Hero of the Month
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John Emms
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England's
33-year-old GM John Emms, who was born in Norwich on Tuesday 14 March
1967, shares the same day of the year for his birthday as other celebrities
like Stewart Reuben, Michael Caine, and Albert Einstein. Like them, John
is also highly accomplished. He is on the verge of breaking into the elite
group of the world's 100 top-rated players, and his impressive results
include sharing 1st place in the super-strong 1997 British Championship
until the final play-off.He is an extremely skilful chess coach and writer too, whose acclaimed works include "Easy Guide to the Ruy Lopez" (GAMBIT/Everyman 1999), "Play the Open Games as Black" (GAMBIT 2000), and co-authoring "The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games" (Robinson 1998) and "Nunn's Chess Openings" (GAMBIT/Everyman 1999). Also in the field of writing, John is to be the new editor of "ChessMoves", newsletter of the British Chess Federation.
I can also thoroughly recommend John's 1997 "Foxy Openings" video on the Ruy Lopez, which he explains with the same great enthusiasm which I witnessed him putting into performing his "Gandhi" song some years ago!
John is currently working on a book about MAMs (Most Amazing Moves), which might inspire him to leap to the 2600+ super-GM rating level. For a wee bit extra inspiration and amusement too, the 12 bold letters in MAMs, pure gems can be rearranged to make Emms a super-GM!! He certainly plays like one using his favourite Spanish Opening in game G13.28.