Zurich International Chess Tournament 1953

Perceptive coverage of all 210 games from the legendary tournament, which featured Smyslov, Keres, Reshevsky, Petrosian, and 11 others, including the author. Suitable for players at all levels. Algebraic notation. 352 diagrams.

The Stuff of Legend A great tournament deserves a great book. That's what grandmaster Miguel Najdorf produced in his account of one of the greatest and most important chess events of all time, the 1953 Zürich Candidates Tournament, in which 15 of the world's top players battled for the right to challenge the world champion, Mikhail Botvinnik. After two months and 210 games, many of which rank among the best ever played, Russian grandmaster Vassily Smyslov finally came out at the head of a star-studded field that included Sam Reshevsky, Paul Keres, David Bronstein, Tigran Petrosian, Efim Geller, Alexander Kotov, Mark Taimanov, Yuri Averbakh, Isaac Boleslavsky, Laszló Szabó, Svetozar Gligoric, Max Euwe, Gideon Ståhlberg, and Najdorf himself. This is the first English edition of this classic work, until now available only in its original Spanish. It includes all 210 games with Najdorf's full and extensive notes, plus all the original introductory material, biographical sketches of the players, round-by-round accounts of the action, closing summary, and a survey of the tournament's impact on opening theory. Additionally this edition has many more diagrams and photos, an introduction by Yuri Averbakh (one of the last surviving participants) and a foreword by Andy Soltis.

First published in Russian in 2014 and written by Genna Sosonko - widely recognized as the number one writer on the history of Soviet chess - this is a truly unique book about the life and destiny of the great chess player David Bronstein (1924-2006). Emerging from a challenging background - he narrowly escaped the holocaust in WWII, during which he starved, and his father spent seven years in a gulag - Bronstein faced Botvinnik in the world championship match in 1951 and nearly defeated him. But this 'nearly' inflicted a wound on David so deep that it would not heal for the rest of his life. Sosonko knew Bronstein well. Their conversations - many of which have made it into this book - not only portray the thoughts and character of one of history's most original grandmasters but also take us back to a time unlike any other in world history. This is not a biography in the traditional sense of the word. Rather, Sosonko's fascinating book asks eternal questions which don't have neat and simple answers. With a foreword to the English edition by Garry Kasparov.

Written by a Grand Master, this guide isolates basic elements and illustrates them through Master and Grand Master games, breaking down the mystique of strategy into easy-to-understand ideas.

One of the greatest books ever written about a world championship match. In 1960 Mikhail Botvinnik was the pillar of "scientific " chess and the ironwilled champion of the world. The young attacking genius Mihail Tal, the "Wizard of Riga," put the magic back into the game by defeating Botvinnik with spectacular tactics in one of the most dramatic and celebrated world championship matches of all time. This is Tal's own classic work on the contest. In it he sets the stage and explains every one of the 21 games, telling both the on- and off-the-board story of this tatanic clash of styles and thought. Take a trip with the Magician from Riga as he invites you to share his thoughts and feelings as he does battle for the world title. "Mikhail Tal's splendid account of his world championship match victory is one of the masterpieces of the golden age of annotation - before insights and feelings and flashes of genius were reduced to mere moves and Informant symbols. This is simply the best book written about a world championship match by a contestant. That shouldn't be a surprise because Tal was the finest writer to become world champion." - From the Foreword by International Grandmaster Andy Soltis

Mikhail Tal, the 'magician from Riga,' was the greatest attacking World Champion of them all, and this enchanting autobiography chronicles his extraordinary career with charm and humor. Dazzling games are interspersed throughout with anecdotes and witty self-interviews, and in typically objective fashion he related both the downs and ups of his encounters. An inveterate smoker and drinker, Tal's life on the circuit was punctuated by bouts in the hospital with kidney problems, but nothing could dull his love for chess and his sheer genius on the chessboard. His illustrious tournament record, up to his death in 1992, is included here in full, along with 100 complete games and nearly as many positions. Tal's annotations in this book are a world apart from ordinary games collections. No reader could fail to be swept along by his passion and vitality as he sets the scene for an encounter and then recounts every psychological twist and turn.

This is a well-established training manual which encourages the average player to understand how a grandmaster thinks, and even more important, how he works. Kotov tackles fundamental issues such as knowing how and when to analyze, the tree of analysis, a selection of candidate moves and the factors of success.