Nail It Like Nepo! - Franco, Zenon

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Résumé :
Ian Nepomniachtchi's road from Grandmaster to becoming Magnus Carlsen's world championship challenger in 2021 was a long one. GM in 2007 and Russian champion for the first time in 2010, Ian only hit the elite in recent years. His victory in Ekaterinburg occurred at his very first candidates tournament. In this book Grandmaster Zenon Franco analyzes Nepo's chess through his 30 best wins and several fragments, considering his style, his strengths, as well as his weaknesses and how he has overcome them. Like Magnus, we see fighting, practical chess with a player not afraid to push his g and h pawns in front of his king, and a more aggressive than positional style. Above all, Franco compares Nepo to Lasker, Korchnoi and Magnus Carlsen himself. In instructional move by move format, we see Ian's best wins against Carlsen, Anand, Kramnik, Giri, Aronian, Vachier-Lagrave, Svidler, Gelfand, Karjakin, and other elite players of the last decade.

Biographie:
Grandmaster and FIDE Senior Trainer Zenon Franco was born in Asuncion, Paraguay, in 1956. After living in Buenos Aires he moved to Spain, where he has lived for over 30 years. Zenon is the author of 29 chess books published in six languages and has been a regular chess columnist of the Paraguayan Hoy and ABC newspapers for the last 17 years. He also writes regularly for several chess magazines in Argentina, Italy and Spain. In 2017, he received the 2016 Isaac Boleslavsky book of the year award from the FIDE Trainers Commission. Zenon was Pan-American Champion in 1981 (San Pedro de Jujuy, Argentina). He has participated in 11 Olympiads, from Haifa, Israel, in 1976, to Batumi, Georgia, in 2018. Zenon won the individual Gold Medal for the best result on first board at the Olympiads of Lucerne, Switzerland, 1982, and Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, 1990. He also represented Spain at the 1998 Olympiad in Elista, Russia. Zenon's highest ever place in the Elo list was 66th in January 1982. As a coach, Zenon was director of the Escuela Kasparov Marcote de Galicia from 1995 to 1999. His most successful pupils include Grandmaster Francisco Vallejo Pons and IM David Martinez Martin, Spanish editor of Chess24.com. In 2016, Zenon was granted an award by the Paraguayan parliament in recognition for his invaluable and meritorious contribution to Paraguayan sport: for his chess career and for his help in the development of chess in Paraguay.