Chess Mastery: What Sets GMs Apart

Insights from a grandmaster’s journey

I interviewed Australian grandmaster Moulthun Ly. The following insights, I believe, are some of the best ones for your chess.

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How he developed his understanding

I think most of my understanding came from self-study.

I had a natural curiosity – I would see a game played in a tournament and I would wonder why someone played that particular move and not another move. So, often I would check the database, skim through past games, try to work out why people weren't playing certain moves and reach certain conclusions.

And I did this for a long time. This is probably how I developed my understanding.

I would also be able to spot different themes and different positions, try to understand why GMs tend to prefer certain middlegames rather than other ones and how they approach them and so on. I think this helped me a lot.

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How he learnt openings

The way I learn openings is, I don't follow any strict course or anything. I like to look at them just to see what players are going to play against me, what I can expect or if I want to expand on it. But then I might go back and look at lines myself and decide whether I like it or not. Because I think it's important that you need to like what you play and understand it well.

So I tend to look at a lot of model games and stem games [Note: historically significant/foundational games that serve as a starting point for a particular opening line which you can study to understand the origins and evolution of certain positions and ideas].

In each particular line, to get to GM level, you probably need at least five [model] games. That will make you understand the line a lot better, especially if you analyse it very very deeply. That would probably be more than most opponents would have looked at. I think having a lot of model games and analysing them very very well will help you more than just memorising lines.

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How he decides on moves

This is quite tricky but I tend to use my intuition, at least when I start by seeing a position. I'll definitely use my intuition to try and pick up on any themes or ideas, try to point me in the right direction.

So I'll look at a position and think about what should be my main ideas and plans based on previous experiences or just my general understanding of the position.

From there, it'll point me towards certain moves or certain plans.

And from there, I will use calculation to back it up.

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On the widespread addiction to opening courses

I would say openings are not so important. You can get by without knowing much about openings as long as you're not getting lost positions every game.

You want to focus more on core skills like calculation and middlegame understanding and so on which are going to carry you through the majority of positions you get into rather than specific opening lines.

You shouldn't think that you're going to memorise a whole Chessable course of 4,000 lines and then it's going to make you all of a sudden like a GM. It doesn't really happen like that. So I think it's better to develop understanding.

If anything, if an author is suggesting something, you should be questioning why that is the suggestion and why other moves weren't suggested and why that's the best in that position. I think if you start asking questions like this, you'll become a better player.

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If you liked these, you can watch the full interview here, where you can browse the list of (over 30!) chapters/topics and watch the ones you’re most interested in.

A few I would recommend are

• how he trained from IM to GM (“At least for me, going from 0 to IM was much easier than going from IM to GM”)

• the benefits of having a coach

• the pitfalls of relying on calculation or intuition

• whether to work on your strengths or weaknesses.

If you’re serious about chess or happen to know a young player with big dreams on the 64 squares, I recommend listening to Moulthun’s insights in full as he shares many nuggets of wisdom you can apply to your chess life from today.

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