Ben Johnson

Aug 12, 2024 | podcasts.apple.com | Ben Johnson

FM Kamil Plichta is a renowned opening theoretician, Chessable author, trainer, and blitz/bullet specialist. In our conversation, Kamil highlights several important chess improvement-related topics: The value of learning by emulating those slightly higher rated than you Knowing when to withdraw from a brutal tournament Advice for choosing openings We also chat about Kamil’s pursuit of the IM title, the London System, the English Defence, and much more.

Aug 5, 2024 | podcasts.apple.com | Ben Johnson

As the co-founder of Quality Chess Books and Killer Chess Training.com, GM Jacob Aagaard is always a busy man. This year, the award-winning author and trainer has been even busier. It was recently announced that his company, Quality Chess Books is acquiring two of the biggest chess publishers (New in Chess Books and Everyman Chess) from Chess.com. Jacob joined me to tell me the story behind these acquisitions, as well as the decision of his co-founder, GM John Shaw to retire.

Aug 2, 2024 | benjohnson.substack.com | Ben Johnson

Hi again everyone! I’ve decided to actually write something this week, although to be honest I have not been as dialed in as usual on top chess, and outside of recording the video for my Chessable course (Exhausting! Coming out in about a month!) I haven’t been working on my own game lately either. I do have 3 book recs for you all though. Some of you may have heard them discussed on The Perpetual Chess Podcast, but I will spell them out for those not hanging on every word on the podcast.

Jul 29, 2024 | podcasts.apple.com | Ben Johnson

On this week’s Perpetual Chess, the popular and sometimes entertaining GM Jan Gustafsson returns! Jan, of course, is a popular commentator, Twitch streamer, Chessable author, and renowned opening theoretician. His last visit to the podcast was a mere four months ago, but a lot has changed since then. GM D Gukesh has qualified for the World Championship match, and it has been revealed that Jan worked on GM Ian Nepomniatchtchi’s team.

Jul 22, 2024 | podcasts.apple.com | Ben Johnson

This week’s guest is Aiden Rayner, a Melbourne, Australia-based chess trainer, blogger, podcaster,  and the founder of the training site, Don’t Move Until You See It. Aiden became interested in chess improvement as an adult and quickly zeroed in on a need to improve his ability to picture a chess board in his head. In the subsequent years, he has developed some tools to help improve this skill, and has read extensively on how the different brains adapt to this task.