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Magazine Chess Book Reviews : November 2008Return to the Magazine Review Index
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The late champion’s masterwork hardly needs a fresh review – it is utterly brilliant. Suffice to say that this is an unaltered reprint of the 1969 original except that it has been converted to algebraic notation. The original typeface has been reproduced. JS.
As a special treat for online readers, here is the original British Chess Magazine review of this book written by W.H. Cozens and published in the December 1969 issue of Magazine:
Fischer’s first adult book has been eagerly awaited. Now that we have it, people with preconceived opinions about him must be prepared for some surprises. It was bound to be a good book but some may be taken aback at finding it such a pleasant one.
There are many surprises—
(1) The annotations are by Bobby Fischer (i.e. not by Grandmaster Robert J. Fischer). (2) It does not begin with that “Game of the Century” against Donald Byrne in 1956. The game is not even included in the book.
(3) Among these 60 games, chosen from all the wealth of masterpieces he has produced, Fischer selects 9 draws and even 3 losses – a course unthinkable to a Capablanca or an Alekhine.
(4) He is fair – even generous – to his opponents; e.g. “Petrosian has a knack of snuffing out such dreams 20 moves before they enter his opponent’s head”; “... Smyslov’s keen positional judgment ...”; “Keres, however, has seen just one move further”; “As Olafsson showed me, White can win”; and so on.
(5) There are no polemics, no politics, no Sousse affair, no Reshevsky feud. Apart from indexes of openings and opponents and a brief tabulated march and tournament record the book consists of 368 pages of pure, solid chess. There is not even a biography.
(6) The author makes no pretence that he is infallible: “I didn’t see it”; “I already knew I’d been outplayed”; “I had simply underestimated the force of Tal’s reply”; “Walther’s next move quickly disabused me.” So sharply self-critical is he that he twice stigmatizes a move which forces resignation as a mistake because there was a better one. Fischer says ofthis book “I have tried to be candid and precise.” In this he has been wholly successful.
If these things are surprising the quality of the annotations is not: they live up to one’s highest expectations. On average each game gets six pages of detailed notes with some four or five diagrams. The giant battle with Botvinnik at Varna gets fourteen pages with nine diagrams – a masterpiece of analysis in which Botvinnik’s opinions are given nearly as much weight as Fischer’s own.
To the conscientious student of master-play over the years 1957-67 not many of these games will be new, for the simple reason that Fischer’s games automatically get full publicity in the periodical press. 58 of the 60 are tournament or match games. The two exceptions are an Evans Gambit skittle with Fine and just one scintillating exhibition game which whets the appetite for more.
On the whole Fischer has chosen not the brilliancies which he churns out against tournament tail-enders but the gargantuan struggles with the world’s top grandmasters. Virtually all the great Russians are there: Spassky, Petrosian, Tal, Smyslov, Botvinnik, Keres, Korchnoy, Geller, Stein, Kholmov; and the non-Russians include Larsen, Portisch, Gligoric, Najdorf, Euwe, Reshevsky, Olafsson.
The style of the notes is personal and racy: “The Queen’s-side pawns hurtle towards a touchdown ...”. They have been likened to Alekhine’s but this a poor comparison. Alekhine watched the board but Fischer evidently watches his opponent as well: “Botvinnik visibly relaxed”; “Petrosian made a wry face”; “Time-pressure had Sherwin burying his thumbs in his ears”; There is even a touch of telepathy about “I was considering the blunder 17 B–Kt5? ... but Trifunovic seemed too quiet all of a sudden.” Fischer’s relentlessly personal attitude to the game is irrepressible: “Keres thought 14 N–K4, etc. was stronger. But I wanted that pawn ...”.
Apart from his prodigious skill Fischer’s knowledge of the game is now formidable. He can quote not only all the familiar sources back to Steinitz and beyond but also obscure postal games, minor tournaments, magazines from Bulgaria and (of course) Latvia, comments by A. R. B. Thomas and John Littlewood and, astonishingly, the 1893 edition of Freeborough and Ranken. The notes include eight more complete games of his own (themselves lightly annotated) and several complete games by other players, as well as countless games taken to the point where the result is clear (to him!).
The notes to these games amount to a thorough course on the openings (some openings, that is; Fischer has never been known to open with any move but P–K4). There is also a wealth of fine endgame play. The full treatment of the middlegame gives the impression that Fischer’s broad strategy is a matter of intuition but that in matters of tactics his innate vision and imagination are backed up by relentless and precise calculation, probing far ahead all the time.
