Who's the best player you've played?

Narz

Narz

keeping it real
Joined
Jun 1, 2002
Messages
31,514
Location
Haverhill, UK
Recently I butted heads with Arnold Guadagnini at the 8th annual Chess-in-the-Parks rapid (10 minute per side) tournament who, according to USCF is rated 2392 slow & 2364 rapid.

He beat me of course but I got him almost to the endgame. He played the Closed Sicilian against my 1. ... c5. Most of the game centered around an advanced e-pawn (of white's) which I was tied down defending. Eventually I made a tactical error in time pressure & was quickly crushed (well I resigned before giving him the satisfaction of a mate :D).

It's possibly I've played stronger (anonymous) players online but I'm not sure.
 
I played against Canadian GM Dimitri Tyomkin in a simul a few years ago. As far as real/blitz games go, I've played a few NMs.
Except for my one win against an NM on chess.com, I've lost all my encounters.
 
The highest rated player I can produce a score sheet from is this:

Spoiler :
Swedish Division 3, Group 6, Round 2, Board 1, 2005-11-13

White: Peter Fransson, ELO 2351
Black: Jan Persson, ELO 1558 (that's me)

1. e4 e6 2. Nf3 d5 3. e5 c5 4. b4 cxb4 5. a3 Nc6 6. axb4 Bxb4 7. c3 Be7 8. d4 Bd7 9. Bd3 Rb8 10. h4 b5 11. Ng5 Bxg5 12. hxg5 Nge7 13. Na3 Na5 14. Rh3 Qc7 15. Bc2 Nc4 16. Nxc4 dxc4 17. Ba3 Qb7 18. Qg4 a5 19. Bd6 Ra8 20. g6 Nxg6 21. Be4 Bc6 22. Bxg6 fxg6 23. Qxe6+ Kd8 24. Be7+ Qxe7 25. Qxc6 Rb8 6. Rxa5 {Black resigns} 0-1

Had objectively the better of it in the beginning but since I had never seen the position after his 4:th move I misplayed it somewhat. I especially missed how bad it was to give up my bishop on move 11.


I think that was the highest rated player I have played so far which would presumably make him the best player I have played so far.

As for the best player I have met in person (but not played with) that would be Ulf Andersson. He is friends with a member in our club so he has been by a few times since I started. He is kind of scary. Show him a position and he will tell you where the pieces belong in a few seconds. Show him a puzzle and it's solved in a few seconds as well. I could have played one or a few blitz games against him if I had wanted to but I didn't see the point. I just let him play our highest rated guy a few more times instead. He is a quiet but very nice person. If you didn't know him you would never guess he was among the world's elite not that long ago.
 
Drew with Nigel Short in a full time limit game in my youth. Ok he was 11 and I was in my teens - but he has played for a World Championship!
 
I played and won against IGM Simen Agdestein when he was 14 and I myself a couple of years older. He went on the win the Norwegian Senior Championship \about a month after that.
While he never played for the World Championship , he at least had a clear plus score against Short...
 
I don't really count simuls. In a normal tournament game I've been crushed by Odendahl, Goldin, Kamsky, and probably a few others. The best player I've drawn is IM John Donaldson at a US Open in a year in which he was also playing in the US Champioship round robin (it was a good thing for me that he'd been burning the candle at both ends by also being involved in the various governance meetings, otherwise he wouldn't have blown the tempo I needed to reach a drawn position).

I've beaten some masters, but I can't remember off-hand if any were over 2300 USCF at the time. My rating peaked in the low 2100s USCF and has now dropped to slightly under 2000.
 
I haven't played an official or recorded game for ages (probably since elementary school), but I played a game against a rusty master at my university's chess club recently and got him to a drawn endgame, but muffed it up and lost.

Also, when I was fifteen or so, at CTY (a summer program for junior high and young senior high students which stuffs the equivalent of one semester of a college course into three weeks by name, but it was really just nerd sleepaway camp), my roommate and his cousin were rated 1800 and 2100 respectively, and I played them and lost every time.

I did however manage to get second place at the chess tournament they had there, somehow. :mischief:

Okay, that doesn't mean I was the second-best chess player among all those nerds, it just means I was the second-best chess player who can play chess at 8AM in the morning. I also lucked past my semifinal opponent by inadvertently making a !! move (as Mr. 2100 pointed out after the game) and got prompty crushed in the final by an opening trap in the reversed Benoni. Still, heh.
 
Coon civiijkw, I played in a tourney in Vegas with Kamsky but I didn't get a chance to play him myself.

You should join our CFC chess club (Narz's People, see my sig). :)
 
The best person I have played is Lone Wolf. Almost all my matches are online, the only people I have played offline are family members.
 
Narz said:
Coon civiijkw, I played in a tourney in Vegas with Kamsky but I didn't get a chance to play him myself.

You should join our CFC chess club (Narz's People, see my sig). :)
Click to expand...

I'm not much for on-line play. I have a chess club I go to weekly (for about 35 years), a league that club is involved in (for 5 years), and a number of scholastic tournaments that I direct (for about 25 years). Now that I'm married (finally done at the age of 36) and have a kid (now 13), I only go to the US Open when it is nearby.
 
My older brother. :D
He won some Estonian National Championships in the end of 80-s/beginning of 90-s for two years in a row. :goodjob:
Well... in a junior class...
...and actually it was his club's team of three that won...
...and in that team he played on 3rd table too...

Now that I've improved and he has grown rusty, I've had luck of beating him on few numbered occasions.:D
 
To my eternal shame, the best player I never played was Tony Miles.

He played (obviously) board one for his school, a strong school, and so did I for mine.

As captain though, I took the decision to promote someone from lower down to take the inevitable loss,
hoping to pick up points elsewhere.

The strategy was only partly successful,
and I am left with merely a wistful sense of loss,
 
Got hammered by Miles in the 70s. And Keene. And Mestel.
 
Narz said:
Ok, just thought I'd ask. :)

Does your kid play?
Click to expand...

He plays a bit. He also enjoys being the go-to person in his middle school club when there is a rules question. There is a decent chance that he will eventually join me in directing tournaments.
 
Haven't played him, but there's a fairly high ranked maths lecturer at my university - Ben Martin. In fact, I think he might be (or have been) the #1 in New Zealand.
 
Panzar75 said:
Top ranked New Zeelander is a "Benjamin Martin" rated 2372. Sounds like your guy.
Click to expand...
Cool. Where did you find this out, by the way?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

nc-1701
Just getting back into chess again...
Replies
7
Views
3K
kroket
K
Richard Cribb
RIP Vasily Smyslov
Replies
2
Views
2K
WhiteEagle22
WhiteEagle22
K
psychological pressure in chess
Replies
11
Views
3K
Narz
Narz
Narz
Chessaholics "Insanity Championship"
Replies
4
Views
1K
Narz
Narz
Back
Top Bottom