Customer Reviews

Leonid Stein - Master of attack (Hardinge Simpole Chess Classics)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

leonid stein was a genius of attack who beat botvinnik, tal petrosian, smyslov, keres and a host of others. the games here are annotated very carefully and in highly readable form by the grandmaster correspondent of the london times and the international herald tribune. every game is a joy to play over. some people have claimed that some of the games are not by stein. this is simply untrue. every game is well authenticated and there will be some marvellous sacrificial treats very lucidly explained for anyone who buys the book. there is also a biography of stein with his most important results spelled out in detail.watch out for stein's immortal game against krogius!!

Buy this book if it comes up at a low price or as used. Great collection of attacking games. Keene provides adequate notes without enough depth, the biographic stuff is good and Stein really deserves the worshipful writing of his life, e.g. a great player whose is twice robbed by FIDE (chess bureaurocracy) of his shot at real greatness - i.e. to play for qualification to challenge for the world title. The games are all excellent (though Gufeld claims a few are not actually Stein's ?!) A great feature of this book are the two dozen short games at the end. However the book that Stein deserves is still unwritten. This book fails to cover his positional style, endgame play, the full extent of his will to win and opening influence. This work is better than nothing, rescues the memory of of a chess genius of the 60's and is readable for all classess of chess players - the games are very imspiring. Keene's decent job should have been better.

This is a good book on Stein. The annotations, which are not too deep and they don't need to be so, fill the bill. But I agree with the other reviewer that the Real McCoy Stein book is yet to be written. Stein had a fine sense of positional play and was also a very good endgame player,a very unusual feat for an attacking player.They usually don't fare so well in these two areas. Kasparov, for instance, was a notorious endgame blunderer (you don't see this a lot in books because he's the chief advisor for a well-known publisher and the authors there suck up to him). So those two features of Stein's play still want a book. I was going to give this book only 3 stars but the title is Master of Attack, so I think the author is covered. So 4 stars.

many modern chess books look like telephone directory print out-not this book. it is full of brilliant games, queen sacrifices, dashing attacks,all annotated in a liveley fireside manner.

leonid stein was a ukrainian grandmaster who won the ussr championship three times as well as winning two of the strongest ever international tournaments. this book is a fitting memorial for him!

this is a wonderful book packed full of games , results, biography and miniatures by the brilliant soviet chess champion who died at a tragically early age. the games are annotated in depth and include wins against such titans as botvinnik, tal, petrosian, smyslov and keres.

Leonid Stein's brilliant chess career was cut tragically short by his untimely death in 1973.Scoring overwhelming victories against the world's leading grandmasters, Stein not only stormed to an incredible total of 3 first prizes (out of 4 attempts) in the USSR Championships between 1963 and 1966, but also won what were arguably the two strongest tournaments of all time,(Moscow 1967 and Moscow 1971). This book is a memorial to this great Master, and pays tribute to Stein's brilliant attacking genius.It includes a detailed biography of Stein, listing his best results, his best games annotated in depth and a chapter devoted to the remarkable miniature games he won against world class opposition. Raymond Keene was a personal friend of Stein and played against him twice in international competition. He is a British Chess Champion, and the first British Player to achieve a FIDE (World Chess Federation) Grandmaster norm. He was awarded the OBE for services to chess in 1985. He is Chess Correspondent of The Times, The Sunday Times, The Spectator, and The International Herald Tribune. He is a prolific author of chess books, several of which are classics of the genre. He has organised three World Chess Championships.