Chess.com Player Profiles: Janosik

Name: Falko Bindrich / Janosik                                                        

Title: Grandmaster                                                                            

Date of birth: 17 october 1990

Fide rating: 2548                                                                                     

Country: Germany

What, if push comes to shove, is your all-time favorite movie?        

My all-time favorite movie is "Taken" with Liam Neeson.

What kind of food and drink do you prefer?
I love Italian food and my favorite drink is fresh orange juice.

What is your favorite book?
"The Four Hour Body" by Tim Ferriss is absolutely amazing, even life-changing.

What music are you currently grooving to?
I love golden oldies :)

Tell me a chess secret?

There are no secrets in chess, it's all on the board and inside the players mind.

What is your best chess memory?
Becoming a Chess Grandmaster at the age of 16 is of course my best chess memory. Also, winning Germany's biggest chess tournament ahead of 700 players in 2008 as well as becoming European Youth Champion in 2004 is a fond memory.

Which do you think is worse, failing or never trying?
Both is bad, I prefer succeeding:) Seriously, you should rather try something you love and are passionate about rather than doing nothing about it and complaining about others.

What chess player have you ever wanted to be and why?
I've never wanted to be anyone else, even though I of course admire players like Kasparov and Botvinnik.

What do you do to get better at chess? 
As a kid I did a lot of everything: Tactics, endgames, solving puzzles, studying openings, analyzing my own games, taking coached sessions with far better players than I was and so on. Nowadays I mainly play through the latest top-level games.

How old were you when you began to play chess?
I began playing chess at the age of 6.

Do you have a family?
I haven't started my own family yet.

What was your childhood like?
It was brilliant! I did what I loved all day long, I became stronger and stronger in chess and finally I became a Grandmaster. The journey to this goal also gave me the opportunity to travel to a lot of different places in more than 40 countries. I am really grateful to my parents for all this.

What is chess to you – a game of combat or of art? 
Chess is definitely both! It's combat during competitive chess, but a form of art if you're sitting at home analyzing beautiful compositions or developing new opening ideas.

How much time do you devote to chess?
In the past it was at least 3 hours a day, nowadays I mainly do serious chess training for myself shortly before tournaments.

Who is your inspiration?
It's not somebody who´s inspiring me, it's the game of chess itself. Chess is such a deep and difficult game that even grandmasters are just advanced beginners.

What is your greatest fear?
My greatest fear is if my family or friends became ill or harmed.

Do you prefer blitz, otb tournaments or correspondence style chess?

Definitely bullet or blitz! I need the adrenaline.

Describe a perfect day.

A perfect day for me is being surrounded by the people I love and having a good time with them, while no-one is caring about money or other aspects of life that do not really enrich us, having good food and then enjoying a nice evening with my girlfriend. This is pretty much a perfect day for me.

Is there any chess book that has had a deep and lasting influence on you?
"Think like a Grandmaster" by Alexander Kotov is really one of the books that showed me that there was still a long way to go to becoming a Grandmaster.

If you could choose to live one day of any time in the history of mankind, which time would that be and why?

I would like to live one day as Julius Caesar in the ancient Rome. But only for one day :)

Do you have any favorite hobbies?
I love reading, going out and watching TV-shows/series.

What is your most treasured possession?
I can't think of any possession I have being really treasured:)

Are you a superstitious person?
I was superstitious, but I stopped as this could really become a weak spot in your personality and limit your possibility to enjoy life.

How seriously do you take the online games you play?
It depends, but usually I take it seriously.

What are the most important lessons you’ve learned in chess?
Understanding pawn structures and being 100% concentrated during the game in order to convert an advantage are the most important ones.

What does your future hold as a chess player?
Currently I am not dedicating much time towards my personal development any more, but I do believe that I will become a stronger player in the near future by improving on certain things that are currently holding me back from performing at my personal top-level.

Who is your favorite / least favorite opponent on chess.com?

I really have no favorite or least favorite opponent here, all the players are friendly and up to now I have enjoyed playing against anyone on chess.com.

What is your favorite time control in live? 
In the past I preferred bullet, but lately I enjoy playing blitz (3+0) even more.

Do you have any thoughts on how chess.com can get even better?

In my opinion chess.com is perfect just as it is right now :)

Would you be interested in playing a "death-match"?

Yes, I would love to play a death-match!