NIC Podcast #29 - Jimmy Adams
This week’s New In Chess Podcast guest is English chess writer and editor Jimmy Adams.
Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam talks to Jimmy Adams about his latest chess historical gem, an impressive four-volume set dedicated to the splendid career of Paul Keres, according to many, the strongest chess grandmaster in history never to become world champion.
To this day, Keres remains a hero in his native Estonia. When he died in 1975, a crowd of 100,000 Estonians turned out for his funeral in Tallinn.
Jimmy Adams has a rich career in chess publishing, both as an editor (CHESS magazine, Batsford and others) and as a writer and compiler of literally countless books.
Among his best-known books published by New In Chess are impressive tomes on Breyer, Chigorin and Zukertort.
The Keres books can safely be called Jimmy Adams’s magnum opus:
- 4,000 pages
- 550 Keres games in volumes 1 & 2 annotated by his contemporaries
- Many more annotated by Keres himself in volumes 3 & 4
- Hardcover edition
- Two slipcases
- A biography of Keres and more.
The Complete Paul Keres is written, edited and published by Jimmy Adams and distributed by New In Chess. The books will be released in November and you can pre-order them at www.newinchess.com/keres
The pre-order price is € 199,95
The retail price will be € 249,95
Jimmy Adams has been a Keres fan for all his life and had the good fortune to get to know the great man personally. He is a fountain of stories and anecdotes and tells them with passion and unwavering enthusiasm.
If you’d like to hear his stories and learn more about Paul Keres, and Jimmy Adams for that matter, you should not miss this episode of the New In Chess Podcast.
The New In Chess podcast is published every Friday and can be listened to on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and the New In Chess website.
Timestamps
00:00 – Intro
02:40 – Jimmy’s initial obsession with Paul Keres
05:15 – What attracted Jimmy to Keres specifically?
08:45 – Meeting Keres personally
15:20 – Keres’s hilarious Capablanca anecdote
17:02 – AD BREAK
18:10 – Keres’s love of tennis, attending the Wimbledon final
20:45 – More funny anecdotes about Reti, Flohr
24:05 – Was Keres politically pressured by the Soviet regime to not defeat Botvinnik?
28:55 – Keres’s constant harassment by the KGB
31:53 – AD BREAK
33:58 – Keres’s best results
36:20 – Keres’s personal issues
40:30 – The things that surprised Jimmy the most about Keres
43:15 – Jimmy’s discussion with Korchnoi about Keres
44:00 – Why was Keres always the “eternal second”?
45:49 – Keres’s friendship with Spassky
48:25 – Keres’s fluency in several languages
50:33 – Jimmy tells a hilarious story about Fischer and Najdorf
53:26 – AD BREAK
54:06 – Keres’s relationship with Fischer
1:00:10 – Keres’s great annotations
1:03:16 – Keres’s legacy, large state funeral in Estonia
1:07:57 – Outro
