Learn chess from a World Champion! These 100 games were selected and annotated by Botvinnik himself as the best games he played before becoming World Champion in 1948. Includes contests against Alekhine, Capablanca, Euwe, Keres, Reshevsky, Smyslov, and others. Author explains his theories, the development of Russian chess, and six end game studies.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Must Have Classic,
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This review is from: Botvinnik: One Hundred Selected Games (Paperback)
This is a must have for every serious chess player. Botvinnik's annotations are excellent with a very good balance between variations and verbal explanations. On top, he is undogmatic and very objective (much more so than e.g. Alekhine). He even tells you when he overlooked something. In this way you get a true picture of what really happened in a game and how the fight and initiative flow back and forth. The chess is quite modern. What I like most is that in these times the fight starts around move 8 already, while modern players head for starting positions way beyond move 15 or so.
This collection is incredible value for money. It tops many expensive modern instructional books. After reading this book I am considering to get the whole three volume Botvinnik epos.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best Chess Strategist Ever?,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Botvinnik: One Hundred Selected Games (Paperback)
We usually read grandmasters' game collections not to improve our endgame or tactical abilities, but to understand chess strategy and planning. Of course, Botvinnik was also superb tactician and a very strong endgame player, so there is surprisingly first-rate endgame and tactical play here than one might think. But that is the icing on the cake. It is in his strategic undestanding that he was heads and shoulders above his contemporaries, and for this reason this book is such a great classic.
First of all, Botvinnik had an incredibly deep and accurate undestanding of which positional factors matter more in a given position: e.g., is it important that White has a double, isolated pawn or not--considering that he has two bishops? Second, he knew perfectly how to create a plan to maximize his positional advantages and minimize his disadvantages. Finally, he was unmatched in converting the strategically-winning position so achieved into an actual victory, by flawless "conversion" of his positional advantage to material, or a mating attack, or a won endgame. All this comes out very clearly in both Botvinnik's play and his annotations. He makes it look simple: a result of the iron logic and single-minded sense of purposes that guided him throughout every game. The reader will learn a lot about what chess strategy and chess planning are all about, both in general and in particular (e.g., which positional factors tend to matter in what kind of positions). The one slight problem, which isn't Botvinnik's fault of course, is that this Dover reprint is in desciptive notation (e.g., "1. e4 c5" = "1. P-K4 P-QB4") which might annoy some players. But it is well worth to spend an hour or so to familiarize oneself with this notation even specifically for this book, to say nothing of numerous other older chess books one is giving up on otherwise. At less than $10, it's a bargain.
25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must for any comprehensive chess course,
By Mauro Casadei (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Botvinnik: One Hundred Selected Games (Paperback)
Ok - i agree with many that thought that Botvinnik had no outstanding talent. Then why did he succeed so long ? The answer is method: you go through his games and are not amazed as in Tal's but he leads you through the logic of the position. Playing logically does not mean stereotyped or predictable: Botvinnik introduced the wildest variation in the Semislav; he was one of the first to adopt k-side expansions w/ g2-g4 in queen-pawn opening- even uncovering his king. Careful study of this book will repay much more than study say Shirov's games: it does describe wonderfully the way to handle typical key positions and themes. The only annoying thing is that Botvinnik uses too much the tone of an "illuminated teacher" that knows the absolute truth; don't be fooled when he says that the opponent's position is lost already from the late opening. This is not how chess work- even at superGM level.
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