Meet the Fritztrainer - Nicholas Pert

by Arne Kaehler
2/27/2021 – Hundreds of different Fritztrainers have been teaching us chess on ChessBase for more than a decade. Maybe you sometimes wonder what else the authors of these Fritztrainers do? "Meet the Fritztrainer" takes a look behind the scenes, telling us more about the private life of your favourite chess trainer. We already had the pleasure to talk to GM Chris Ward, and IM Merijn van Delft. One of our most active "Fritztrainers" is surely GM Nicholas Pert. The British Grandmaster tells us the stories of how he achieved his IM and GM titles, including a game analysis! | Photos: Nicholas Pert & Battersea chess club
In this video series Pert gives a strong and practical Black repertoire against the Anti-Sicilians such as the Bb5 Sicilian, the Grand Prix Attack, the Alapin and many more, from my years of experience playing the Sicilian.

Meet the Fritztrainer - Nicholas Pert

GM Nick Pert is a chess grandmaster from England who has regularly played for the England team in Olympiads and European Team Championships. He is a former World U18 chess champion.

Nick Pert made several Fritztrainers in the past years. They not only go deep into opening analysis, but also conquer interesting themes of how club players make typical mistakes, and how to learn from those errors.

Typical Mistakes by 1000-1600 Players

Typical mistakes by 1600-1900 players

Typical mistakes by 1800-2000 players

Nicholas Pert also has a three part series, for an attacking repertoire as a 1.d4! player. 

His newest Fritztrainer, which came out this year, tackles the pesky "Anti-Sicilian" openings as a Black player, and contributes a large repertoire in more than 6 hours of video content.

In this video series Pert gives a strong and practical Black repertoire against the Anti-Sicilians such as the Bb5 Sicilian, the Grand Prix Attack, the Alapin and many more, from my years of experience playing the Sicilian.

Powerbook based on more than 455 000 games in which White already sidesteps the main variations of the Sicilian on move 2.

  • 0:45​ - Who are you, and when did you learn to play chess?
  • 4:08​ - How come you have made so many Fritztrainers?
  • 5:56​ - Who thought of the "Typical Mistakes by..." series?
  • 8:32​ - The story of how Nick Pert achieved his IM title.
  • 13:26​ - The story of how Nick Pert achieved his GM title.
  • 29:04​ - Analysis of the "GM" title game - Nick Pert vs. Dvoirys Semen

The IM games:

In 1998 Pert achieved his IM title at the World Championship U18 in Oropesa del Mar. On his way, he had to face many stronger rated opponents, e.g. Leinier Dominguez.

 

Pert only needed a draw in his final game against Iljushin to win the tournament, and chose the Dutch Defense! 

The Dutch (1.d4 f5) is known as a very aggressive and unbalanced opening, resulting in the lowest percentage of draws among the most common replies to 1.d4 . The opening became popular during the 1951 World Championship match, where both players tried it successfully. Today, players known for spectacular attacking chess are using the opening as a dangerous, surprise weapon.

 

The GM Games:

Nick Pert gained his GM title at the Hoogeven Essent 2003 ( While Judit Polgar won the main event, against Sokolov, Karpov and Aronian). In the first round, he had to play against Peter Doggers, and Pert left the game to eat something, after a couple of moves.

 

The third round was against chess legend Vlastimil Hort, who moved his King to the peculiar spot d7, after 11 played moves. In the end, Hort gave up in a slightly better position, for all the wrong reasons.

 

It all came down to the last round, where the English GM had to play against Semen Dvoirys. A game with ups and downs on both sides, and some nice combinations.

 

Links:

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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