From London to Elista: The Inside Story of the World Chess Championship Matches that Vladimir Kramnik Won Against Garry Kasparov, Peter Leko, and Veselin Topalov [Paperback]

Bareev Evgeny (Author), Ilya Levitov (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2007

A fascinating look behind the scenes of top-level chess with superb analysis of all the games by Evgeny Bareev, a former second of world champion Vladimir Kramnik. The authors reveal everything about the three world chess championship matches: the preparation, the progress and the aftermath, the secret strategy and the brutal stress. Full of honesty, irony, history, wit, anger, wisdom, and even poetry. Winner of the English Chess Federation 2008 Book-of-the-Year Award, the most prestigious chess book prize in the world. With many photographs.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Bareev’s account of the events is simply breathtaking (...) It is the most sincere portrait of a world champion I have ever read." -- ChessVibes

"I can assure you that this is one of those books that you cannot put down." -- Elburg Chess Reviews

"Undisputably the best chess book of 2007 (...) A terrific read." -- Former Dutch Champion IM Gert Ligterink, de Volkskrant

"[A]bsolutely riveting (...) It is rare for anybody to have taken the lid off the day-to-day work that seconds do and still rarer for them to have made it so interesting (...) Extremely good." -- British Chess Magazine

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: New In Chess,Csi (December 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9056912194
• ISBN-13: 978-9056912192
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,022,646 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insight from the champions side of chessboard, January 28, 2008

By 

I. Knezovic (Croatia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: From London to Elista: The Inside Story of the World Chess Championship Matches that Vladimir Kramnik Won Against Garry Kasparov, Peter Leko, and Veselin Topalov (Paperback)

First I want to clarify and say that this book deserves its good reputation, and its high selling volume since it first came out is justified. One can enjoy penetrating into thinking process of the skilled chess professionals who had been interviewed from the Kramnik camp, as well as read excripts from the other GMs cited from different sources.
Sheer amount of psychology involved into pre-game preparation is puzzling, and drive one to continuously read it. Concreatly, I was more interested into reading details of pre-game preparation process and post-mortem reactions, than of analysis of the games played. Fortunatelly, analysis material of the games is significantly lighter that that of the "San Luis 2005" book, but still it wouldnt mind if some more textual explanation had been added into it, especially at late opening phase mortals nowdays are hard to grasp.
From historical perspective this is the book to have on your chess shelf to cover world championship matches starting from 2000 and leading to final unification match in 2006.
Recommended.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book that brings joy..., March 10, 2008

By 

Sartaj Hans (Sydney) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: From London to Elista: The Inside Story of the World Chess Championship Matches that Vladimir Kramnik Won Against Garry Kasparov, Peter Leko, and Veselin Topalov (Paperback)

If you are a typical chess amateur like me who loves to read chess books more for the anecdotes, and sort of wishes that the games and analysis would somehow automatically permeate through to my consciousness, then you will love this book.

The stories and accounts are fascinating, Ilya Luvitov in particular asks some very sharp and direct questions and this brings out the best of Bareev. And snippets in between from thoughts of Kramnik and Lautier and the occassional quip from an Kasparov interview keep making the book more colorful.

The games are full of diagrams and there is both sufficient text commentary that you dont need to setup a board and also there is enough analysis to keep one busy if one did get the pieces out !

A book not to be missed, unique amongst all chess books in the way it captures the very heart of the human element of competitive endeavour.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A truly fantastic and deep match book, February 1, 2010

By 

Walter B. Hart ", Canberra, Australia" (Canberra, Australia) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: From London to Elista: The Inside Story of the World Chess Championship Matches that Vladimir Kramnik Won Against Garry Kasparov, Peter Leko, and Veselin Topalov (Paperback)

This book covers, in perhaps unprecedented depth, Kramnik's matches starting with Kasparov and through to Leko and Topalov. The standout is the commentary by Bareev who was present as one of Kramnik's seconds for the first two matches, and brings fantastic insights into the whole gamut of playing a world championship match (including the need for a good cook). The at times complex material is done with a lot of humour. For example, in commenting on what the players could have learned from previous world championship matches it is suggested that the great Petrosian did not know how to handle positions with an isolated pawn (versus Spassky in 1969)! Another example at Kasparov's expense is what is referred to as the 'blunder of the century'. In terms of excellent match books, I can only compare this with Kasparov's excellent two volumes on his matches with Karpov and Tal's book on his first match with Botvinnik (often rated as one of the best chess works ever written). The games are very well explained, as is the background to the battle and selection of opening, and represents a book that you will return to often, and learn more each time. This includes the large number of fighting draws (especially in the matches with Kasparov and of course with Leko) which are made very interesting and entertaining. While written for strong players, I believe that everyone can draw value from this work as you can skim the surface or do a deep dive into each game as you want. The book is very well bound and presented by New in Chess (just like their fantastic magazine) and deserves a place in any keen player's library who wants to know more about modern chess.