11/26/2015 – Viktor Bologan is a strong and successful grandmaster who currently mainly works as a coach. But at the European Team Championship he still was the player with the best Elo-performance. When Bologan was in Hamburg to record his new DVD about the King's Indian Defense he talked about his career, his approach to chess, his training methods and when chess is fun.
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2024 Chess Olympiad with analyses by Abdusattorov, Aronian, Giri, So, et al. Blohberger, Werle and Zwirs show new opening ideas in the video. 10 repertoire articles from English to King's Indian and much more!
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Viktor Bologan comes from Moldova, a country that was once a Soviet Republic but in 1991 became an independent state. But the 43-year old Bologan received his chess education in Soviet times. At the age of ten he began to play chess and thanks to his excellent trainer he quickly reached master strength.
Though Bologan has never established himself in the very top he has always been a dangerous opponent - for anyone. In the course of his career he has won numerous championships and international tournaments and in August 2012 he reached a peak-rating of 2734.
Today Bologan plays less and focuses on writing and teaching. He has recorded a number of critcally acclaimed and popular ChessBase Opening DVDs, which are appreciated because they are instructive and offer a lot of valuable information. He has also published a number of excellent books. Currently he spends most of his time in Qatar where he works as a trainer.
Sometimes players who start to work as trainers improve themselves and when playing achieve excellent results. Bologan seems to be a case in point: with 7.0/9 and an Elo-performance of 2845 the Moldavan grandmaster was the best player at the European Team Championship in Reykjavik. The following table shows that he played and beat a number of strong opponents in Reykjavik.
Viktor Bologan at the European Team Championship in Reykjavik
Rd.
Snr
Name
Elo
Land
Rp
Pkt.
Erg.
Br.
1
72
GM
Leko Peter
2708
HUN
2677
4,0
w 1
1
2
121
GM
Wojtaszek Radoslaw
2748
POL
2467
1,5
w 1
1
3
98
GM
Kveinys Aloyzas
2510
LTU
2534
4,0
s ½
1
4
144
GM
Beliavsky Alexander G
2622
SLO
2695
5,0
w ½
1
5
106
GM
Djukic Nikola
2553
MNE
2655
4,5
s 1
1
6
79
GM
Olafsson Helgi
2549
ISL
2520
2,5
w 1
1
7
126
GM
Lupulescu Constantin
2631
ROU
2749
5,0
s ½
1
8
84
GM
Vocaturo Daniele
2588
ITA
2744
5,0
s ½
1
9
169
GM
Ivanchuk Vassily
2720
UKR
2627
3,5
w 1
1
On first sight Bologan often seems rather serious but this impression quickly vanishes if you meet him in person. The 43-year grandmaster indeed seriously pursues his goals and is a man of fine judgement but he is also very humorous and witty.
A few weeks ago Bologan was at the ChessBase office in Hamburg to record a new DVD about the King's Indian Defense that will appear soon. On this DVD the experienced coach offers Black a complete and modern repertoire based on King's Indian. Pascal Simon used the opportunity for a short video-interview, in which Bologan talks about himself and his approach to chess. At that time he did not know yet how successful he would play in Reykjavik.
Throughout the video course, Sasikran shows various examples from his career to explain sacrifices for initiative, an attack, a better pawn structure and much more.
In this insightful video course, Grandmaster David Navara shares practical advice on when to calculate deeply in a position — and just as importantly, when not to.
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