GM Ian Brooks |
Interview
of GM Ian Brooks (ENG)
by J. Franklin Campbell
(posted 10 March 2003)
Ian, thank you for agreeing to this interview
on the occasion of your qualification for the ICCF Grandmaster
title. What a magnificent achievement! Readers can check your
path to the title by inspecting the crosstables for the two
events where you scored the required GM title norms
Before we start, could you give us a mini-chess
biography of yourself, such as when you started playing chess
and how long you've played cc? Do you have a family?
I learned the moves from
my brother when I was about 11, but didn't start playing on
a regular basis until about three years later. I played my
first rated OTB game when I was 16. I started dabbling in
CC a couple of years after that in the Postal Chess Club in
England.
I have been married to
Holly for 15 years and have 7 year old twins, Matthew and
Heather.
What about your academic
title … in what field did you earn your degree and what is your
current job?
I am a computational biophysicist
with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry. I currently work at the National
Center for Supercomputing Applications applying computational
techniques to a variety of biomedical problems.
I'm sure many people have noticed that you
have lived in the USA for many years but you play internationally
for England. Could you explain how this came about?
There are a number of
reasons for this, but the simplest is that England asked me
first! When I was an undergraduate student at the University
of York I entered the British Junior Championship and as a
result got invited to play in a friendly match for England
against Austria. The invitation came as quite a shock and
honor and by the time I moved to the USA, I was already in
the "England Fold"
Now to the title … has this been a goal
of yours for a long time or did it sneak up on you?
It has been a goal for
a long time, I think everyone dreams of becoming a GM, but
it wasn't until fairly recently that I realized it was an
obtainable one.
When did you realize that you were close
to achieving the title, and how did you learn that the title
had actually been achieved?
In January I had completed
nine of my eleven games in the XIV Olympiad prelim with a
score of 7/9. Having already made a GM norm in the Gillman
Memorial and knowing that the norm in the prelim was 8/11,
the critical games for me were my remaining games against
Carlos Costa and Gino Figlio. I knew that I needed to score
one point from the last two games to obtain the title. Unfortunately
I was a pawn down to Costa in a rook ending and could not
find a win against Figlio in a better minor piece ending.
This situation lasted for almost four months before Costa
overlooked a tactical simplification that allowed me to set
up a drawn Q+P v R+P ending. As soon as he offered a draw
I sent an offer myself to Figlio which he promptly accepted.
Formally Alan Rawlings,
ICCF Delegate for England, filed an application for the title
the day after my result against Figlio and I received initial
confirmation from George Pyrich, ICCF Qualifications Commissioner
three days later.
Were there any notable incidents during
the two tournaments which led to your title? … any special games
or opponents? What was your mental condition … were you excited
and nervous about those final ˝-points or was it just another
day at the office?
I am sorry to say the
last two ˝ points were fairly anti-climactic. The time scale
involved meant that I effectively knew what the results were
going to be weeks before the games actually finished so when
the draws actually happened there wasn't much of a sense of
excitement. I suspect that you might get a similar answer
from other titled players.
The two incidents that
spring to mind are my first two rated wins over Grandmasters.
The first was against Matthias Rufenacht who blundered badly
in a drawn position to gift me a ˝ point in the Gillman, when
he clearly had other things on his mind, and the second was
against Alexsei Tsvetkov which was one of the cleanest games
I have ever played. (The latter will be the subject of Victor's
Game of the Month column).
[Ian
refer's to the "Game of the Month" column at the ICCF
web site written by 10th World Champion GM
Victor Palciauskas. For an archive of his columns go to
his web site The
World of Correspondence Chess and click on "articles".
Note that he has suspended his column pending his completion
of the challenging and time-consuming ICCF
50 years World Champions Jubilee Tournament.]
You have also qualified and are playing
in the 1st
Email US CC Championship. With your 2615 ICCF rating you
are certainly the clear favorite. Do you have any comments on
this championship event? Is it difficult to play in an event
where you are a heavy favorite and can lose many rating points
even if you have a decent result?
It is difficult to play
in an event like this, especially as it looks like I may well
not win it! I entered it for a few reasons, I wanted to try
to win a meaningful title, I wanted to lend support to the
National Championship and perhaps most importantly I wanted
to have fun. Playing in Olympiads and Invitational events
and scoring well for me at least is hard work and recently
it has not been fun. I like to play aggressively and take
chances and at the GM level that can still be done, but more
often than not a creative attacking idea does not lead to
a winning attack, but to a technically better endgame - the
players are simply too good to allow the attack to succeed.
In the US Championship I have deliberately played riskier
lines in the hopes of having more fun and in some cases it
has succeeded, but I admit I underestimated some of my opponents
and at best will end up back in the better endgame routine
and at worst will lose lots of rating points.
The USA Olympiad team has qualified the
USA to play in the Email XIV Olympiad Final. I understand you
will be playing Board 1 for the England team in that event.
