EP.185 - IM Stuart Rachels

In 1993 IM Stuart Rachels was one of the top young chess players in the United States. He was the winner of  the U.S. Junior Championship in 1988, was United States co-champion in 1989-1990, and had played casual and tournament games with the likes of GM Garry Kasparov, GM Viswanathan Anand, GM Boris Spassky, and many others. So why did he decide to hang up the chessboard when he pursued a doctorate in philosophy? Stu answers this question in our interview, as well as discussing a few of the highlights from his great new book The Best I Saw in Chess. In the book, he tells some amazing stories and provides high level analysis of his many memorable chess skirmishes. In our conversation, we talk about how this 8 year project came to be, as well as Stu's future plans related to the chess world.  Please keep reading for more details, links and timestamps.    IM Stuart Rachels    0:00- Stuart walks us through the eight- year process of writing this book   Mentioned: FM Dave Gertler, NM Kyle Therrell, GM Garry Kasparov    8:00- How did IM Rachels, as a young chess prodigy, get to play Garry Kasparov in 2 simuls?  Mentioned: American Gambit (Some videos have been removed, so you have to jump around YouTube to different excerpts to watch the whole thing, but here is part 1- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh3zlmAG8x4 )   GM Alex Fishbein, GM Patick Wolff, Kudrin-Rachels 1989, GM Andy Soltis, GM John Nunn, FM Dave Gertler, My Great Predecessors, GM Yasser Seirawan    17:30- IM Rachels shares one of his many Yasser Seirawan stories, and shares a few more of his favorite memories from his life in chess.    Mentioned: IM John Donaldson, GM Samuel Reshevsky, GM Robert Byrne, GM Alexander Kotov, GM Miguel Najdorf, GM Boris Spassky, GM Tony Miles, GM Anatoly Karpov, Karpov-Miles 1980   25:00- GM Ben Finegold told me to ask Stu who he thinks is better, Kasparov or Carlsen? So I did!  Mentioned: Howard Stern, NM Dan Heisman, IM Vivek Rao, IM Jim Rizzitano, GM Patrick Wolff    33:00- My Great Predecessors Part 5