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CK: Please tell us a time that you
got an opportunity to be in the spot light and how did you feel, how did you
handle it?
MM: Well Ms. Kitchen, I won 3 Expert
Chess tournaments in 1995 and was invited to play in the Minnesota Invitational
Chess Blitz Championship and I was thoroughly enthusiastic, because only the top
20 players were invited on an annual basis.
I was the only Asian American in this Minnesota Blitz
Championship among 19 other top rated experts and masters.
My first opponent was none other than International
Master Mohamed Tobachowichz, one of the premier Russian chess player who
migrated from St. Peters, Russian.
He has won every blitz tournaments since 1989,
crushing opponents after opponents with his dynamic and sometimes brutal
style of attacking chess.
Mohamed was rumored to make grown men cry at the board
because he beat them so bad and so senseless and so quickly and plus
he’s 6’2" and 225lbs and just glares at you after each move that he
bangs onto the square, he can be pretty intimidating when he’s crushing
your king into the ground.
CK: What happened? What did you
play? Were you intimidated?
MM: No, I think like life and
racquetball, life is how you see it. It’s how you view each event. I perceived
this as a Challenge, a great opportunity to be cross swords with one of the
greatest blitz players that ever live. I know that if I played him 100 blitz
chess games, he would win 99/100.
Well, I felt good that day that it was my 1/100 day. I
learned that in Chess, as well as in racquetball, you just play the
board and play your game.
I wasn’t going to change my game to an all out
attacking game like Mohamed, that would be playing into his hands, my
plan was to just continue to play my high percentage "Do Nothing Style
of Chess" and make him beat me.
CK: Did it work? What color did he
play and how many minutes do you get for Blitz Chess?
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