Customer Reviews

Chess World Title Contenders and Their Styles (Dover Chess)

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This book presents the best games of the 1970's from eight of the leading grandmasters of the time, including Jan Timman and Kasparov! Good biographical information included. This is a reprint of a 1980 publication in algebraic notation, and is actually a much better book than most of the new games collections that are currently being published these days.

I absolutely love books like these. This book reminds me of Irving Chernev's "The Golden Dozen": Interesting bios of players, games chosen for their beautiful, original play, and no freakishly long, boring, mindnumbing analysis (a la 'John Nunn's Best Games')but just analysis in the right places where you can keep your mind on the whole game and not just parts of it. Everyone needs a book like this (game collections) because while your trying to learn all the nuances of a sharp new opening or how to win rook endings, this book will help to relieve all the science of chess and let you focus on the art as well. Also, some of the players in this book I had never heard of before or knew very little about personally or of their games, so now I can sort bridge the time period between Fischer and Kasparov's reign that I knew very little about. Plus its under 10 bucks and you get all of this!! Buy it!

"Chess World Title Contenders and their Styles" --Kopec & Pritchett

The first time I bought a Danny Kopec chess book, my game improved immediately. He never analyses a chess game without revealing some little gem. For example, he will show a Sicilian Defense and discuss how the Maroczy Bind emerges and how it helps or hinders. [ He's got one in this book as well ] Kopec in my opinion is one of the better chess writers. He's not too complicated in his presentation.

The games of these "World Title Contenders" serve as excellent examples. For openings, Kopec shows ample games employing the Ruy Lopez opening, the Sicilian Defense, which is not surprising, since he has authored several books on the Sicilian variations..., Caro-Kann, Petroff, French, Dutch, Alekhine's Defense, King's Indian, Grunfeld Defense, Queen's Indian, and Nimzo Indian, and Queen's Gambit, Benoni, Pirc (pronounced "PEER-TZ"...according to Daoud Zupa).

There's an especially nice biography of WALTER BROWNE, of whom Kopec likes to observe:

"Browne is one of the few Western Grandmasters who as a chess professional has been successful in leading a 'normal family life'...etc." p. 67

The Brown biography is especially informative. Kopec tells how Browne spends his time, in day to day activities. (Brown is extremely active, both mentally and physically).

The final chapter, fittingly, covers Gary Kasparov (a favorite of mine, because he has intellectual depth.) With Kasparov's games, it begins with King's Indian Defense, Samisch Variation and Kasparov has Black. In Game 2, Kasparov with White plays Ruy Lopez, Bird's Variation. In game 7, Kasparov has Black playing a Gambit Benoni. There is a lot of material here worth study.

If there were any complaint at all, it might be something mild regarding the preponderance of Sicilian games. They are not a vast majority, but certainly more than any other offering; but this may be considered an advantage, considering that Kopec probably is more knowledgeable concerning the Sicilian than any other opening.

I often am surprised when publishers try a bit of price gouging, kicking an extra 7 or 8 bucks onto a title's list price, but not so here, which is generally the case with DOVER editions. The list price here is $9.95 and for the analysis given, they might as well be handing these books out for free.

If this was a stock, in 5 days the price would be pushed up so much peaple couldn't buy it. Why? This book is that good. Get this book before it A. goes out of stock B. increases in price. However, even if it goes up like 6 dollars it would still be a buy. Obviously I liked the book. Why? Because I learned some interesting stuff about the players making chess more personalized and Kopec and Prichet really analyze there styles. They say a lot of interesting things about the players, the question is do the predictions hold the test of time. The answer with Kasparov is yes!! These games are very interesting and for people who want to see what style they may have they can do no wrong by taking a look to see which player fits them. The players include: Walter Browne, Kasparov, Timman, Andersson, Ljubovic, Miles (recently deceaced), Ripli and maybe a few others I forgot. Anyway you will find someone you like and can follow and learn from for a long time. So buy this book and learn and enjoy while watching your game improve!!