This week’s episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with FIDE Master Jimmy Adams. Jimmy has had a rich career in chess publishing, both as an editor (CHESS magazine, Batsford and others) and as a writer and compiler of countless books. Among his best-known books published by New In Chess are impressive tomes on Breyer, Chigorin and Zukertort. His latest chess-historical gem is an impressive four-volume set dedicated to the career of late Estonian grandmaster Paul Keres.

Paul Keres is regarded by many as the strongest chess player to never win a world championship. His impressive play and charming personality made him a popular figure both in and outside the chess world. When he died at the relatively young age of 59, a crowd of 100,000 Estonians turned out for his funeral procession in Tallinn. However, his life was also marred by stress and health issues, brought on in a large part by the suffocating grip of the Soviet regime on chess.

Together with Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam, Jimmy reflects on the life and career of “Paul the Second”, which includes various personal encounters with Keres as well as many stories involving other legendary players, including Fischer, Korchnoi and even Capablanca.
Jimmy's full Paul Keres series will be published in november and can be pre-ordered at a 20% discount on the New In Chess website: https://www.newinchess.com/keres 
0:00 – Intro

2:40 – Jimmy’s initial obsession with Paul Keres

5:15 – What attracted Jimmy to Keres specifically?

8:45 – 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