About GM Alexander Baburin...

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GM Baburin Vital Statistics
Early Years
My chess career
My best tournaments results
My chess style
Ireland
The Life of a Professional Player

Vital Statistics

Early years

I was born on the 19th of February of 1967 in Nizhniy Novgorod (then Gorky), a big city about 300 miles east of Moscow. I come from a working-class background, as both my parents are workers. My father taught me how to play chess when I was about 7. Shortly after that a woman came to our school and organised a chess club. Her name was Ideya Blagonadezhnaya. She became my trainer and remained it for many years. Her husband, IM Oleg Chernikov, also helped me a lot and I still stay in close contact with both of them. My parents supported my passion for chess and soon I began to show good results in various competitions. In 1982 I came 2nd in Russian Championship under 17 and later attended a school of GM Alexander Panchenko for two years, which helped my chess.

I did well at school, finishing with so-called 'gold medal' (best marks in all subjects) and could always take some time off school to play in a chess competitions. I believe that chess helps academic studies as it teaches planning and discipline. Of course, chess was not my only passion. When I was 6, I began to swim and trained in swimming very seriously for 4 years. Alas, I had a problem with my knees and came across a stupid doctor, who prohibited swimming for me. Later I learnt that swimming would actually help to cure that problem faster! Anyway, I am a decent swimmer and enjoy swimming a lot. When I was about 12, I began to play basketball and at some point I was selected to play in All-Russia junior team. But, as I had some minor problems with my heart, my basketball coach recommended that I play it just for fun and devote my time to chess. I am still very grateful to him that he gave that fair advice, when my basketball promotion would have actually benefited him. Unfortunately, I have not been playing basketball for years, but hope to restart one day.

My chess career

After finishing school in 1984, I went to Gorky University (Radio Physics Department). Studying there was tough and I had little time for chess, which I did not like too much. After one year in the university I was called to the army. Fortunately for me, in the army I spent a lot of time playing chess. After the end of my service in 1987, I joined Army Sports Club. My duty was minimal - to represent my club in All-Army chess competitions. That gave me a small, but steady salary and allowed me to concentrate on chess. Many Soviet masters and GMs made living that way in 70s and 80s. In early 90s that system collapsed. At the university I switched to evening classes. Later I realised that I did not want to become an engineer at all (in 90s in USSR engineers were poorly paid) and quit university after three and half years. I felt that it would be very important to speak English and so I later went to Gorky Institute of Foreign Languages. There I studied English and linguistics for two years. My departure to Ireland in 1993 stopped that study.

I became a Soviet master of chess in 1987 and had some good results in tournaments in USSR. When it became easier for Soviet citizens to travel abroad, I began to play in Hungary, Poland and other countries of the former communist block. In 1990 I became an International Master. In December 1991 in Budapest I played in my first GM-tournament and got a norm straight away, tying for first with Christopher Lutz, who got his final GM-norm there. Two months later, again in Budapest, I missed a norm by half of point, failing to win a promising position against GM Tolnai in the last round. That would have been my second and final norm, but I missed that big chance. Then I did quite well in various tournaments and became one of the highest rated (2550 in 1993) international masters in the world. I was also becoming one of the most frustrated IMs, as GM-norms just kept escaping me. I believe it was mainly due to some psychological problems. In 1993 I got a job in Ireland as a chess coach. Although moving to a different country and beginning to work as a trainer led to somewhat of a downturn in my results, it helped me in a long run, as I began to work more on chess.

In the end of 1995 I got a GM-norm in Groningen and in 1996 scored yet another one in Copenhagen. At FIDE Congress in Yerevan in 1996, where I played for Ireland on board one at chess Olympiad, I was awarded GM-title. My highest rating so far has been 2600 (January 1998). I am quite realistic about my chess career and do not have too many ambitions. I would like to enter the top 50 in the world, but I know that this would involve a lot of work. In any case, I hope to enjoy playing chess for years to come.

My best tournaments results

  1. Semi-final of Russian Championship, Gorky, March 1988 - 10.5 out of 14, 1st place.
  2. Semi-final of Russian Championship, Voronezh, March 1989 - 9 out of 13, equal 2nd.
  3. Championship of USSR Army, Novosibirsk, 1989 - 10 out of 15, 2nd place.
  4. IV Dubinin Memorial, Nizhniy Novgorod, December 1990 - 8.5 out of 13, 1st place.
  5. Oberwart Open, Austria, 1991 - 7 out of 9, equal 2nd.
  6. Hartberg Open, Austria, 1991 - 7 out of 9, equal 2nd.
  7. Budapest, cat. IX, December 1991 - 8 out of 11, equal 1st and GM-norm.
  8. Budapest, cat. VIII, February 1992 - 9 out of 13, 1st place.
  9. Liechtenstein Open, 1992 - 7.5 out of 9, 1st place.
  10. Leukerbad Open, Switzerland, 1992 - 7.5 out of 9, 1st place.
  11. St. Michel Open, France - 7 out of 9, equal 1st.
  12. Kilkenny Open, Ireland 1993 - 5.5 out of 6, 1st place.
  13. Isle of Man Open, 1995 - 6.5 out of 9, equal 1st.
  14. Groningen Open, 1995 - 7 out of 10, equal 1st and GM-norm.
  15. National Open, Las Vegas, 1997 - 5.5 out of 6, equal 1st.
  16. Universe Open, San Francisco, 1997 - 5.5 out of 6, 1st place.
  17. Mechanics Institute Invitational, San Francisco 1997, cat. VII - 7 out of 9, 1st place.
  18. Isle of Man Open, 1997 - 8 out of 9, 1st place (2827 performance).
  19. Western States Open, Reno 1997 - 5 out of 6, equal 1st.
  20. Kilkenny Open, 1997 - 5 out of 6, 2nd place.
  21. 'Europe vs. Americas' match, cat. XI, Bermuda 1998 6 out of 10 (best among Europeans).
  22. Commonwealth Championship. India 1999 - 8.5 out of 10, 1st place.
  23. 'Politiken Cup', Copenhagen 1999 - 8.5 out of 11, equal 1st.
  24. Mind Sports Olympiad, London 1999 - 7 out of 9, equal 1st.

