Simul Master vs. GM Participant 1:0

It’s been a long time since I posted my last blog entry here at Chess.com, so today I decided to prepare something very special for my loyal Chess.com audience. This time, I pulled out an old game I played against GM Niclas Huschenbeth, but the special thing about it is not the game itself, but the circumstances in which I managed to outplay this guy. It was a busy October day for me and my evening was naturally reserved for me to host a regular bi-weekly 15-people simul at Playchess.com. This was an official event that I’ve been hosting for quite some time, but it was the first time when an International Master rated higher than me decided to join my simul! While GM Huschenbeth was still an IM at the time a few months ago, he was poised to become a GM real soon and his style of play certified for that. Nevertheless, in the simul I gave my very best and eventually managed to pull up a win against my respectable opponent after holding a strong position with white pieces and not allowing any weaknesses to be created on my side.

In this twenty-minute lecture, I will reveal what concrete steps I took to concentrate and win my game against GM Huschenbeth while playing a bunch of other people at the same time. In addition, this game happens to be very instructive and I have taken some time to explain various chess concepts and principles which I have fervently followed throughout the game until my opponent resigned. By watching the lecture, you will get some ideas on what is a motif in chess, when knights are stronger than bishops, and why moves like pawn to g4 in the early middlegame are not always bad. I hope you enjoy my first Chess.com blog post in the past couple of months and I guess there will be more to follow in the upcoming weeks!