All Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz interviews

by Macauley Peterson
8/19/2017 – Following on the heels of the Sinquefield Cup, the Saint Louis Blitz and Rapid lasted just five days, with each webcast lasting about 4½ hours. Most player interviews took place at the end of the day, after the rapid or blitz games concluded. For posterity, we've once again compiled quick links to all those post-game chats with Maurice Ashley and Cristian Chirila. | Photos: Lennart Ootes

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Rapid review

The format of rapid and blitz meant that most players only descended to the commentary webcast studio once per day at the end of play, but by then they were typically talkative, making for instructive and light-hearted banter. But they also stood for spot interviews between rounds with GM Cristian Chirila.

To make it easy to review these interviews, we've linked to the start of each one from within the full round videos provided by the Grand Chess Tour, via the Chess Club and Scholastic Center's YouTube channel.

Of course Garry Kasparov was the star of the show, and we heard from him one more time after the tournament's conclusion:

Garry Kasparov's final interview | Source: CCSCSL on YouTube

Master Class Vol.7: Garry Kasparov

On this DVD a team of experts gets to the bottom of Kasparov's play. In over 8 hours of video running time the authors Rogozenko, Marin, Reeh and Müller cast light on four important aspects of Kasparov's play: opening, strategy, tactics and endgame.

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Feature on Kasparov's return (Day 4) | Source: CCSCSL on YouTube

Day 1 - Rapid rounds 1-3

Round 1
Round 2
Round 3

Day 2 - Rapid rounds 4-6

No Round 4 Interviews

Round 5
Round 6

Day 3 - Rapid rounds 7-9

Round 7
No Round 8 Interviews

Round 9

Day 4 - Blitz rounds 1-9

Longer interviews following Round 9:

Thoughts on wildcards | Source: CCSCSL on YouTube

Day 5 - Blitz rounds 10-18

 
Longer interviews following Round 18:

Hikaru Nakamura was dissatisfied, but still finished shared second | CCSCSL on YouTube

Levon Aronian's winner's interview | CCSCSL on YouTube

Links

Topics: Fabiano Caruana, Garry Kasparov, Grand Chess Tour 2017, Hikaru Nakamura, Ian Nepomniachtchi, Levon Aronian, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Peter Svidler, Sergey Karjakin, Sinquefield Cup, Viswanathan Anand
Macauley is Editor in Chief of ChessBase News in Hamburg, Germany, and producer of The Full English Breakfast chess podcast. He was an Associate Producer of the 2016 feature documentary, Magnus.
Discussion and Feedback Join the public discussion or submit your feedback to the editors

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All London Chess Classic interviews

12/11/2017 – The official Grand Chess Tour webcast is a treasure trove of information, and the best, most convenient way to hear directly from the players after nearly every game. But at five hours or more, it can be tiresome to scan through each days full show to find the interesting guests spots. No more! We've pinpointed every major interview for one-click access.
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London Chess Classic 2017 LIVE

12/11/2017 – Ian Nepomniachtchi and Fabiano Caruana tied for first place after nine rounds, leading to a blitz playoff, won by Caruana. But Magnus Carlsen took the Grand Chess Tour as a whole. The GCT finale was the 9th London Chess Classic, a 10-player round-robin, with a prize fund of USD $300,000. The LCC will return in 2018 with a new format.
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Video

The Botvinnik System in the English opening

The setup for White recommended by Valeri Lilov is solid and easy to play – the thematic moves are almost always the same ones: Nge2, 0-0, Bg5 (or Be3), Nd5, Qd2. Later, according to Black’s setup, things continue with f4 or even Rac1, b4 and play on the queenside. Starting with the classic Botvinnik-Spassky, Leiden 1970, the author describes this universally employable setup in 7 videos (+ intro and conclusion).

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Raymond Labelle Raymond Labelle 8/20/2017 07:22
Not every chess player has this syndrome, but some of them (not that rarely): that feeling that they should win all their games if things went normally - a loss is an accident or undeserved.
Karbuncle Karbuncle 8/19/2017 08:42
@ Tom, it's why I love 3-min with no delay or increment. I've won thousands of blitz games where I was much worse and often totally lost, but I had over a minute left to my opponent's 5 seconds, and I'd win on time. I use the clock to base my level of thought on, although I will admit I perform worse with increment blitz, where my opponent will build back up to plenty of spare time to win the position from.
ivanw ivanw 8/19/2017 06:02
Well said "Tom Box"
Tom Box Tom Box 8/19/2017 05:25
It’s irritating when people win games they lost in the post-mortem. In the interview Kasparov kept saying how he had a better position and then blew it. That is the nature of blitz: time vs quality. Kasparov was consistently spending more time on the clock, so it is natural that he might get a better position, but then he blundered when short on time; the price you often pay for thinking too long. Always smug in victory, Kasparov is an ungracious loser.
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