My chess style

My play can be described as is something between 'very solid' and 'extremely boring'. My chess style is certainly closer to Karpov's, than to Shirov's. I admire many players; among modern players I like Kramnik's style probably most.

During a game of chess I get lots of emotions. For example: curiosity - what is my opponent going to play; admiration - when he plays a great move or comes up with an interesting idea; sometimes I get proud of my own ideas, sometimes I laugh at my opponent's plans; sometimes I get angry. You can hardly be bored, while playing chess!

I have always been very sensitive to my loses (who isn't?!), but now days I coop with them better - chess teaches to you to control your temper till certain extend. I don't tend to 1blame circumstances, but instead I try to understand the reasons why I lost. When you lose at chess, you are the only one to blame and I like this about chess. After all, losing is a part of the game and the only way to avoid losing is not to play at all.

Ireland

In 1993 I met then a President of Irish Chess Union Eamon Keogh at a tournament in France. He invited me to Ireland and at Easter 1993 I came to Dublin for the first time. In September of the same year I moved to Dublin with my wife Elena (we married in 1988) and my son Ivan (he was born in 1990). My first years in Ireland were not easy, but Eamon Keogh and Michael Crowe helped me a lot to settle in the country. Now I feel quite at home in Ireland, which is a nice country - with a somewhat relaxed atmosphere. My daughter Anastasia was born here in 1995. Alas, Ireland's booming economy means that prices go up much faster than wages of most people. I often wonder how economists claim that inflation here is about 1%, while I see that many prices just doubled since 1993. They must use a different kind of maths! :-)

Part of the reason for moving to Ireland was that I wanted to see different countries and to travel more. I believe that we are born on this planet and belong to it: national and racial differences should not prevent people from exploring the whole world. I like to travel and fortunately chess offers lots of opportunities. I don't regret my decision to move to Ireland, as the exposure to a different culture has been a great experience. Besides, I go to Russia a few times a year - my parents live there and I have many friends in Russia.

The Life of a Professional Player

It is nice to be a chess pro: you get to travel a lot and you meet many people. You are also a master of your own time and can have a break in your work any time you want. These are the positive sides. Among the negative sides I can mention that it very hard to make decent living just by playing chess - not too many players can do so. Thus, you must give lessons and lectures and not everyone likes teaching. Personally, I enjoy working as a coach and also like writing to various chess magazines, though I am pretty bad with dead lines. Generally, one of the main things about being a chess pro is that almost nothing is certain and your future is not secure. If you have a family to support, this is tough.

I was fortunate to start my own small business - from May 1995 I've been selling Russian chess books. Some of them are rare and hard to find elsewhere. I have more than 100 regular customers world-wide and dealing with them has been a very enriching experience. I also supply the Royal Dutch Library in Hague, Holland and the Cleveland Public Library in USA with new chess books in Russian. I have quite a good chess library myself, though I do not regard myself as a collector.

I usually have 4-5 students in Dublin at the same time and also teach over phone and by correspondence. I've written one major book - 'Winning Pawn Structures' (Batsford, 1999) and write for the following magazines:

  1. 'Inside Chess' (USA) - I have a regular endgame column there since 1998.
  2. 'Chess Base Magazine' (Germany) - I contribute 6 articles a year to this magazine, which is distributed both in printed form and on CD. I've been writing for them since 1995.
  3. 'Chess Monthly' (UK) - I usually write tournament reports for this periodical.
  4. '64-Chess Review' (Russia) - I submit various materials to this magazine.
  5. 'Chess Mail' (Ireland) - though I don't play CC, I often write for this magazine, edited by Tim Harding, who was the editor of my book 'Winning Pawn Structures'.
  6. 'Irish Chess Journal' (Ireland) - usually it publishes my reports about recent events.
  7. 'Chess Informant' (Yugoslavia) - I annotate games for this magazine.
  8. 'Chess Cafe' (www.chesscafe.com) - I review opening books on this site every month and also write tournament reports for it.

I also published some articles in 'Chess Life' (USA), 'British Chess Magazine' (UK), 'New in Chess' (Netherlands), 'Die Schachwoche' (Switzerland) and 'Kingpin (UK). On this Web page you can also find my newsletter, called 'Coffee Break Chess', which I started to produce in February 1999. You can subscribe to this newsletter (it is free!) at my site.