Who's the best player you've played?

[Panzar75]

Cool. Where did you find this out, by the way?

I'm sure there are lots of web pages listing the top rated players. The one I happened to use is a Swedish one called "Schackcentralen". If you want to use this page you click on "top 20" in the menu bar, select country and click on search. Writing this I saw that the data is actually from July 2007, not sure why it hasn't been updated.

 

[JonathanStrange]

(I'm not going to say Kasparov but I did play him at a simul more than ten years ago now. But it was a simul, not a "real" tournament game.)

The Real Game?

I don't recall his name, but he was the New Mexico State champion and rated, at the time, 2413.

It was a real over-the-board 40/2 tournament, I had managed to defeat three players rated about 1900, 2000, 2200 - I remember that because I was paired against progressively stronger players.

When I played the State champion all his friends/acquaintances looked on with admiring looks to him and scorn to me.

I managed a quite respectable Sicilian Defense and had a decent middlegame but this fellow was slowly trading me into an easily won endgame. To outsiders, it might have looked close, material was even after all, but I could see that he'd be able to force me into zugswang and easily queen a pawn.

A fun game but more because I was not crushed and didn't make a huge blunder. He generously analyzed the game but it was obvious that what was a life and death struggle for me was simply a sterile drill for him: he knew the ending was going to lead to a small advantage for weaker players but a huge advantage to a master.

 

[WhiteEagle22]

(I'm not going to say Kasparov but I did play him at a simul more than ten years ago now. But it was a simul, not a "real" tournament game.)

The Real Game?

I don't recall his name, but he was the New Mexico State champion and rated, at the time, 2413.

It was a real over-the-board 40/2 tournament, I had managed to defeat three players rated about 1900, 2000, 2200 - I remember that because I was paired against progressively stronger players.

When I played the State champion all his friends/acquaintances looked on with admiring looks to him and scorn to me.

I managed a quite respectable Sicilian Defense and had a decent middlegame but this fellow was slowly trading me into an easily won endgame. To outsiders, it might have looked close, material was even after all, but I could see that he'd be able to force me into zugswang and easily queen a pawn.

A fun game but more because I was not crushed and didn't make a huge blunder. He generously analyzed the game but it was obvious that what was a life and death struggle for me was simply a sterile drill for him: he knew the ending was going to lead to a small advantage for weaker players but a huge advantage to a master.

Sounds like that was a real challenge!