Photo Courtesy of GM Romain Edouard
28 year old Grandmaster Romain Edouard has been a top 50 chess player in the world, with a peak rating over 2700, but in recent years, he has been quite busy with other chess related work. He is the author of the highly regarded, Chess Calculation series, and this year, has published, My Magical Years with Topalov.a book about his time working as the second to one of the strongest players in the world. GM Edouard is also the Editor-in-Chief at Thinker’s Publishing, the publisher of his acclaimed works. For more detail about all that we discussed, please read on:
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0:00- Intro and discussion of GM Edouard’s new book, My Magical Years with Topalov. This book annotates games and shares stories and reflections from GM Edouard’s time working as a second to GM Veselin Topalov, between the years of 2010-2014. Romain shares how the relationship began and how it evolved in the ensuing years.
17:00- What differentiates GM Topalov’s chess style from other top-level players?
20:00- Romain discusses his most recent chess tournament. He recently played in the super strong 2019 Gibraltar International, and finished with 7 points, as part of a big tie for 6th-22nd place.
25:30- GM Edouard retells how he became the Editor-in-Chief with Thinker’s Publishing, and what that works entails. The two new books that we mention are: Gata Kamsky - Chess Gamer, Volume 1: The Awakening 1989-1996, and Michal Krasenkow - Learn from Michal Krasenkow
32:00- Romain’s gives his chess improvement advice for those with a limited amount of time. 1) Play lots of games 2) Find openings you like and know well 3) Learn Endgames from Dvoretsky’s Endgame Manual 4) Practice Calculation
37:30- Discussion of the London Lions of the Pro Chess League, who have had a disappointing season, but just had a strong showing in defeating the Montreal Chessbrahs.
39:00- Discussion of GM Edouard’s favorite game of his own (Edouard-Tkachiev 2010) , as well as his favorite game of all time (Kasparov-Topalov 1999)
43:30- Goodbye and contact info, you can follow Thinkers Publishing on Facebook and their website, and GM Edouard on Facebook and Twitter.