Len Radić

Croatia

My story starts in 2007 when I was born in Zagreb, Croatia.

I learned how to move the pieces from both my father and grandfather, when I was 7 years old but a more serious play started a bit later.  I changed a few chess clubs since I started my chess journey and right now I am playing for Chess Club Samobor. We have a very strong cadet and junior teams and I am a member of both.

There were quite a few coaches in my life. My grandfather who is a national candidate master (MK) helped me practice the game whenever I visited him and thought me many tricks. For a few months, I was regular in the chess school of Mr. Maroje Portada. I even had a chance to take some classes from the former junior world champion, GM Ognjen Cvitan. Nowadays, I have regular training with GM Blažimir Kovačević in our club. However, I always consider my father Goran my main coach and second in every tournament. Without him, I probably wouldn’t even know what chess is.

My favorite player is Jose Raul Capablanca. I just love the subtle beauty of his games and the miracles he does in end games. Besides chess, my favorite sport is basketball. I am member of the Basketball Club Hermes Analitica in Zagreb. Basketball and chess go very well together and physical fitness helps me sustain some very long chess games. I am pretty famous for playing some marathon chess games that lasted for 4-5 hours.

My chess goals for 2022 are to get to 1900 national and 1700 international FIDE rating in classical chess. To achieve that I need to do a lot of solo chess practice and play a lot of tournaments. So far, my most memorable achievement is my second place and silver medal in the City of Zagreb Championship (U15).

Smiling Pawn is a place where people from all over the world can play and learn chess together and get to know each other. Here all of us are friends and we discover a magnificent chess world together. For me, it is also a great opportunity to create chess content.