EP 300- Swedish Chess Legend, GM Ulf Andersson on his Encounters with Kasparov, Karpov and Fischer and How he Keeps up With Chess Today.

This week we are joined by a legend of the game, one of the best players in the world in the 1970s and 1980s, Swedish champion, and legendary positional player, GM Ulf Andersson. Ulf doesn’t play as much as he did at his peak, but he still exudes passion for chess, and has accumulated a litany of stories about his games with fellow legends. Ulf regales us with stories about his clashes with Garry Kasparov, Bobby Fischer, Viktor Korchnoi, Bent Larsen, and so many others. At the age of 71, his memory for these encounters is flawless, and he shares many details about these memorable encounters. Ulf still follows modern chess closely, and also discusses his favorite modern players and games, and describes his daily life today.  He splits time between Germany and Sweden. It was quite an honor to hear a lifetime’s worth of chess stories as they happened to ULF.  Timestamps of people and topics discussed can be found below.  0:03- Ulf joined me from his part-time home near Cologne, Germany, how does he spend his time there?  0:05- How does Ulf keep up with the chess world? How did he approach chess improvement in his earlier years?  0:09- Question from Chess Historian and Blogger Douglas Griffin: Does Ullf think that faster time controls have decreased the quality of endgame play? How have increments affected chess overall?  13:30- Who are GM Ulf Andersson’s favorite modern players? 15:30- What did Ulf think of Magnus’ decision not to defend his title?  16:45- Perpetual Chess is brought to you in part by Chessable.com. You can check out all of their latest offerings here:  https://www.chessable.com/courses/all/new/ 18:00- What are Ulf’s memories of GM Mikhail Tal?  22:00- Ulf mentions that he finds tournament chess more stressful than he used to it? When did he start to feel this way? 24:00- What was it like to play Fischer at the peak of his power?    28:00- What were GM Ulf Andersson’s impressions of Korchnoi? 32:00- Ulf describes his matches with legendary Danish GM Bent Larsen.  37:00- What were Ulf’s int