Bagholder has been an active tournament chess player for decades. When you consider all the people who take it serious enough to get rated, and play in USCF or FIDE tournaments, Bagholder’s rating is in the top 1% of all tournament players. Bagholder was blessed in his chess career to have made friends with Grandmaster Igor Ivanov. In the 1970’s-1990’s he was an absolute terror over the board. Igor, in his only career opportunity, beat former world champion Anatoly Karpov
This is a spot-on analysis. I appreciate it.