Customer Reviews

Alekhine's Best Games of Chess 1938-1945

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Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine (10/31/1892 - 4/24/1946) was the fourth World Chess Champion (winning his title in 1927 from Jose Raul Capablanca). Three of his most famous works are New York 1924 and the two volume collection of his best games (the Dover edition, My Best Games of Chess, 1908 - 1937, includes both works in a single volume). He died before he could publish a third volume, but, fortunately, C. H. O'D. Alexander completed this task in a book worthy of the great master himself.

This third volume covers the eight years from 1938 to 1945. These were not Alekhine's best years, but C. H. O'D. Alexander has included 42 games (43 if you count Alekhine/Navarro (Madrid, 1940) that is given in his notes to game 4) that are both entertaining and instructive. If you've read the first two volumes of this work, then you will not be disappointed with this third volume.

This book follows the format established in the first two volumes. The games are in descriptive notation and the diagrams use the Hastings chess font (an ornate font frequently found in earlier chess publications, but seldom used today). If you are not familiar with descriptive notation, then read the article on this notational system in the online Wikipedia encyclopedia (it takes only a few minutes to master). [1]

C. H. O'D. Alexander identifies those critical points in a game where the opponent goes wrong and elaborates on what move or moves should have been played. Sometimes it is Alekhine's play that is open to criticism bringing to mind Tartakower's observation that the winner is the player who makes the next-to-last mistake. [2] When appropriate, he highlights the strategical characteristics of a position thereby bringing clarity to the ensuing play. Overall, the analysis is insightful without being overly tedious. This is, indeed, a wonderful book to learn from!

The only criticism that I have of this work, based on the number of typos, is the lack of a proofreader (for this, I blame the original publisher); otherwise, I highly recommend this book. [3, 4]
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[1] In the past, chess books were published in Descriptive Notation (eg., 1. P-Q4 Kt-KB3 2. Kt-KB3 P-QKt3 3. P-KKt3 B-Kt2 4. B-Kt2 P-B4 5. Castles PxP, etc.); today, chess books are published in Algebraic Notation (eg., 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 b6 3. g3 Bb7 4. Bg2 c5 5. 0-0 cxd4, etc.). Algebraic Figurine Notation uses the symbol for a piece instead of the letter representing that piece.

[2] "Victory goes to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake"--Saviely Grigoryevich Tartakower.

[3] My review is of the original text. The Ishi Press edition of this book contains an introduction by Sam Sloan. The original 1949 text is then reprinted. This is followed by a thirty-nine page addition with the games presented in Algebraic Figurine Notation by Sam Sloan and new translations and errata by Frank R. Mur. Why wasn't the text of the original 1949 book simply updated?

[4] If you want a comprehensive accounting of Alekhine's games, then I would recommend Alexander Alekhine's Chess Games, 1902-1946 by Leonard M. Skinner and Robert G. P. Verhoeven.

Though I knew that Alekhine did not compile the games in this book, I was expecting it to be published in keeping with the first two books written by Alekhine himself. Unfortunately, the information I had to work with about this book when ordering was very sketchy.

This is a shallow attempt by the author, Alexander, to create a trilogy of Alekhine's best games and it just doesn't come close. The book has 1/3 the games of the previous two and the notes are definitely not in keeping with Alekhine's acumen for chess.

I had thought that I owned this book as a youth, but even as a youth my reaction would have been the same. This is not even in the same league as Alekhine's two best game compilations. I really only have myself to blame, though. The time period covered in this book was during WW2 when top rated competitions were few and far between and Alekhine was not the player he once had been, regardless of being world champion. My guess is that Botvinnik, Keres, Fine, or even Reshevsky would have beaten him in any kind of extended match.

If you want more Alekhine, this book will leave you grasping at straws, despite any hopes to the contray.

I have read books of late CHO'D Alexander.And have good notion about his ability to teach chess through his clear lucid writing. I do not have this book. But am sure this is a very good book on the games of Dr. Alekhine.I have earlier works of Dr. Alekhine annoted by the player himself.These are classic work in chess literature.The third volume is no doubt a great one and must get its place in every seious chess player's library.I shall be highly satisfied to get my own copy of the third volume of Dr Alekhine's games for my own chess libray.