Issue #04 — Garry Kasparov

About This Issue

With great anticipation the chess world awaited the return of Garry Kasparov, the legendary 13th World Champion. The passage of time did not appear to have changed much in Garry’s approach to chess, although his long layoff does seem to have damaged his practical skills. But we got the playing style we expected – dynamic, direct, and not shying away from theoretical battles, as Ivan Sokolov concluded while analyzing the games from Garry’s “Back to the Future” of chess.

World No. 6 Shak “The Shark” Mamedyarov, who broke through the magical 2800 barrier earlier in the year, was surely a must-have participant at the 5th Sinquefield Cup. However, although he was not invited this time, by way of consolation he now provides exclusive game commentaries for the event, which Maxime Vachier-Lagrave won ahead of World Champion Magnus Carlsen.

14-year-old American prodigy Awonder Liang is currently the youngest grandmaster in the world. His latest success came in July when he won the U.S. Junior Championship. That means he will get a ticket for the “premier league” – next year’s U.S. Championship – where he will face the big guys: Wesley So, Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana... Let’s get to know the player who is clearly on the right track to be a future world champion – we interviewed Awonder and asked him to annotate two of his best games from 2017.

Decision making in chess – does it sound familiar? It is the subject of the revealing book by grandmasters Gelfand and Aagaard that brought a whole new philosophy into the game. Now, exclusively in ACM, readers can open their minds to four types of decisions they can take in chess, in Aagaard’s All-Round Training, written by the only chess author to win all four major book awards.

And there is much more from names such as Ivanchuk, Fedorowicz, Benjamin, Rohde and Hungaski. GMs Surya Ganguly and Sarunas Sulskis revisit the Baku Olympiad and ask who brought champagne for the U.S. team, GM Robert Hungaski writes on how “Sevian Blooms,” GM Alex Fishbein explains “Asphyxiated Pawns,” GM Ernesto Inarkiev asks whether the World Championship match shows “The Scary Future of Chess?” and Pete Tamburro puts 25 questions to Dewain Barber.

What’s Inside

• p.8 — Garry Kasparov: Back to the Future — GM Ivan Sokolov
• p.24 — Maxime Vachier-Lagrave Wins the Sinquefield Cup — “He's One Hell of a Player” — GM Shak Mamedyarov
• p.36 — Interview: Awonder a Wonder! — Josip Asik
• p.46 — All-Round Training — GM Jacob Aagaard
• p.58 — The Baku Olympiad Revisited — Who Brought Champagne for the US Team? — GM Surya Ganguly and GM Sarunas Sulskis
• p.69 — Sevian Blooms — GM Robert Hungaski
• p.82 — Asphyxiated Pawns — GM Alex Fishbein
• p.88 — World Championship Match — The Scary Future of Chess? — GM Ernesto Inarkiev
• p.122 — Interview: 25 Questions for Dewain Barber — Pete Tamburro

Inside the Issue