Gennady Nesis. One Of My Chess Heroes!

O.K. I was going to post something different this time round, but, while on holiday, I saw that one of my chess heroes had celebrated his 75 Birthday. A while ago I had promised to post some of his games, but didn't get round to it.

So today you get a mass of great chess, and not so much on the photos or my nattering.

Nesis was a true correspondence chess grandmaster. Later a prolific, and wonderful writer, trainer - most notably of Alexander Khalifman.

and tournament organiser, etc. You can find a little on the birthday tribute here:-

https://ruchess.ru/en/news/all/gennady_nesis_celebrates_his_anniversary/  

He won the second ICCF World cup, and finished second - on tiebreak - in my favourite ICCF World Championship - number 11. Incidentally, the event controller was my departed friend the wonderful Reg Gillman.

What an incredible tournament!! The draw percentage was amazingly low, and a mass of great games played.

Well, some of you will know that I used to play the Dragon in c.c. games, and Nesis was the man who did that at the highest level. One of the very first theory books that I bought was this one - 

mainly because the Dragon was covered by Nesis. he not only played it, he fought for the Black side of the system in the Bc4 Yugoslav that I played myself - one not to everyone's taste! Black is committed to sacrificing material, and the resulting positions are , let's say, rather unbalanced!!. I have no guesses how many hours I spent with his analysis of it, but it was a lot!! He was also an expert on the Grunfeld, when it was a lot less popular than it is today.

So, I have split the games here into 3 sections. One with games with White, one in the Grunfeld, and one in the Dragon. Lots of them - many hard to find, or entered 'by hand' - and I could have posted lots more, but you have to stop somewhere.

Enjoy the chess!!

Let's start with my favourite Nesis game - surprisingly it's not a Dragon! . Positional Gambit play at it's finest.

His opponent was this amazing man, who sadly died recently, and is well worth an article of his own.

And a win against one of the absolute legends of c.c. ( He was rather strong o.b. as well - winner of the 1952 Moscow Championship, ahead of Simagin and a couple of guys who were in the legendary 1953 Candidates. he could play!!) Great picture via Chess Mail.

O.K. Lets have a look at a few Grunfeld games.

And the decisive game that won Nesis the 2nd ICCF World Cup. His opponent - who finished second - was a very fine player in his own right. This man, who left us recently.

So onto the Dragon, and in particular the system that I learned so much about from Nesis.
First up, one of the most crushing defeats ever handed out to a World Champion with White.

Two games which are worth comparing in terms of the notes and the way the games went.

A game in the main line - at the time - of the ...Rc8 system.

And to finish, 2 games in a line that had us all working overtime trying to make sense of it all. Without Nesis,

I could not have ventured into these shark infested waters without having my legs bitten off!!