I think I am rather like this guy in that I have decided to dedicate my energies to studying chess, not playing it. I feel like there is so much to learn, so much I don't know that I have no business playing chess lol. I play games now only as a training mechanism (i.e, games in particular systems I want to take up, etc).

Many authors, like Reinfeld for example, tell you something that makes sense but isn't really true, just so that an average person can "understand" the position. This makes people think they comprehend a position when in fact they have no clude what's really going on. I got very little out of the few hours I studied one of his books, except that I know literally nothing about the game.

It's disheartening for an amateur to realize that nobody below expert level can really understand 90% of chess positions. However, unless players know this they will continue to deny their ignorance and you can't possibly improve like that.

I don't think he cares much about it,but this could be a way to thank him for all the contributions he made to chess(it will be certainly much poorer without the enormous work he accomplished)!

But even not having his work in mind - he has all to be considered as a GM: the class,the rating and the results(recently discovered some very strong Soviet tournaments in which he played well,but they were not considered by the FIDE)

Next year he will celebrate his 60th birthday - I think this is a good opportunity to give him the GM title

I am starting a petition here,are you interested?

It would be nice to see this celebrated in style, perhaps with a tournament including some of his students. Perhaps a big cake "signed" by them with a "THANK YOU" in large letters.

Thank you for the wonderful work you've accomplished,which reveals the secrets of the chess game to us.

"Im studying a Dvoretsky's book, but its hard to me!... i planed to go through for 2/3 weeks, but after 2/3 months im still on it analyzing variations.... but im happy, i think my chess-understanding growed up by this..."

I was impressed... if even a strong IM praise a book in this way, how much could help a patzer like me to read them...

He knows the correct move for a LOT of very difficult positions, plus he wrote the book on endgame technique.

<<<<<<<In the summer of 1991 I gave lessons to some young American players. To my surprise I observed that many of them, when playing important games or meeting more eminent opponents, did not want to play actively and thought only about a draw. Clearly, the result would often turn out directly the opposite-ultra-cautious, passive play usually leads to a worsening of the position.>>>>>>

He then analyzes some games by Chris Talbert, Stan Garber, and Josh Waitzkin to support his argument. He concludes

<<<<<<<Now I will express my version of events. In America parents begin closely following the competetive achievements of their children from their very first steps in chess. Too much emphasis, even in junior competitions, is given to ratings, prizes, isolated successes in games with strong opponents, and so on. Such an approach is of course passed on to the children, and they try to give their paents joy and boast to the contemporaries about any current successes. For the sake of momentary successes they become cautious. Alas, the result sometimes turns out just the opposite and, more important, it sharply slows the creative growth of the children.