Frederic's mates - How I met Anatoly Karpov

by Arne Kaehler
11/12/2022 – Anatoly Karpov was the sixth of the twelve World Chess Champions whom Frederic met. In our new weekly series he tells us how he met and befriended the top players, and the adventures they experienced together. Frederic has written a new book, together with Professor Christian Hesse, with fascinating chess stories from the last 50 years. It appeared (first in German) in October.
On this DVD a team of experts looks closely at the secrets of Karpov's games. In more than 7 hours of video, the authors examine four essential aspects of Karpov's superb play.

Frederic's Mates

Through the years, Frederic Friedel had many encounters with chess players, and he became friends with most of the World Chess Champions. Frederic recounts various anecdotes and stories about the experiences from each of his mates in chronological sequence.

A "slam" is when you get all the hearts and the black Maria. The opponents get 149 penalties. Garry managed one slam, I had two. Anatoly none. The winner of the game is the player with the lowest total penalty score.

 

Frederic: "Here's a scoresheet from January 28, 1986, around 5:30 pm in Lucerne. How do I know the exact time? The Space Shuttle Challenger exploded at that time above the Atlantic while we were playing."

Schachgeschichten –
a chess book by Frederic Friedel and Christian Hesse

In tandem with the renowned chess expert Prof. Christian Hesse, he lets us share his encounters with world champions Mikhail Botvinnik, Mikhail Tal, Boris Spassky, Bobby Fischer, Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik, Viswanathan Anand, Magnus Carlsen.

The initial edition of Schachgeschichten is in German and can be ordered on Amazon Germany. In the book sample ("Blick ins Buch" you can read the foreword by Garry Kasparov, and endorsements by Kramnik, Judit Polgar, Hou Yifan, Helmut Pfleger (with additional blurbs by Magnus Carlsen and Vishy Anand on the book cover). They essentially confirm that Fred's stories about them are enjoyable, accurate, and approved. E.g.

I first met Frederic Friedel when I was thirteen, and we have enjoyed an enduring personal friendship ever since. His ability to recognize extraordinary talent and his descriptions of how he accompanyed them to the very top of the chess world is really unique. Christian Hesse’s mathematical chess problems were quite new to me, and left me quite fascinated. I hadn’t seen anything like it before. – Hou Yifan, four-time Women's World Chess Champion. - Hou Yifan

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Arne Kaehler, a creative mind who is passionate about board games in general, was born in Hamburg and learned to play chess at a young age. By teaching chess to youth teams and creating chess-related videos on YouTube, Arne was able to expand this passion and has even created an online course for anyone who wants to learn how to play chess. Arne writes for the English and German news sites, but focuses mainly on content for the ChessBase media channels.

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