Garry Kasparov on My Great Predecessors: Part 1

Author: Garry Kasparov

Price: RM150.00

Pages (Books Only): 464

EAN / ISBN / SKU: 9781857443301
Publisher: Everyman Chess

Published Date: August 2003

Weight: 1.00 kg
Dimensions: 3.17cm H x 25.76cm L x 17.68cm W

Product Description
The battle for the World Chess Championship has witnessed numerous titanic struggles which have engaged the interest not only of chess enthusiasts but also of the public at large. The chessboard is the ultimate mental battleground and the world champions themselves are supreme intellectual gladiators.
These magnificent compilations of chess form the basis of the first two parts of Garry Kasparov's definitive history of the World Chess Championship. Garry Kasparov, who is universally acclaimed as the greatest chessplayer ever, subjects the play of his predecessors to a rigorous analysis.

Part one features the play of champions Wilhelm Steinitz (1886-1894), Emanuel Lasker (1894-1921), Jose Capablanca (1921-1927) and Alexander Alekhine (1927-1935 and 1937-1946).

 

However, this book more than just a compilation of play of the early greats of chess. Kasparov's biographies of the early champions places them in a fascinating historical, political and cultural context. Kasparov explains how each champion brought his own distinctive style to the chessboard and enriched the theory of the game with new ideas.

 

Sample of the book.

 

 

Blogger Reviews:

Overall i felt that Garry Kasparov's series of books is essentially the history of chess, given through the lives, careers, and games of its greatest players (the world champions) and the best players of the various eras never to have won the world championship. ( Wilhelm Steinitz, Emanuel Lasker, Jose Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine in this book, for example.) There are some stereotypes in the players profiles like: Steinitz, the chess theorist, Lasker the psychologist, Capablanca the master of positional play, Alekhine the combinative player. I would like to read more deep insights of the players founded in the power of Kasparov chess knowledge. Value of any chess book is primarily based on its precise in analysis and variation calculation. Furthermore it costs this book to be expensive.

 

Book Reviews:

Thomas Katsampes (West Saint Paul, MN United States) (From Amazon.com)

My father bought me this book (thanks, Dad!) while I was in California recently. I wanted to share some thoughts with you from my experience as both a teacher and a student of Chess.

I'm about 100-150 pages into it, and I like this book. It's not for the faint of heart, however, and I haven't delved into much of the analysis and variations because I simply don't have the time. However, the book is quite readable, and Kasparov's effort of putting the games in context with a history and description of many of the many players and events surrounding the world champions is a welcome relief from the monotony of page after page of annotations and "informant" symbols found in comparable books of this level.

It should be noted however, that this book is not for junior students. In fact, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone under 1600 (perhaps even 1800), simply because there are other books out there that do a better job of catering to what junior players need to develop their game. That having been said, anyone who simply plays through the games and reads Kasparov's histories of the various world champions and their matches will be amply rewarded.

Some of the features of the book that I like:

(1) at the end of each chapter on each world champ, Kasparov summarizes with comments from other world champions regarding that individual.

(2) the moves to each game are printed in bold face so that it is much easier to distinguish the actual moves from the analysis.

(3) The analysis itself is insightful, and from what I have been able to ascertain, seems to be generally accurate. Of course, one should expect some errors as with any book. I'm not as much interested in variations and lines of analysis as I am in chess wisdom--general observations and maxims which I can put to immediate use--which is why I think that Bronstein's tournament book of Zurich 1953 is perhaps the greatest book on Chess ever written---certainly in the top 5.

(4) The language used in On My Great Predecessors is very well-thought-out and it's clear the writer took the time to express his thoughts precisely.

My chief reservation regarding this book is that it's difficult to tell what parts of the book Kasparov himself wrote (apart from the numerous "-G.K." quotes). I would like to think that Kasparov himself did a large part of the writing and analysis, or failing that, that he at least reviewed the analysis. It seems that the latter is true, although it's hard to confirm to what extent Kasparov himself was actually involved in the preparation of the text. It would have been nice if Kasparov's involvement had been clarified somewhere in the book. From the opening chapter where the author gives a one- or two-paragraph summary of each world champion, the author uses first person ("I see my style as...") when describing Garry Kasparov, suggesting that this paragraph (and perhaps that entire chapter) was written by Kasparov; however in the rest of the book the author attributes numerous quotes, including game analysis quotes, to Kasparov.

A comparatively minor issue is to what extent computers were involved in the analysis. A computer double-check is a good thing to have; however, anyone can load crafty or Chess Tiger on his PC and get good analysis from these 2600+ computer programs. In fact, the latest versions of Shredder are now over 2800! So when I buy chess books, I'm not looking for computer analysis but rather the insight---in English, not Informant symbols---which is unique to world-class players writing these books. However, it would have been good to see at least a blurb as to how computers were used in the analysis (e.g. what program, version, hardware, etc.).

In summary, from what I've seen so far, the book is destined to become a part of any Chess library, as important as the ECO's or ECE's. Once the whole three-volume set is out, it will probably become a standard reference work. I look forward to future volumes and editions.