Photo courtesy of IM John Bartholomew
I had a lot to catch up on with IM John Bartholomew 2.5 years after his first visit to Perpetual Chess. Then, as now, John is best known for his very popular Chess YouTube channel, and for being the co-founder of Chessable.com. John has seen the company and his following continue to grow rapidly in the past few years, and as you may have heard, Chessable merged with GM Magnus Carlsen’s Play Magnus company in September of 2019. John also has recently released a large-scale project, a Chessable video course , explaining the endgame classic, 100 Endgames You Must Know, and he even got to film a video testing the World Champion on the material from this vital chess book.
In our conversation, John gave some behind-the-scenes details on all of these exciting events. He also threw in lots of good chess improvement advice in reply to some good questions from listeners. Please read on for more details and timestamps.
Click here to download the interview.
0:00- Ways to interact with the Perpetual Chess Community include: Twitter, Perpetual Chess Facebook Group, and now, Perpetual Chess is sharing podcast clips on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/perpetualchess/
2:00- We begin by discussing John’s recent trip to Wijk an Zee in order to film a YouTube video with World Champion, GM Magnus Carlsen.
Mentioned: Perpetual Chess Episode 26 with IM John Bartholomew, Chessable CEO David Kramaley, John’s YouTube video testing Magnus on 100 Endgames You Must Know , Geert Van der Velde of Chessable, GM Fabiano Caruana, GM Nikita Vitiugov, GM Viswanathan Anand, GM Magnus Carlsen, GM Jesus de la VIlla
10:50- The first Patreon mailbag question of the week has to do with how the Chessable interface responds when someone (such as Magnus) inputs a solution to a puzzle that is not the primary solution.
16:00- John digs behind the scenes of how he made his 19+ hour video course, and discusses how this project affected his work as a chess teacher.
Mentioned: Philidor position, Lucena Position, Vancura Position, John’s free Endgame Bootcamp Video, Floating Square, Bird’s Color Rule, IM Greg Shahade’s last Perpetual Chess Appearance
24:30- We discuss some of the points discussed in the Chess Reddit thread, Are Chessable video courses worth the money?
33:00- Perpetual Chess is brought to you in part by Chessable. As John mentioned, in addition to his video course, one can check out AlanB’s courses here:
https://www.chessable.com/author/AlanB/
Chessable’s sale on the 100 Endgames You Must Know ends on February 16: https://www.chessable.com/100-endgames-you-must-know/course/5193/
34:00- We switch to the topic of chess improvement and dig into the Patreon mailbag. John answers questions relating to his recent tweet regarding planning chess study time, as well as one’s relating to the difference between IMs and FMs in chess skills, and what he notices in his most accomplished students.
Mentioned: IM Kassa Korley, The Woodpecker Method on Chessable, Checkmate Patterns by CraftyRaf, LiChess, Internet Chess Club
52:00- The last Patreon question requests some additional resources to drill endgames:
Mentioned: Mastering Endgames Strategy, Chesstempo Endgame Drills, From Amateur to IM, Lifetime Repertoires: 1. E4 e5 with GM Jan Gustafsson
56:30- On John’s last visit to Perpetual Chess, he shared some good chess business ideas. Does he have more ideas?
Mentioned: GM Hikaru Nakamura, GM Wesley So, Chessbrah’s YouTube, Fiona Steil-Antoni’s YouTube Vlogs , Chess.com, IM Danny Rensch, Chess24.com, Play Magnus, IM Dmitri Schneider
1:05- What was it like for John to teach Bullet chess phenom, GM Andrew Tang, aka Penguin GM, as a scholastic player? The puzzle John gave GM Andrew Tang can be seen here- https://share.chessbase.com/SharedGames/share/?p=8x0P2obR3gRql0KNZaMJR9QVt5zI/QtoD/aUWVDnrOkEIL4R6/E/1C1f0qlezi/O (to see the solution turn on the Engine icon just below the chessboard):
Mentioned: Tune Your Chess Tactics Antenna, GM Robert Hess
1:10- Thanks to John for coming back on the show.
John’s YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6hOVYvNn79Sl1Fc1vx2mYA
John’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/fins0905?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
John’s 100 Endgames Video Course:
https://www.chessable.com/100-endgames-you-must-know/course/5193/
Perpetual Chess Patreon Page: