Some of you might have read this and are aware that Grandmaster Jacob Aagaard, the world reknowned trainer, author, and co-founder of Quality Chess, will be travelling to Asia to provide training and lectures on how to work on chess better.
Jacob's accolades have already been nicely summarised by Sagar in the above chessbase article so rather than repeating everything in the article, I would rather share my personal experiences with either Jacob's books or with Jacob himself. The Attacking Manual series (see this and this) have won multiple awards and are highly acclaimed by chess critics all over the world. As such, I was intrigued and worked closely with the first volume and I was impressed with the clarity of Jacob's explanations of the various attacking concepts. More importantly, you get the sense that the books were more works of love than anything else and this is something sorely lacking in many chess books these days. After reading 1 particular chapter that discusses the theory of color complexes, I was inspired and managed to produce an attacking gem of my own:
I gradually started working more with Jacob's books and one of the training books that I always use before a major event is Practical Chess Defence, a book that my good friend IM Tibor Karolyi had highly recommended to me. I have only recently started working on the Grandmaster Preparation series (since I am still trying to be a Grandmaster!) and will no doubt write a detailed review on these pages very soon.
I then had the opportunity to attend a lecture that Jacob and Boris Gelfand conducted during the Xtracon Chess Open and you can watch it for yourself here. During the lecture, Jacob asked many pertinent questions that players below the mastery level would be very interested in. I had no doubt that Boris would not have considered these questions had he conducted the lecture himself as it is very easy, for someone of Boris's class, to forget the more day to day struggles that mere mortals like you and me encounter over the board. In this respect, Jacob's experience as a trainer was extremely apparent and this shone throughout the entire 2 hours of presentation.
With all that in mind, it is my pleasure to invite you to attend Grandmaster Jacob Aagaard's visit in Singapore. The details are as follows:
Event: GM Jacob Aagaard on Chess Training
Date: 12th April (Wednesday)
Time: 7pm - 10pm
Venue: AQueen Hotel, 33 Jalan Afifi Singapore 409180 (Next to Cisco Centre II)
Lecture fee: S$10/nett (fees to be paid in cash on the day of the lecture)
*Refreshments will be provided
I have absolutely no doubt that coaches, parents, administrators and players of all levels will be interested in what Jacob has to say and that we will all be able to learn something from him.
The event is jointly organised by AQueen Hotel, and private individuals who are chess lovers and who want to contribute something to the local chess community. The fees collected are mainly used to offset all costs incurred. Seats are limited, and you can sign up by emailing me @ kgwm83@hotmail.com.
See you soon!
Registered participants:
1) IM Goh Wei Ming, Kevin
2) IM Andrey Kvon
3) FM Ly Hong Nguyen
4) CM Junior Tay
5) IM Lim Yee Weng
6) Ong Yujing
7) FM Andrey Terekhov
8) FM Lee Qing Aun
9) Dr. Lee Chien Earn
10) WIM Gong Qianyun
11) Matthew Lau
12) Bradley Loh
13) Lee Peng Keong
14) Tony Tan
15) Ms.Amy Lee
16) Siew Kai Xin
17) Pok Wern Jian
18) Hon Shin-Ming
19) Hon Shin-Ming X 2
20) CM Lee Jun Wei
21) Hee Wei Yang
22) Hee Wei Jie
23) Rishi Kapoor
24) Ling Kay Soon
25) Ethan Poh
26) Lam Kwok Foong
27) Kelvin Wee
28) Alvin Chen
29) Marcus Chen
30) Edwin Lam
31) CM William Woong
32) Ethan Goh
33) Sean Christian Goh
34) IM Ravindran Shanmugam
35) CM Mark Choong Liong-On
36) Sg Chess Meet-up - Betsy E
37) Sg Chess Meet-up - Michael S
38) Sg Chess Meet-up - Ville K
39) Sg Chess Meet-up - Meansgood
40) Sg Chess Meet-up - Howard W
41) Sg Chess Meet-up - gp
42) Dondigo Gonzalez Emuy
43) FM Nathan Alfred
44) Shelley Nadashi
45) Daniel Chung
46) William Chung
47) Darius Chung
48) Anne Lee
49) Sakthivel Heamish Kanha
50) Sakthivel Shanmugam
51) Frank Kebbedies
52) Chan Weng Chee
53) Joel Ong Yi Herng
54) Carol Ong
55) Damien Ng
56) Sg Chess Meet-up - Neeraja Rao
57) Sg Chess Meet-up - Neeraja Rao X 2
58) Sg Chess Meet-up - Paul P
59) Sg Chess Meet-up - David
60) Lim Chin Lee
61) Lim Zhan Bo
Guests
1) Mr. (IM) and Mrs Sagah Shah
3) FM Peter Long
