6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best book by one of the best chess geniuses of all time!, January 23, 2010
I've had this book for many years now, and it is not only my favorite chess book, but the one that has improved my game more than any other. It is, in fact, one of my favorite books of any kind--and I am a fiction writer who has several bookshelves full. When I want to relax and get inspired by a true genius, instead of picking up Tolstoy or Flaubert, I often set up my chess board and play through a few of Alekhine's games.
Most chess books focus on a particular aspect of the game: openings, middlegame, endgame, strategy, tactics, combinations, etc. This book contains all these ideas in droves, and presents them through full games, deeply described and annotated (most by Alekhine himself) so that playing through them feels like reading short stories with the author explaining over your shoulder why he chose certain possibilities and why they worked, sometimes with 20/20 hindsight. Granted, Alekhine leans on games he won and is occasionally politely dismissive of his opponents moves, but who could blame him? Though a genius, he was only human! His biography, by the way, is a sad account of his troubled 'real life.'
Alekhine's chess style was innovative, unexpected, thrilling and utterly brilliant. At one time he had won more brilliancy prizes for his games than any other player in history, and with good reason! He came up with plans for combinations that were so profound that no one could see them coming. It has been said that Alekhine was one of the only players from the first half of the 20th century who would have been a champion today. And I do believe that his depth of understanding of the entire game would have made him a serious contender against all the recent greats: Botvinnik, Petrosian, Tal, Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand, and Carlsen. His play and ability to study the game transcends time in ways that even Capablanca, who was totally averse to studying opening theory, would have been unable to match.
As a side note, I also own all of Capablanca's books and do love them. But besides a few good ideas about the endgame, Capablanca's analysis is rather shallow by comparison. The reason is not that Capa was a worse player--indeed, I think that Alekhine was rightfully afraid to allow a rematch with Capa after his grueling win in Buenos Aires (very well annotated in this book)--but simply that the cuban master could not describe his chess vision. The problem with someone who is born with such natural talent is that they cannot translate to us lesser mortals why and how they play so well. They just do, and this means that their chess analysis falls rather flat. This is why certain players, though great, simply cannot write a good book about chess, and why so many second tier players write such incredible books and are such great coaches--they are conscious of their path and struggles to success and can therefore explain the game really well.
None of this is to say that Alekhine was a lesser genius than, say, Capablanca. Alekhine was simply a different kind of genius. His genius was not easy. He struggled with his games and his analysis. He spent all his time studying the game and coming up with new ideas to try. And because he was so devoted to analysis, he excelled at explaining how and why he made the moves he made. And, much like Botvinnik, this makes him an excellent teacher.
More than anything else, Alekhine had an amazing ability to see deep and unexpected combinations, the end point of which is often the brilliant kicker--over and over again he sacrifices a piece, begins a long combination with extensive exchanges, and then, only after the dust has settled, does he make the unexpected move that totally shifts the position in his favor. His genius was not to see the initial cool sac (somewhat like Tal), it was to play through the exchanges in his head, then, only AFTER the exchanges, see the board largely empty and move a piece that won the game. This single idea, to see the point at the end of the combination, demonstrated over and over in this book, has taught me more about how to create solid combinations than all the other books I have read combined.
Of course everyone knows that Alekhine was incredibly gifted at combinations. What is less well known is how well he understood openings and endgames. It was said that in a single game, you had to beat Alekhine three times: in the opening, in the middlegame, and in the endgame. And it seems true. He himself, in preparing for his battle with Capablanca, said that he made sure he understood openings and especially endgames better than the Cuban master--quite a feat, and he did succeed. Granted his opening theory is somewhat dated, but he explains the classical openings (especially the Queen's Gambit and the French) so well that anyone below 2000Elo will benefit from the ideas. What is startling is his ability to explain the endgame.
I have several books about endgames, and most are frankly dreary bores. Playing through them feels like walking though a desert with no water: you just want to get out as soon as possible. The only one that I think merits true study and is fun to read!, is Chernev's "Capablanca's Best Chess Endings." Like that book, Alekhine rarely shrugs off the ending with the annoying line, 'the rest is just technique,' whatever that means! Instead he often explains his point-by-point plan for the endgame, then describes how he was able to convert that plan into reality in the face of the complications and precise timing that endgames often require. Honestly, if you are looking for an excellent book about the endgame, try Chernev's. But given that most people will buy Alekhine's book for incredible ideas about the middlegame, that he also excels at describing plans for the opening and endgame comes as a wonderful bonus.
My only gripe about the book is that there are frequent extended, possible, though not played, variations listed in the games. I always find these tedious since I am not a good enough player to see the board ten moves into a variation and usually don't feel like playing through a long footnote that will make me forget the thread I had been following until then. However, there are always well placed diagrams at those points, and given that Alekhine's primary focus was complex combinations, he was right to include the possible responses in his analysis. Indeed, many of them contain incredible nuggets of brilliant, and often funny, play in their own right!
The book itself, though softcover, is beautifully bound and produced on heavy white paper, and the algebraic notation is almost completely free of errors. Honestly I have no idea why the book is listed at $200+ on Amazon. I ordered it from a small bookshop for $45, if I remember right, and at that price it is more than worth every penny. Honestly this is in my top 5 favorite books of any kind, and if I were stuck on a desert island I would gladly pass the time by playing through "Alekhine's Best Games."
As a final side note, though I am still a relatively weak player (ca. 1600) who just loves the history of the game, when I first read this book as a beginning player, it must have boosted my Elo rating a couple hundred points (from 1200-1400?) because, after reading it, suddenly none of my chess playing friends were able to beat me anymore. This does not mean, however, that it is a beginner's book. It is probably best suited to players with several years experience and several well worn chess volumes on the shelf, who want to learn why people (including Kasparov) still praise Alekhine so highly. I imagine that it is also very useful and interesting for masters, but I cannot vouch for that myself.
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