Customer Reviews

Grandmaster Preparation (Pergamon Russian Chess)

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GM Lev Polugaevsky, twice a candidate for the world title in the 1970s, was considered perhaps the world's authority on a variation of the Sicilian called, not surprisingly, the Polugaevsky Variation. This book is literally a personal history on how the author developed and refined this variation. Originally published in 1977 and translated from the original Russian by Ken Neat, the Russian title should actually be translated as "Birth of a Variation" (Rozhdeniye Varianta). Exhaustively showing the reader how he researched the variation, Polugaevsky also treats the reader to how a hard-working Soviet chessplayer in the 1950s and 60s practiced his craft and how many other chessplayers contributed to the Variation by playing against Polugaevsky as he tried out various move trees. While it may seem extremely dry on casual reading, it becomes fascinating and absorbing if you take the time to follow the author as he navigates the Sicilian Defense, one of the more complex openings in chess. However, this is not the whole of the book. In other sections, Polugaevsky treats the reader to researches he did during adjourned games (a practice no longer acceptable since the advent of computers) as well as how he prepared to play many leading GMs and World Champions during his career.

In his introduction, GM Mikhail Tal wrote: "The book which you, dear reader, are about to open is rather different from a biography. It is not a ceremonial speech by a grandmaster, but an invitation to enter into the private study of one of strongest players in the world... In his material on this variation, the author does not give us the information that in such-and-such a game such-and-such was played, but instead creates something of a monograph-cum-biography. In it there is no mention of results in tournaments, but of searchings and disappointments, and of the paths to this or that idea."

It is unfortunate that the book is out-of-print. It is as original as Reti's "Modern Ideas in Chess", Nimzovich's "My System", and Vukovich's "Art of Attack". Not necessarily suitable for beginning players, dedicated intermediates (above say 1500) can get a lot out of it (I should know: I'm barely above 1500 myself). Polugaevsky also wrote "Grandmaster Performance", a collection of 64 of his best tournament games as well as a rigorous series of books on the Sicilian Defense itself.

Polugayevsky weaves a fascinating tale of the life of a world-class grandmaster, his struggle to keep finding new (sub)variations in the Sicilian Defense, and to test them in battle against some of the world's best players. The book is quite accessible even for the intermediate level player who carefully works through it. A candid look inside the thinking of a grandmaster.

This book, "Grandmaster Preparation", was later converted to figurine algebraic notation and published in 1981 and 1994 by Cadogan Chess, under the title: "Grandmaster Achievement". At the moment (2010) this later edition also seems to be out of print and commands a rather stiff price on the used book market. It's not surprising, considering the book's excellence.