Crestbook's Peter Svidler Q&A: part II

Last month we already informed you about the excellent Q&A sessions at Crestbook with famous GMs like Khalifman, Krasenkow, Grischuk, Shirov and Svidler. The second part of the big 'interview' with Peter Svidler has now been published - don't miss it!

The 'KC' in the Crestbook KC-Conference series stands for KasparovChess, the name of the forum where members are asked to submit questions. The questions to Svidler were set in Russian at Crestbook, and in English at Chess in Translation. As in Part One, Peter answered the English questions in English (text originally in English and not translated is given between asterisks i.e. *…*) and the Russian in Russian, seamlessly switching between languages.

As translator Colin McGourty notes on his site, Svidler provides a glimpse into the life of a chess grandmaster, satisfying the curiosity of those of us who play chess at a slightly less-exalted level:

ChemaAnton: Hello, Peter! Which engine do you use for analysis? (if it’s not a secret). Taktik: Which chess programs do you prefer – which engines do you use?

I’ve put together quite a large collection – although I’ve also seen much more complete menageries than mine. At the moment the ones I use most are Houdini, Fire and Rybka.

Colin: "A large number of the questions were on how to improve at chess, and especially how to work on openings. Svidler answered in detail, giving the current theoretical assessment of lines, but also insights into his own experience of playing them:"

gambiteer: Hello, Peter! I’m 14 years old and my level is about 1900 Elo. I’m very interested in the Budapest Gambit and I’ve been playing it for a long time. It’s well-known that you often played it in your childhood, and I’d like to know your opinion on it (how much did it help you in your chess development, is it correct, to what level is it possible to play it, and what would you play against it yourself?).

I don’t think Black fully equalises in the Budapest, but it’s playable, or at least I only abandoned it after already having become an international master. For me the final straw was a game with Kramnik, where he played 4. e3 Nxe5 5. Nh3 and I realised that even against such an unassuming approach Black couldn’t fully resolve his opening problems. It’s hard to judge how much it helped my chess development – in my youth I played a lot of unassuming/half-correct openings, mainly in order to study less theory, and I suspect that such an approach didn’t work in my favour later on.

You can read the second part of the Q&A with Peter Svidler here. Highly recommended.

Related: ‘Ask the GM’ at Crestbook, in English