Chucky!
The legend strikes back at Tata Steel Chess
Vasyl Ivanchuk is my hero.
At the age of 56, when most top players of his generation are retired, Chucky is still going strong.
As a matter of fact, he just won two amazing games back-to-back in the Tata Steel Challengers section, beating the tournament leader, American Andy Woodward, in an absolute masterpiece.
By the way, Andy is only 15. And rather than playing with Woody and Buzz, he’s leading the Challengers group with 8.5/11. Ivanchuk is just half a point behind at 8/11, and he’s tied for 2nd with two rounds to go!
Chucky is the dinosaur of modern chess, especially considering Faustino Oro, another young superstar, is just 12 years old!
How does he do it? Where does Vasyl find the energy to compete against kids who are young enough to be his grandchildren?
The answer is actually quite simple.
He loves chess!
Chucky lives, breathes, and obsesses over chess every day. He is known to get lost for hours analyzing chess positions non-stop with anyone interested. Here’s my friend Kostya’s blog post about his experience and how inspirational it was.
For today’s post, I will do a video analysis of Ivanchuk’s win vs. Andy Woodward from round 10. At first, it started as a typical Old Man Chess positional battle in the Ragozin Defense. Yet, when provoked, Chucky didn’t back down from the complications and won a brilliant attacking game.
Ivanchuk often avoids engine prep and chooses lines based on his superior understanding of the game. This is exactly what I’m trying to focus on in my “Old Man” chess repertoire.
You might not be playing for the Tata Steel title, but you can use the same philosophy to dominate your local club. I’ve built my entire “Old Man” system around this exact approach — focusing on positions you can play with intuition rather than 20 moves of engine theory.
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The 2026 Tournament Starter Kit: My complete “Old Man” repertoire designed to be learned in just 40 minutes with full video and the PGN.
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The Tournament Survival Guide: My 1-page PDF of gold nuggets from 35+ years of OTB play.
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