KASPAROV - My Great Predecessors part V

It is not really in doubt that Bobby Fischer is one of the greatest (if not the greatest) chess players of all-time. His name is one that it is recognized immediately by almost anyone with even a passing interest in chess. His numerous brilliant games are very well known and have been seen in numerous anthologies.

However, Fischer also played many games that have generally escaped public attention. These include early games before he was well known, simultaneous games, blitz games as well as many classical games that have simply fallen under the radar. There is also a match of ten games played against Svetozar Gligoric in Sveti Stefan before his famous “re-match” with Boris Spassky.

Prolific author Cyrus Lakdawala has tracked down many of these games. They provide fresh material for die hard Fischer fans and provide numerous examples of Fischer’s extraordinary chess talent. Thanks to his remarkable ability to find clear cut plans and strategies in any position, Fischer somehow managed to make chess look easy. This is a very instructive anthology.  384 pages

This remarkable book is a tribute to a man who is probably the greatest chess coach of all time. Mark Dvoretsky was a fascinating, intelligent, honest, decent, hard-working and good-natured man who dedicated his life to chess and its players.

When Dvoretsky started coaching after a fairly successful career as a player, he became a kind of doctor who could quickly spot what his students needed help with. He made them better chess players but also better people. In this book, not only his most famous students Artur Yusupov and Sergey Dolmatov explain what made Dvoretsky so special, but also former World Champions such as Garry Kasparov, Vishy Anand, Veselin Topalov and Magnus Carlsen, and many others.

In addition to a wealth of delightful and often touching stories, Chess Coach contains 39 of Dvoretsky's games, which show what a strong player he was. They have been analysed by Dvoretsky himself and by many of his former students. Several interviews and articles complete this colourful compilation. One of Dvoretsky's own most famous books was called For Friends and Colleagues – as Garry Kasparov writes in his extensive foreword, this book is a worthy reply 'From Friends and Colleagues'.

Mark Dvoretsky (1947-2016) was known as ‘the strongest International Master in the world’ in the mid-1970s when he decided to pursue a career as a chess trainer. His students Artur Yusupov and Sergey Dolmatov became World Championship Candidates. A meticulous chess analyst, Dvoretsky wrote many highly acclaimed books, his most famous being Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual. He became so popular as a coach that dozens of world-class players repeatedly sought his advice. 324 pages

Over de legendarische Nederlandse schaakwereldkampioen Max Euwe is al veel geschreven, en Euwe produceerde zelf ook tientallen boeken. Maar er was nog geen representatieve verzameling van de beste partijen van deze ‘efficiënte, mensetende tijger’, zoals de Amerikaanse grootmeester William Ewart Napier hem noemde. Max Euwe’s Beste Partijen voorziet in deze lacune. En wie anders had dit boek kunnen schrijven dan Euwe’s opvolger in de Nederlandse schaakwereld – Jan Timman, één van de beste schaakschrijvers van deze tijd. Timman selecteerde tachtig partijen van Euwe. Het is ongelooflijk hoe hoog het niveau was dat Euwe bereikte in de vijftig jaar dat hij actief schaakte, en hoe aantrekkelijk zijn aanvallende speelstijl was. Timman heeft veel nieuws ontdekt in de beste en meest beroemde partijen van Euwe, maar haalt ook een aantal minder bekende briljante partijen voor het voetlicht. Bij zijn analyses komt een aantal interessante paradoxen aan de orde. Zo was Euwe voor het overgrote deel van zijn carrière een amateur, maar wist hij meer van openingstheorie dan vele van zijn tegenstanders op topniveau. Als de underdog onttroonde hij de energieke Alexander Aljechin als wereldkampioen in een epische match in 1935. Op zijn 52ste wist hij nog steeds topspelers als Geller en Najdorf te verslaan met fantastisch aanvalsspel in het beroemde Kandidatentoernooi in Zürich 1953. En toen hij de zeventig al was gepasseerd bleef hij een gevaarlijke opponent voor de jongste generatie Nederlandse schakers. Deze partijenverzameling van een soms onderschatte wereldkampioen, met analyses van topgrootmeester Jan Timman, is een onmisbare aanvulling voor iedereen die is geïnteresseerd in het Nederlandse schaken en in het wereldkampioenschap. Jan Timman, de voormalig nummer twee van de wereldranglijst, is de auteur van vele populaire schaakboeken. Zijn boek Timman’s Titans won de ECF Book of the Year Award in 2017. Zijn recente boeken The Longest Game, Timman’s Triumphs en The Unstoppable American, zijn nu al moderne klassiekers in de schaakliteratuur.

The second volume of Elk and Ruby’s treatise on Viktor Korchnoi, penned by FM Hans Renette and IM Tibor Karolyi, covers the period 1969-1980. This encompasses Korchnoi’s famous world championship fight with Karpov at Baguio City in 1978, his candidates final matches against Karpov in 1974 and Hubner in 1980, as well as the related candidates cycles and major tournament performances. Much biographical colour is supplied on his life and character, with this period including his defection from the Soviet Union to the West in 1976. Like in Volume I, original material is provided from interviews with key protagonists and their relatives, while sources in Russian, German, Dutch and Hungarian as well as English are used to paint the most comprehensive portrait of Korchnoi available.
140 games and fragments are analysed in detail in this work. As well as Karpov and Hubner, opponents include Fischer, Spassky, Petrosian, Smyslov, Portisch, Geller, Najdorf, Timman, Larsen, Mecking, Sosonko, Andersson, Ljubojevic, Polugaevsky, Nunn, and Miles among others. Many new discoveries are made in the analysis. In particular, the authors identify that Korchnoi worked hard to improve his endgame ability significantly during the time that he was boycotted in tournaments by the Soviets, which is most surprising given that he was in his mid-forties by then, and was the best player of his time at endgame tactics. Further, the authors found that his reputation as a pawn grabber was highly exaggerated, and that he carried out a huge number of king attacks on the h-file. They also discovered that Korchnoi more than matched Karpov for openings in the 1978 title bout despite the unprecedented preparation of the Soviet chess machine, and that the key reason he lost that match was time trouble.
The book is supplemented with a generous supply of photos, many taken from the Korchnoi family archive and never before published. 518 pages

While today, Reginald Pryce Michell (1873-1938) is largely forgotten, he was a quiet giant of his time. A leading British master, he beat all nationally leading players from Blackburne and Atkins to Golombek, as well as internationally renowned players such as Bogoljubow, Reti and Sultan Khan, and drew former, reigning, and future world champions such as Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe, and Botwinnik.
His best individual result was in Margate 1923, where he shared second place with Alekhine and Bogoljubow. As a team player, Michell was part of the team that won bronze in the 1927 Chess Olympiad.
In 1947, Julius Du Mont, then editor of British Chess Magazine, wrote a biography on Michell with a selection of his games. The annotations to the original game selection have been considerably expanded, and another thirty thoroughly annotated games have been added by Carsten Hansen. 313 pages