Anna Cramling is a British national, professional online streamer and commentary host who hold the title of Women’s Fide Master, for those of you who don’t know the term. She grew up in a competitive chess family with her two parents, GM Pia Cramling, and GM Juan Bell, and began playing chess at the age of three. For those of you who don’t know, that’s about as old as most of us get!
Anna Cramling loves playing both traditional and modern chess, though her favorite type is the contemporary type. Her favorite chess books are Chess Classic, written by Gary Kasparov, and the pocket books that come out with just about every new edition of FIDE. The reason that she enjoys playing both is that they are not very structured, unlike Swedish chess, which is more or less a game of pre-planned attacks and maneuvering with predetermined endgame outcomes. Anna Cramling also has a weakness for classical games, and if you read some of her reviews on YouTube she is fond of playing Capri openings, that is, having pieces that are not very important on the board, but can’t be removed, which in effect allows for a much more open game plan. I think it is fair to say that Anna Cramling has a fairly good handle on standard positional games, but has trouble with abstract openings. All in all, Anna Cramling probably has the most diverse chess set that one could ever have, with a strong grasp of traditional styles and weaknesses of modern ones.
Some people have compared Anna Cramling’s style to that of Philip Nurse, another British national, who is also a masterful player of both classical and abstract openings. Of course, there are many differences in the game plan that these two players employ, as well as in the kind of strategy that they use. However, comparing Anna Cramling’s style to Nurse is comparing apples and oranges. The point is, as a top rated woman, Anna Cramling should at least be given consideration for world chess tournaments, though I doubt that it will make her too much of a candidate. What’s important, is that she is one of the best female players around and one of the best players in the world at the moment, period.