GM Grzegorz Gajewski (FIDE 2602) – Game Review and Text Interview

Posted on September 3, 2011 by William in All Articles w/ Videos, General Chess Articles, Strategy & Game Review

Grzegorz Gajewski is a Polish Grandmaster and youth chess championship with an impressive current FIDE of over 2600. The answer to his interview questions were particularly exciting and this game was quite wild as well. I don’t want to give away too much from the game but it really was just beautiful. This is a “MUST SEE.”

The chess interview with Grezegorz Gajewski

When did you learn chess and who taught you?

My dad taught me to play when I was about six.

When did you begin playing chess tournaments and how did you do?

When I was seven I started studying in school. There was a special chess class
so we had normal chess lessons (like math or science) – 4 hours a week taught by a teacher and chess coach (my first and only one) Boguslaw Boder. Those kids who clearly liked to play and had better results than others could be a part of the chess club and had additional trainings. Of course I was one of them. So when I was eight I started playing in tournaments and my chess life became – more or less – professional. I did good, but as always – there were better. I played my first Polish junior championship when I was 10 and I took a bronze medal. The winner was Mateusz Bartel, currently the polish champion. In my final game (the medal at stake!) I won a nice game against an eight years old boy – Radoslaw Wojtaszek. So I had quite a good company right from the beginning.

When did you begin making legitimate progress in your game and how?

Tough to say. It’s easy to say how – hard work. But when? My first big progress was probably when I was eight. When I was twelve I got my elo (about 2140) and as I remember in the next two years it didn’t change a lot. When I was about 14 my skills improved a lot and so on. Most young players make a big progress at some point then for the next 1-2 years they stop, and then another big progress…

Can you recall a specific turning point? (a game, event, working with a chess coach, etc..)

Meeting Boguslaw Boder, whose devotion to chess was really catching – this
was the biggest turning point and everything else was the result of it.

What are your top book recommendations for beginner to intermediate players? (<2000)

To be honest I don’t remember. I’ve read everything I could – classics like “My System”, some stupid books, when there was nothing else I took books from the library. I suppose that nowadays there are many good books I didn’t have a chance to read. One thing I remember very well – tactics. Do a lot of tactics, thousands.

What are your top book recommendations for advanced players? (2200+)

There is a fashion to say that Mark Dvoretski’s books are not that useful but I find the series of “School of Future Champions” (Dvoretski and Jussupov) incredibly useful. I also enjoyed Kotov’s books and Bronstein’s “Zurich 1953”.

What was your exact study regimen when you were working towards GM? (What exactly did you study, what study materials do you recommend, how much were you working with a chess coach to prepare, etc..)

When I was 2400-2450 rated I started working with the computer a lot. I learned that – when working with engines – you need to direct them, argue with them, not just click the mouse. I also spent many hours watching the top guys playing each other, trying to understand all the nuances. Of course the openings were the most important at this time. Some say that you need to fight for advantage right from the beginning, play principle openings, find novelties. Others say that it is more important to understand your opening, know all the plans and ideas. And they are all right. Modern chess openings are aggressive – you won’t make a big progress always playing your trusted g3-Bg2 set-up and hoping that you outplay your opponent in the middlegame. On the other side what’s the point of spending many hours with Houdini only to get + 0.34 after 15 moves and then spoil it in the next few moves because you didn’t really understand what to do with your pieces?

Nature or Nurture: Do you think top chess players are born with a natural ability/gift or do they become so talented through hard work and the right environment?

Of course all the top players are more or less talented but there are hundreds, maybe thousands of mid level players who are talented as well. And here comes the hard work. That is what differentiates top players from the rest. The environment is also important, as well as the money you can or cannot invest in training and tournaments. But without hard work it is all for nothing.

How do you feel about cheating in chess? (specific deterrents/punishments?)

Top tournaments like Tata Steel have budgets big enough to take some preventive measures. But most tournaments do not. This makes it almost impossible to exclude cheating in chess. This is why, in my opinion, FIDE should be very harsh in punishing proven cheaters in order to frighten away their potential followers. So a 5-year disqualification should be a minimum as chess players can be professionals for much longer than athletes or others. But don’t go crazy – how many cheaters have been caught so far? As long as those are the only incidents I try not to bother my head about it.

Who is your favorite chess player and why?

I always admired Topalov for his fighting spirit, the will to win every single game. I believe that soon he will come back on the top. But right know it’s hard to say who is my favourite. A few years ago I found Kramnik boring but now I think he is incredible. Anand’s style… he plays chess like music, every move is so simple and brilliant simultaneously. But Topalov was my childhood hero. I even got an autograph from him in 1995 when he was winning a strong Akiba Rubinstein Memorial and I was ten.

How to be a Grandmaster Series

People always want to know how Grandmaster’s achieved the extraordinary feat of becoming a GrandMaster. I noticed most Grandmaster interview’s focus more on recent and upcoming tournament’s and do not focus on how they became a GrandMaster. While most people assume that becoming a GrandMaster is simply a formula of natural talent and hard work, we’ve discovered there is more to the secret formula. Our interview series hopes to unlock these “GrandMaster secrets” so we can learn to not only work harder, but smarter as well. Our GrandMaster Interview series includes both audio and video interviews on our YouTube as well as text interviews with corresponding games on our site. We hope you enjoy these grandmaster interviews. Comments are appreciated and if you have questions you’d like to ask future grandmasters, let us know.

By Chess Coach Will Stewart (USCF 2256, FIDE 2234). Follow William on Facebook and Twitter Thank you to http://www.chessclub.com for letting us use their interface.