18 Questions with Mr 2007-2008 IM Draks Boskovic of the Dallas Destiny

1. Quickie questions! What’s your favourite:
a. Fruit? strawbery
b. Vegetable? potatoes
c. Ethnic cuisine? Serbian
d. Breakfast food? omelette
e. Drink? Sweet tea
f. Dessert? Cheese cake
g. Classical composer? Mozart
h. Painter? Picasso
i. Novelist? Dan Harrington
j. Foreign Country? Czech Republic
k. Geographic land formation? seaside
l. Type of pie? Banana cream
m. Chess piece? rook
n. Color? blue
o. Musical instrument? keyboard
p. Word? Shipping
q. Person? Marina Lupik
r. Calendar Year? 2007
s. Piece of clothing? T-shirts
t. Holiday? New year
u. Day of the week? Friday
v. Quality in yourself? workoholic
w. Season? Summer
x. Saying? – lets bumble

2. Ilya Krasik of the Boston Blitz recently remarked, “I am only looking for motivational material, it isn’t easy to find these days, Dallas players are a reserved bunch.” Are you going to let Ilya insult your team like this? What do you have to say in response? Something really rude, perhaps?

Well, I don’t really know who this person is (Ilya Krasik). Larry Christiansen and Eugene Perelshteyn are great players, and that’s definitely their advantage over us. (Or could have been their advantage --EV) If four players like Ilya Krasik played against Dallas, they wouldn’t score more than ½ point. hahaha.

3. You will be playing Larry Christensen in the final. What do you think of him as a player? What do you see as his strengths and weaknesses? What opening do you expect? What would you guess will decide the result of the game? How do you estimate your chances?

He is amazing player, and I have the most respect for him. He was coaching UTD last year when we were preparing for the final four, and that was the only time I’ve met him. He’s a great player and knows so much about chess. I’ll be honoured to play against such a strong player. And he beat Karpov in 12 moves! I’m hoping not to lose the game, draw would be solid.

4. Describe your preparations for USCL games, including, but not limited to: opening preparation, pre-game superstitions, and interactions with teammates.

Sounds unbelievable for some people, but there wasn’t a game I’ve prepared this season. Usually I run or play racquetball before the game, that’s my only preparation. My teammates can vouch!

5. How much do you care about the result of your game? About the result of the match? Would you rather play a horrible, horrible game but Dallas wins or the best game of your life but Dallas loses?

Every chess game I play, I try to win, and I care about result. And, since it’s a team competition, of course I want my team to win every match. Like basketball players, if my team wins, and even if I play bad, I’ll be happy.

6. How do you envision the bottom three boards going?

I think we have advantage on board 3, where Jack Stopa has white, and we are hoping that he will win. Draws on boards 2 and 4 would be good for us, so I have to make a draw and we’ll win easily J

7. The last two finals have been won by teams who did not have a grandmaster on board one. Do you think this is a coincidence, or could it be that the small rating advantage conferred by having a player over 2590 is outweighed by the advantage of stronger lower boards?

The problem with having a GM is that it has to be compensated by playing weaker player on lower boards. Our team is solid on every board, and that’s our biggest advantage.

8. Let’s talk about your game with Becerra. Exactly how happy did you feel afterwards? How long did the euphoria last? Tell us about the game: how much was opening prep? What did you feel was your best move? What was his first mistake? Biggest mistake? How scared were you when you sacked the exchange? When did you know you were going to win?

I was so happy after I won the game, cause I lost 3 games before, so I needed to win to return my prominence before finals! The euphoria lasted next couple of hours, and when I saw that I won the game of the week, the euphoria returned again. It’s still on. As I said earlier, I don’t prepare for games ( I’ll have to do it for Larry). I think my best move was sacrificing exchange in the middle game for compensation, which lead to a very complicated position, and, at the end, victory which made me the happiest man in the world at that moment. I don’t think I’ve made any big mistake in the game. I wasn’t scared when I sacrificed the exchange, because you can’t be scared and expect to win. So, I saw it, and had a feeling it’s gonna be successful.

9. Who are your favorite and least favorite USCL opponents and why? (You may answer individuals and/or teams)

There are no favorite and least favorite opponents for me !! I like playing against strong players and trying to win against them!

10. If you had to play for/ manage a different USCL team, which would it be and why?

San Francisco, because there are some nice beaches over there

11. Are there any openings that give you special pleasure to either play or play against?

I enjoy playing accelerated dragon for black- that’s my favourite opening. I like playing against the English too.

12. If you had to pick name on type of ending that you are especially good at, what would it be?

Knight and bishop endings

13. Which are your top five chess-related websites and why?

I check www.fide.com , www.uschess.org, Jonkman’s tournament site, and www.serbiachess.net (Serbian chess federation). That’s all I can think of now.

14. Which chess player (living or dead) do you admire the most?

Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov

15. If Bill Gates gave you $500,000 to organize a chess tournament
a. where would you hold it, - Caribbean
b. what format would you choose, - round robin, 8-10 players
c. who would you invite, and – top 5 players in the world, close friends of mine, Viktoria Beinoraite, and myself
d. what, if any, special rules would you impose? – you can drink up to 6 drinks ( alcoholic ) during the game. Every next drink your opponent loses 5 minutes on clock- I bet games would be interesting.

16. How obsessed are you with chess? In an average week, how much do you study, play and think about chess? When you study, what exactly do you do? If you could choose to be more or less obsessed, would you choose either and to what extent?

I’m not really obsessed with chess, I haven’t been studying it lately. I probably should more, but there are just so many other thing on my mind these days…I usually look at openings I play, or just look at top GMs games. I prefer staying the same like now about my obsession with chess. I’m happy.

17. What are you studying at UTD? What do you hope to do with the degree when you finish? Are the classes what you expected them to be? Is American college life what you expected?

I’m a senior majoring in business administration. American college life is exactly like I thought it would be- no pressure- great! I had troubles just with couple of classes so far. I’m thinking about gong to grad school, and I’ll have to make my decision very soon. I’m still young lol

18. Do you think American girls are easy?

Noooo, no way. European girls ( primarily Czech and Russian) is where it’s at right now.