Bryon Nickoloff Annotations

[Hans Jung]

https://www.365chess.com/players/Bry...?p=1&start=400 Very creative play by Black. I like the play by the two knights but white took matters into his own hands with Nxe6.

[Hans Jung]

https://www.365chess.com/players/Bry...?p=1&start=400 This game starts out closed and white looks better. However Nick calculates precisely with the pawn break 27...b5 and then keeps up the pressure to the end.

[Brad Thomson]

Hans, these links just give us the list, we need the name of the opponent, thanks!

[Hans Jung]

The opponent is Carlos Jauregui and the opponent the post before was Leon Piasetski

[Sam Sharpe]

The opponent is Carlos Jauregui and the opponent the post before was Leon Piasetski

Thanks, Hans!

https://www.365chess.com/players/Bry...?p=1&start=400 Very creative play by Black. I like the play by the two knights but white took matters into his own hands with Nxe6.

The Piasetiski game: https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=2485527

https://www.365chess.com/players/Bry...?p=1&start=400 This game starts out closed and white looks better. However Nick calculates precisely with the pawn break 27...b5 and then keeps up the pressure to the end.

The Jauregui Andrade game https://www.365chess.com/game.php?gid=2485543

[Hans Jung]

Well thank you Sam! (for supplying correct link)

[Brad Thomson]

Thanks Sam, two more NIck beauties. Ever patient and lethal.

[Brad Thomson]

A few memories of things Nick said:

He stated that 1.d4 is winning while 1.e4 is a draw.
He believed that the "antidote" to 1.d4 is the Grunfeld (though he did not play this defense himself).
He claimed to be better at poker than he was at chess.
He believed that the entire world should be one country.
He said that cats are the most beautiful creatures in existence (I agree).
He said that he liked hockey, and he also liked boxing.

And a few things I have mentioned on other threads in the past. Nick had a great sense of humour:

Chess is completely corrupt because if they can't take you off over the board they will try to do so off of the board.
Tom O'Donnell is the toughest Canadian chess player to beat, he is also the toughest to lose to.
Hans Jung won the Ontario Closed by always making the second-last mistake.

[Hans Jung]

Ive always taken that as one of my best compliments. My interpretation is that I made the position so complex that the final mistake was bound to happen. Nick was always very witty.

[Brad Thomson]

Nick meant it as a compliment to be sure, he basically loved everyone. Bryon was capable of being, shall we say direct, but only if the other person started it in some manner. He admired the fight that you, Hans, put into your games, sort of like Lawrence or Deen, because this style of play was foreign to Nick. He was loath to muddy a position just so as to give himself a better chance of out-calculating his opponent. Nick was never a Tal, always a Capablanca. Nick needed to play the best move he could find, his perfectionism and aesthetic sensibility would not allow otherwise. There were many times I said to Nick after he had agreed to give some 2250 player a draw that he should have played the game out and waited for a mistake, but if Nick had already made what he deemed to be the slightest error, he often would not be interesting in continuing. As noted above, Nick was NOT a practical chess player.

[Brad Thomson]

No disrespect intended of course, but Bryon would sometimes jokingly refer to himself as "Nick the prick". This generally took place during the post-game refreshment sessions.

[Brad Thomson]

I recalled today something else Nick once said. "When I play the Sicilian I try to hold on for dear life in the middlegame and then win the endgame."

[Hans Jung]

One of my best memories of Nick was watching him calculating at the crosstables of major tournaments. We often compared notes and he was better than anyone else at strategic positioning during the course of a tournament (in regards to looking ahead at potential pairings and outcomes)

[Brad Thomson]

Do you know, Hans, if Nick would use this knowledge to sometimes play the Swiss Gambit? I recall meeting with Nick and Igor in his hotel room in Winnipeg, 1994, and Igor was explaining the value of this approach. He used it all the time, he said.

[Frank Dixon]

I wrote an article for chessbase.com, shortly after Nick's passing, in 2004, as a tribute. Here is the link: Enjoy!!
en.chessbase.com/post/im-bryon-nickoloff-1956-2004-