Chess Games of the Great...

[Zorg]

Hi, Javier,

Thank you for your numerous and generous pieces of advices on this site. My question is : "In your opinion, which champion collection of games is the most worthy of study for anyone (in that case myself !) rated 2100. It doesn't matter for me, if it's a to day player or a chess legend of the past. Just important that the book is not out of print if I doesn't already own it ?! Not important also, if it is written in french, italian, russian, german or spanish

Probably good to avoid such authors as Nunn, Hübner, and Speelman . These 3 authors give us analysis of analysis of analysis...and after 5 pages of such treatment, you (or more exactly I ) don't remember what the initial problem was ??? May be, I exaggerate a little, but so little ?!

I wait impatiently your lesson on playchess to morrow. Unfortunately I will not stay at home the next two weeks and I regret it because the topics treated are very interesting

Many thanks

[Javier]

Well, Fischer's "My 60 memorable games" is probably the most honest book ever written by a GM on his own games, and the games are amazing, so that should definitely be in your library.

All of Thal's books (the ones written by him) are also superb, and he doesn't just deal with tactics. He's very funny also and tells lots of interesting anecdotes. He doesn't try to portray the image of an amazing mind, if he was lucky, he tells you, if he didn't feel like playing because there was a soccer game on TV which he wanted to watch, he tells you. If he made a move purely based on intuition, without having calculated a single variation, he tells you.

And then there is Petrosian. All of the books which he authored are simply outstanding and put you in contact with a mind which the world will never see again.

I don't like any of Karpov's books because I don't think he's honest about what he saw/didn't see and he doesn't make much of an effort at explaining things anyway (his coments are brief and rather "dry").

The same can probably be said of Botvinnik, although a lot of his games are incredibly instructive from a strategical standpoint...

I don't like Kasparov's books either. In my opinion, he's not honest about what he saw and what he missed during the game. I don't put into question the quality of his (post mortem!) work though.

I enjoyed Smyslov and Taimanov's games also, so it's hard to say. I would definitely reject all books written by authors who were not the players themselves.

I'm probably forgetting some other great game collections though...

[Manik]

Few great players who's games are easy and instructive are Capablanca and Lasker

Capablanca specially tells his ideas/feelings over the board in all of his books.

The lasker books are good but he only gives dry commentry to his games