This must be a strange situation for you, to be playing for
the USA championship on one hand and against the USA Olympiad
team on the other. What thoughts does this conjure up for you?
This is a very strange
situation and one that has really arisen because of the confusion
over a players "home." England does not currently offer an
email championship and I am not permitted to play in the postal
event for obvious reasons, so the only domestic events I can
play in are in the US. On the other hand I play Internationally
for England… Should the unexpected happen and I end up winning
the US Championship, it will in some ways be even stranger
as my US opponent in the Olympiad is Steven Jones, the two-time
US Champion. I can't imagine a case where the most recent
two national champions have played against each other in an
Olympiad!
You have not only participated in cc by
playing but also by volunteering for service with your organizational
efforts. Could you tell us about your TD duties and your activities
as ICCF Rules Commissioner? Do you find working on the mechanics
of cc competition satisfying? What do you hope to accomplish?
I am current TD for the
XX and XXI World Championship candidates (3/4 final) and expect
to be TD for the 1st email World Championship Final later
this year. As ICCF Rules Commissioner I tend to get rules
questions from TDs who are uncertain about an interpretation
or from players who have suggestions. As Rules Commissioner,
I also serve as Chairman of the Playing Rules and Tournament
Rules Commissions. I find it to be satisfying sometimes, but
it can also be very frustrating when the Commission's recommendations
are rejected by Congress. I am reasonably happy with the state
of the Tournament Rules that were passed by Congress in Seixal,
but I feel there is plenty of room for improvement in the
Playing Rules. My biggest area of concern there is in the
grey area between postal and email rules. There are some inconsistencies
between the two sets of rules that need to be eliminated and
my goal for the next rewrite due in 2004 is to reunify the
rules to make one set that is used for all forms of transmission.
In the mid 90's you were a columnist for
APCT News Bulletin along with former US CC Champion IM
Jon Edwards, Jonathan Voth, IM/FM Allan Savage,
Jim Marfia, myself and others. I recall that as a great
time to be a chess columnist. I also recall that your column
The Chess Chalkboard was the only column I read entirely,
every issue. You have a real talent for explaining chess and
spreading your obvious love and enthusiasm for the game. Could
you describe your experience writing a chess column and give
your motivation and goals as a columnist? Did you find writing
about chess to be rewarding?
Thank you for your praise!
I enjoyed writing the column and really value the friendships
I made with other columnists, but one of the reasons I stopped
is that I received virtually no feedback from readers which
I found very frustrating. I hoped to be able to base my columns
on questions from readers, but without questions I was left
to come up with topics each issue and I found that very hard
to do. I still harbor hopes of returning to my column, but
in a different format. I would like to write an instructional
column based on annotating reader's games. With my playing
and TD/Rules Commissioner duties it isn't likely to happen
soon, but I hope to get back to it someday.
You wrote one of the most innovative and
creative single columns I've ever read. It concerned a difficult
endgame and your logical approach to finding the only path to
an important win. Do you recall that endgame and your innovative
approach to finding the win?
Absolutely!! It is a game
I will never forget against GM Juan Morgado. I had
never played a titled player before, either OTB or CC let
alone one of the World's top Grandmasters. The endgame in
question was a Q+2PvQ ending where I had connected passed
R+N pawns, but my queen was completely out of play on the
rooks file behind the knights pawn. The win involved logic
rather than calculation and the solution involved what I consider
to be a pretty spiral king march to shelter.
Are you currently doing any chess writing?
Do you anticipate returning to writing at some time in the future
or perhaps having your own web site?
I have not given any thought
to having a web site, I don't think I have the time to maintain
one and am not actively doing any writing. When I start I
find it is too difficult to find the time to complete the
project.
Besides the events already mentioned above
do you have any specific plans for your chess future?
I think one of the keys
to my success is that I keep my game load small. I generally
have no more than 1 ˝ tournaments in progress at any one time
and for the foreseeable future this means the Olympiad and
completing my games in the ICCF 50th Jubilee GM-B and US Championship.
I have given Title Tournaments Commissioner Josef Mrkvicka
notice that sometime in the next couple of years I would like
to take a place in the candidates' tournament, and that he
will need to find another TD when I do, but that will probably
not be until at least 2004. My priority for now is the Olympiad
XIV final and, with luck, I will be able to play in Olympiad
XV final after this one. I am now in the fortunate position
of getting frequent invitations to play in tournaments but
am not able to accept them because of my time commitment to
other events.
Thank you for taking the time to share your
thoughts with us, Ian. Your friends are cheering your great
achievement. For instance, your friends at the Southbourne
Chess Club in England wrote about you with great pride.
You have participated in correspondence chess to the fullest
by competing and winning at the highest level, serving as a
tournament director and officer in ICCF and working as a chess
columnist helping other players understand chess better and
improve their performance through practical instruction.
©
2003 J. Franklin Campbell, All Rights Reserved.
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