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

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.

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

Macauley served as the Editor in Chief of ChessBase News from July 2017 to March 2020. He is the producer of The Full English Breakfast chess podcast, and was an Associate Producer of the 2016 feature documentary, Magnus.

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