Grandmaster Chef: Ian Nepomniachtchi

Nepo

Grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi’s nickname, at least among Americans, is “Nepo.” For us, Nepo is easier to spell and say than Nepomniachtchi. While currently attention is focused on Nepo for being a co-leader, with Grandmaster Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, of the postponed 2020 Candidates, Nepo has a long history of excellent chess results.

His website prominently features three of his accomplishments, all of which are covered in ChessBase articles too: Winner of Dortmund 2018, 2010 Russian National Champion, and 2014 World Blitz Championship silver medalist. Nepo is part of the online 2020-2021 Champions Chess Tour, and played in its inaugural tournament, the Skilling Open.

Nepo sharing a laugh with world champion Magnus Carlsen | Photo: Pascal Simon

Gent

Even when Nepo loses, he is a gentleman with a sense of humor. For example, after losing as White to World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen during the 2019 Grand Chess Tour, Nepo put the kings on the white squares, signifying a win by White to the arbiter. Nepo and Carlsen exchanged smiles as they got up from the board. After losing and drawing games to players in the bottom half of the field at the 2019 Tata Steel tournament, Nepo tweeted that he was sharing points, like Robin Hood.

DOTA

Besides Nepo and gent, another four-letter word describing Nepomniachtchi is DOTA. As Nepo’s Twitter bio states, “Chess grandmaster, Hearthstone & DOTA fan.” Nepo also plays DOTA under the name FrostNova. One Reddit thread states that Nepo has occasionally sponsored DOTA tournaments, websites, and teams on occasion. Nepo is described as a “very good guy actually, one of the pillar[s] of the Russian Dota community.” During the afore-mentioned 2014 World Rapid & Blitz, where Nepo took second, he wore a DOTA 2 shirt.

Nepo wearing his Dota 2 t-shirt at the 2014 World Blitz Championship in Dubai

Dish

Normally this section would be titled “recipe,” but “dish” fits the “four-letter words as headers” theme. The dish was inspired by an Instagram post that showed Nepo celebrating Maslenitsa by cooking Russian pancakes. Walder slightly modified this blini recipe, then created toppings. For his two roommates and himself, Walder served the dish and toppings with sides of yogurt berry parfait, 2 espressos, and an americano. 

Blini by Mike Walder

Blini

• Whole Buckwheat Flour, 1 1/3 cups
• Warm Water, 1 1/2 cups
• Baker’s Special Dry Milk or nonfat dry milk, 2 Tablespoons
• Instant yeast, 1 1/2 teaspoons 
• Eggs, 2 large, separated
• Milk, 1/2 cup
• Sugar, 1 teaspoon
• Salt, 1/2 teaspoon
• Butter (unsalted), 4 Tablespoons, melted

Topping

• Smoked salmon, 4 oz.
• Crème fraîche, 3-6 Tablespoons
• Caviar, as much as you like (optional)

Alternate topping

• Ripe fruit, as many ounces as you want
• Sweet Ricotta Cheese, 3-6 Tablespoons

Directions

1. Mix the whole buckwheat flour, warm water, dry milk, and instant yeast together in a medium bowl. This combination is called “the sponge.” Cover and let rest for 1 hour.
2. Whisk together the egg yolks, milk, sugar, and salt. Then mix this egg yolk combination with the sponge and let it rest, covered, for 45 minutes. While the batter rests, let the egg whites come to room temperature.
3. Preheat the oven to 200°F and the stovetop surface or burner to 375°F (medium heat).
4. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.
5. Just before cooking, whisk the melted butter into the batter, then fold the beaten egg whites into the batter.
6. Cook the blini in a lightly-greased griddle or heavy skillet, placed on the stovetop surface. Use 3 Tablespoons of batter for each blini. Cook as you would pancakes, until the edges look dry and bubbles form that do not break. Flip and cook the second side for about one minute. Move the cooked blinis to the oven, add more grease to your griddle or skillet if needed, and repeat until you have used all the batter. Hold the blinis in the oven until ready to serve.
7. Plate 3-4 blinis on top of each other, cover top blini with 1-2 Tablespoon(s) crème fraîche, put a slice of smoked salmon on top of the crème fraîche, and, optionally, add caviar on top of the salmon, as shown in the photo. Alternate topping not pictured; the berries shown are a side dish. Serves three people.

Analysing Giri v Nepomniachtchi from the 2020 Candidates after 24.Qb1-d3 while enjoying the dish and toppings with sides of yogurt berry parfait | Photo: Elliott Winslow

Game

Grandmaster Anish Giri versus Grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi from Round 1 of the 2020 Candidates tournament ended in a 73-move win by Nepo. The game was annotated in a previous ChessBase article; National Master Mike Walder annotates it here with cooking allusions.

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Links

• GM Chef: Anish Giri | Levon Aronian | Boris Gelfand | Judit Polgar | Vishy Anand | Teimour Radjabov | Hou Yifan | Peter Svidler | Fabiano Caruana | Maxime Vachier-Lagrave | Alexander Grischuk | Ding Liren
• All news on the 2020 Candidates Tournament