Surya Ganguly's peak rating was as high as 2676 points. Currently, his Elo rating has slid down to 2592, but as they say, form is temporary and class is permanent. The Indian grandmaster is participating at the Masters Open Tournament in Biel and has so far scored 4½/7 points.
In a unique interview, he shares anecdotes from his lengthy chess career and responds to rather unexpected questions.
More interviews from Biel on our YouTube channel...
In this video course, GM Surya Ganguly joins IM Sagar Shah and, drawing from his colossal experience, shares some uncommon endgame wisdom. The material mostly features positions with rook against rook and a pawn, and starts by covering the fundamentals: Lucena, Philidor, and Vancura. But it quickly enters non-trivial territory, likely to challenge even masters: the slippery theoretical nuances of dealing with doubled pawns and pawns on the f- and h-files.
Surya presents some ingenious "rules of thumb" to tackle these knotty endings, and at the same time, underscores the importance of actual calculation and understanding, so as not to fall into some crude reductionist trap.
Through this course, he promises something no instructor would ordinarily promise: uncertainty! His aim is not knowing everything - which is a chimera that can only stem from naivety - but realising one can never know enough and, thus, being watchfully comfortable in the uncertainty this realisation affords.
