This week's episode of the New In Chess Podcast features an interview with Dutch grandmaster Sergey Tiviakov. A talented player in his youth, Sergey studied under former World Champion Vasily Smyslov along the likes of Vladimir Kramnik. After the fall of the Soviet Union, he won the U-18 world title and later emigrated to the Netherlands, where he would win multiple national championships as well as a European Championship in 2008. Sergey's dominance in tournament play culminated in a baffling 110-game unbeaten streak, a feat surpassed by only some of the greatest players of all time. Sergey's book, “Rock Solid Chess”, has got unanimous praise from critics, including the very best players in the world, for its novel insights. Sergey describes his chapter on opposite-coloured bishops as a personal favourite. Additionally, the book takes a different approach to engine analysis: where some annotators would be happy to call a -0.05 evaluation a dead draw, “Rock Solid Chess” tries to look beyond the horizon of the silicon brain to find hidden winning chances in “drawn” positions. Together with Remmelt Otten, Sergey discusses his writings, his playing career, and his life in The Netherlands. "Rock Solid Chess" is available in the New In Chess webshop: https://www.newinchess.com/rock-solid-chess

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

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