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Cover Story


Stephen Ham, ICGM


Our latest player to earn FIDE’s top-title discusses the state of correspondence chess. By FM Alex Dunne


The announcemenT came from The International correspondence chess fed- eration by e-mail on november 20, 2010. Stephen e. ham has earned the title of correspondence Grandmaster (Gm). Stephen will receive his certificate and medal at the 2011 Iccf congress to be held in autumn. however, the title becomes effective immediately. Stephen achieved his two norms in the 50 Israeli championship Jubilee and by winning the German Bdf-Silber tournament a half point ahead of the field. In all he com- pleted 27 games undefeated, winning eight and achieving a performance rating of 2638. he faced eight grandmasters, nine senior international masters and one international master. Stephen graciously agreed to be inter- viewed for Chess Life.


Chess Life: How about an introduction to Stephen Ham? Raised? First introduction to chess? First introduction to postal chess? Who are your chess influences? STephen: I was born and raised in rural southeast minnesota. my first exposure to


36 Chess Life — August 2011


chess was around age six when I was taught by a cousin. I later taught the kids in my hometown but lacked strong oppo- sition. after reading about “postal chess” in Chess Life magazine and later in Jack Straley Battell’s column in Chess Life and Review, I began playing postal chess around age 15 (1969) with friends. my first “official” postal chess began with the 1970 Golden Knights sponsored by the uScf. I still keep all my old game scores, complete with original annotations, and sometimes play through them. even by today’s computer standards, my first game, a victory, was relatively well-played. as for influences, I had many because I


was a hero worshipper. In my first game, as black, I had no standard defense to 1. e4. So I looked at the combined games of alekhine, capablanca, and Keres from lim- ited library books, and concluded that I should play the modern Steinitz Defense against the ruy Lopez! Today’s databases would obviously not support my decision based upon far too few games. Being more active in the 60’s, it was natural to hero wor- ship the world champion, Tigran petrosian.


unfortunately, his skills and style of


play were far beyond my understanding. But the greatest Gm influence upon me was that of Boris Spassky, who van- quished petrosian for the world championship. I thought his “universal style” seemed ideal. he attacked when that was the correct decision, and other- wise played technically or defended solidly when that seemed prudent. So I tried to copy his style and openings for awhile. This was largely a failure because he was Spassky and I was ... a relative beginner. and I lacked tactical skills, which taught me at an early age to focus upon my technical skills and the endgame.


The biggest change in CC lately has been e-mail and server and the (legal) use of chess engines at the international level. How has this affected your game? I don’t think chess engines have the same large influence upon my games as for most others. That’s because my chess tends to be far more technical than tac- tical, with an emphasis upon long-range planning. So I normally win my games via


uschess.org


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