories of other students from time to time. And I hope that one of the next success stories will be about YOU!
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P.S.: In the previous lessons we’ve been talking about a PLAN for your ongoing chess progress. I’ll publish a continuation of that lesson soon. In the meanwhile you may repeat/study the first 2 parts:
Part 1: http://gmigorsmirnov.blogspot.com/2013/01/what-is-your-plan.html
Part 2: http://gmigorsmirnov.blogspot.com/2013/01/what-is-your-plan-part-2.html
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