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GM Alexander Ivanov |
The Boston based Grandmaster, Alexander Ivanov is known for being a fantastic
calculator and a loyal supporter of his favorite openings. He’s played the same
sharp openings (1.e4 Main Lines in the Ruy and the Open Sicilian, Nimzo and
Bogos against 1.d4 and the Zaitsev defense and an occasional Modern against
1.e4.) for his entire career, making him somewhat predictable but very
dangerous. He knows his stuff so well that an opening error in his territory
will be swiftly punished.
Despite opening knowledge which often
stretches past move twenty, Alex often gets into terrible time pressure, against
fellow GMs and amateurs. Alex is obsessed with making perfect moves, even when
his search doesn’t give him the best practical chance of winning a game. Despite
this sometimes fatal perfectionist streak, Alex is consistently among the top
fifteen players in America. Whether he would be higher ranked without this
weakness has been a subject of debate for the last 20 years.
When
calculating many moves ahead, the actual board is distracting for some
professionals, because analysis places the pieces in different spots than their
current posts. Alex deals with this by staring up at the ceiling, as if in a
trance. In between moves, he paces also staring at the ceiling. This peculiar
habit is shared by a few of the top players in the world, most notably Alexei
Shirov and Vassily Ivanchuk.
Alex has won his share of open and
international events, highlights of which are his victory in the 1998 Pan Am
Championship and joint first in the 1995 U.S. Championship. He moved to America
in 1988 with his wife, WIM Esther Epstein. They
live in Newton, Massachusetts.
How did Alexander Ivanov, playing white, relieve the pressure against his g4
pawn and his knight?
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