Leon Mendonca - A typical day in the life of a professional chess player
Leon Luke Mendonca was the surprise winner of the Tata Steel Challenger 2024 tournament in Wijk aan Zee. He started with 3 out of 6 points, and was lost in the lower part of the table, until he recovered with 6.5 points out of his last seven games, to reach first place! The Indian Grandmaster and ChessBase Host, Arne Kaehler, started a video series in 2023, on how a typical day in a life of a professional chess player looks like. The insights of young Leon (turning 18 in March) are tremendous, and you can learn a lot in this first video. Also check out the interview with IM Sagar Shah after the Geno and Microsense brand ambassador won his career's best and strongest tournament. Photo: Lennart Ootes/Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2024.
A typical day in the life of a professional chess player
with GM Leon Mendonca
0:00 - Intro
0:23 - Leon played more than 150 games in 2023. How to handle this amount?
1:07 - How important is a good sleep for chess players? How long do you sleep?
2:55 - Do you have a coach? Are you reading any chess books?
3:27 - Without a schedule, how can you motivate yourself to work on chess every day?
4:13 - How important is ChessBase? Engines? And how do you use these tools?
5:03 - Real example of how Leon randomly chooses a game of his interest, and uses Chessbase for analysis.
