In 1993 IM Stuart Rachels was one of the top young chess players in the United States. He was the winner of the U.S. Junior Championship in 1988, was United States co-champion in 1989-1990, and had played casual and tournament games with the likes of GM Garry Kasparov, GM Viswanathan Anand, GM Boris Spassky, and many others. So why did he decide to hang up the chessboard when he pursued a doctorate in philosophy? Stu answers this question in our interview, as well as discussing a few of the highlights from his great new book The Best I Saw in Chess. In the book, he tells some amazing stories and provides high level analysis of his many memorable chess skirmishes. In our conversation, we talk about how this 8 year project came to be, as well as Stu's future plans related to the chess world. Please keep reading for more details, links and timestamps.
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0:00- Stuart walks us through the eight- year process of writing this book
Mentioned: FM Dave Gertler, NM Kyle Therrell, GM Garry Kasparov
8:00- How did IM Rachels, as a young chess prodigy, get to play Garry Kasparov in 2 simuls?
Mentioned: American Gambit (Some videos have recently been removed, so you have to jump around YouTube to different excerpts to watch the whole thing, but here is part 1 )
GM Alex Fishbein, GM Patick Wolff, Kudrin-Rachels 1989, GM Andy Soltis, GM John Nunn, FM Dave Gertler, My Great Predecessors, GM Yasser Seirawan
17:30- IM Rachels shares one of his many Yasser Seirawan stories, and shares a few more of his favorite memories from his life in chess.
Mentioned: IM John Donaldson, GM Samuel Reshevsky, GM Robert Byrne, GM Alexander Kotov, GM Miguel Najdorf, GM Boris Spassky, GM Tony Miles, GM Anatoly Karpov, Karpov-Miles 1980
25:00- GM Ben Finegold told me to ask Stu who he thinks is better, Kasparov or Carlsen? So I did!
Mentioned: Howard Stern, NM Dan Heisman, IM Vivek Rao, IM Jim Rizzitano, GM Patrick Wolff
33:00- My Great Predecessors Part 5 is now available on Chessable! Get it here:
https://www.chessable.com/my-great-predecessors-part-5/course/34892/
34:00- We dive into the Perpetual Chess Patreon mailbag. Why did Stu decide to retire from tournament chess after so much success?
Mentioned: IM Vivek Rao, FM Mike Klein, GM Tal Shaked, IM Boris Kogan, GM Gata Kamsky, GM Viswanathan Anand, GM Ben Finegold, GM Larry Christiansen, Alexey Troitsky, Genrikh Kasparyan, Francois Labelle, GM Jonathan Rowson, Andrew Metrick, Joel Friedman, GM Maxim Dlugy
52:00- In 2017 Stu drove to St. Louis to see Kasparov, Anand and other greats at the St. Louis Rapid and Blitz. What was that experience like?
Mentioned: Allen Kaufman , GM Vassily Smyslov
57:00- What are some of Stuart’s favorite chess books?
Tal, Petrosian, Spassky and Korchnoi by GM Andy Soltis, The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal, Secrets of Practical Chess by GM John Nunn
1:04:00- A Patreon supporter of the podcast asks Stu a question related to a story that he heard about Stu’s ability to calculate as a kid and about the abilities of strong players generally to calculate and visualize.
1:10:00- Has Stu kept up with his chess peers from his active days?
Mentioned: GM Ben Finegold, Adam Lief, Andrew Metrick, GM Joel Benjamin
1:14:00- Thanks so much to Stuart for sharing his experiences!
You can read an excerpt of his book from New in Chess Publishing here.
You can buy the book from Amazon, New in Chess, or Forward Chess.
Lastly, you can email IM Rachels here