Larry Evans has had some hand in the book, supplying to each game a title and short introduction in the manner made familiar by Fred Reinfeld. One admirable feature of the production which other such books might well imitate is the fact that if one opens the book at random in the middle of a game the page headings show Game Number/Event/Date/ Opponent/Opening. This is on every page. It’s a great book without a doubt, and can go straight on the shelf alongside Alekhine and Tarrasch and fear no comparisons.– W. H. Cozens. © 1969 British Chess Magazine.
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Another book which scarcely needs a review; after a short discussion of their earlier less significant encounters, it is mainly Garry Kasparov’s highly coloured account of their first two championship matches. This first chapter in the Kasparov-Karpov ends on 10 November 1985 as Garry is crowned king of chess: “I remember the faces of Campomanes, Sevastyanov and Krogius. It was a piquant situation: I was crowned with a laurel wreath by those people who had done everything within their powers to try and ensure that this did not happen.” Sometimes you wonder whether Kasparov paints himself like a Homeric hero (e.g. the ‘many-wiled Odysseus’) enduring all manner of vicissitudes on his road to glory. But of course it is fascinating to hear the story of these cataclysmic matches in the young challenger’s own words. Like a classic Kasparovian attack – irresistible. JS.
A massive compilation of all the games that could be traced for the Canadian grandmaster Duncan Suttles, whose style and opening ideas were hardly mainstream, but are therefore more interesting and dramatic than the ‘products’ of more orthodox players. BC.
Buy all three volumes -
special offer price £60.00
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Another heavyweight tome from the leading Russian chess coach, with 33 chapters which start with an anecdotal introduction followed by some in-depth analysis. This is very much for advanced students of the game, perhaps of 2000 rating and above, or it can be used by teachers as class material. JS.
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The usual mixture of articles, mainly on less ventilated aspects of chess history, though a pot-pourri under the heading of Great Chess Players does touch on those well-worn subjects as Lasker-Schlechter 1910 and Morphy’s stay in London. In that regard, we note an amusing reference to cholera in London being due to “drinking water wells too close to chess pits”! Of particular interest is a 40-page article on Vera Menchik, her family and early career in the mid-1920s, making use of many references dug out by Sussex chess historian Brian Denman from newspaper archives. Note also that Tony Gillam has now compiled a list of ‘British Tournaments and Matches 1901-1940’ which occupies pp374-383, pure gold for the chess researcher. Review by Bernard Cafferty.
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The Ruy Lopez, Berlin variation, was not considered mainstream until 2000 when Kramnik’s spectacular success against Kasparov brought it into the spotlight. To be more specific, this book concentrates on the position after 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 Nf6 4 0–0 Nxe4 5 d4 Nd6 6 Bxc6 dxc6 7 dxe5 Nf5 8 Qxd8 Kxd8 – the line which is named as per the title of the book. One wonders whether this spate of popularity will wane given its non-appearance in the current world title match (so far, anyway) and the fact that a grim positional struggle often ensues. But it is also true that this line is more about chess understanding than the rote learning of theory, so it may appeal to those who don’t enjoy wading through databases. The author presents the material via 65 deeply annotated games, including some with lines other than the true ‘Berlin Wall’. The book is well presented and indexed. JS.
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When non-players learn that you are a chessplayer, they tend to ask a number of questions about the game, many of which are perfectly sensible, but others which betray misguided ideas about what chess is. The author has compiled 101 such questions, some asking technical details about aspects of play, others more general, together with his own down-to-earth and eminently sensible answers. It is an excellent read for beginners and elementary players. Recommended. JS.
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This is the author’s story of his early rise to fame when he was the subject of his father’s book about him, Searching for Bobby Fischer, and his various chess world experiences. He tells of being trained by big-name coaches such as Dvoretsky and Razuvaev and these pages are very revealing. Later he took up the martial art Tai Chi Chuan and became equally accomplished at that. A well-written account of Waitkin’s acquisition of two very different skill sets. JS.
Another collection of crosstables and results from tournaments and matches worldwide, culled from an impressive sources including Magazine. It is a very useful work for chess archivists and historians and well-indexed. JS.
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These excellent puzzles are unusual in that they require positional solutions rather than the usual tactical hammer blows. The author starts by discussing positional motifs before launching into the main puzzles which are given four to a page, with solutions given at the end. JS.
