Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Exclusive: George Xie Interview

In this exclusive interview, Australia's latest chess superstar, FM George Xie, gives us a few insights into his recent successes in overseas tournaments. As you can see, George is a man of few words. Just as well, as he is really the kind of gentleman who prefers to do his talking over the board.

Well, first of all George - congrats and well done on the international master title.

Thanks, but I am still not IM yet.

Tell us - how did you feel finally earning the title? What went through your mind? (I realise of course that the next step is to raise your rating to 2400+).

I was very happy that I can made 2 norms form 2 tournaments, and my next step is to get my rating [to] go up to 2400.

During the World Juniors event, was there some particular moment when you knew you'd earned your last norm? I imagine you had calculated what you needed to score and all that.

During the event, the only thing in my mind is play well. I didn't really know I made a IM norm when I got 5.5/9.

We followed your progress quite closely in Australia and I can say that we are all very happy for you. You played some really strong opponents in the World Juniors; who would you say was your toughest opponent and why?

I think Zhigalko (2537) is the toughest opponent I had played in the tournament because his very good at opening theories, and also understand how to continued after opening.

Which was tougher: World Juniors or 5th Asian Championships?

Asian Championship is much strong, as we can see the players average rating was much higher than World Junior.

Can you nominate your best game from both events?

I was quite happy with my black colour against IM Laxman in Asian ch, and black colour against IM Lenic in World Junior.

Where to from here - the grandmaster title?

Get IM first. But it is not easy to become GM.

Tell our readers again what you're studying at university.

I [am] actually in TAFE. The main subject I study is languages (English).

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