Customer Reviews

Grandmaster of Chess: The Complete Games of Paul Keres

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Grandmaster Of Chess: The Complete Games Of Paul Keres, by Paul Keres, translated and edited by Harry Golombek, is a very great book. It is a tragedy that this book has gone out of print.

The title of the book is a misnomer. It doesn't really contain the "complete" games of Paul Keres. The reason for this is that Keres originally wrote three separate volumes, The Early Games Of Paul Keres, The Middle Years of Paul Keres, and The Later Years Of Paul Keres. When he decided to combine the three into one single volume, The Complete Games Of Paul Keres seemed like a natural title.

The book contains 26 early games (1931 - 1938), 27 games from the middle years (1939 - 1951), and 27 games from the later years (1952 - 1962) for a total of 80 games. All the games are won by Keres.

Keres's notes are extremely thorough and detailed, and the games are rich with tactical complications. In fact, I would even say that both the quality of the games and the quality of the notes are on the same level as Fischer's 60 Memorable Games. The difference is that Keres's book has 20 more games!

Personally, my favorite game in the book is the game that Keres won with Black against Reuben Fine at the AVRO tournament of 1938. Keres's notes really bring this game to life! He explains everything, both the brilliant moves and the mistakes, and is always objective.

One interesting feature of the book is what Keres chose to leave out of it. For example, Keres won six games (including an excellent win in 67 moves with Black against Smyslov) and took second place at the 1941 Soviet Championship, but there is no mention of that in this book. Also, Keres won two games against Fischer in 1962, but didn't bother to include those games here, either. Apparently, he didn't feel that two wins against Fischer were among his 80 best games!

Despite these omissions, this book is truly great. There are wins against Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian, Spassky, Fine, Reshevsky, Flohr, Korchnoi, Portisch, Geller, and just about every other great player from the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s. (No wins against Fischer or Larsen, though.) All of the games are superbly annotated.

Definitely five stars out of five.

This is one of the all time best chess books, as Keres, many times a Candidate for the World's Championship, decided to annotate his best games deeply.

The original is now out of print, but the games and notes have been reprinted with corrections and additions by British GM John Nunn.

Put this one on your "must have" list.

I simply wanted to point out something quite curious I discovered in regards to old game collections published in the US: they normally were edited versions of the original, abridged versions if you will, here for example a previous reviewer says that the book contains a total of 80 games, well my copy in Spanish language has 105 games, something similar happens with the Botvinnik's games collections (take for example the 1972 edition by McKay), the versions published in English not only has less games but also the notes themselves were shortened by the publisher without mentioning that important fact to the reader. I think this probably was a common practice in the 70s which is a shame so, be aware, this book does not contain the total amount of games as in the original an also the annotations might have been "censored" for the sake of reducing the number of pages.

Paul Keres has been called the greatest chess player never to have won the world championship. He was legitimately competitive for about 30 years.

What makes this book great is not the quality of his games, but the quality of his annotations. He is detailed, thorough, and honest. There is a subtle self-effacing quality about his words that endears him to you and he provides situation nuances that give you a closer sense of the game. And besides all this, the beauty of chess is in his writings.

That this book is out of print is a travesty. This is a must for any chess player, but finding a decent copy is going to be hard. The type of paper Arco used browns and yellows over time and the binding glue cracks. And in addition to all this, most copies are going to be heavily used. Chances are, you'll pay $20 just to get a readable copy. Still, well worth it.

Hi! Imagine some of the most inspiring notes to a brilliant career spanning over 3 decades of grandmaster chess, stuffed inside a too small box... Contentwise it's a 5 star book (as is any book written by Estonian grandmaster Paul Keres). But i was so disappointed with the format - it's small-lettered & pocket-sized! - i got rid of it and bought Nunn's re-issues 'Road to the Top' and 'Quest for Perfection', which look nicer and handle better but tortured my wallet...