Customer Reviews

My Best Games, Vol. 2: Games with Black

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This is a wonderful game collection by Victor Korchnoi. It has a very handy index of openings, of which you will find a food variety from the Caro-Kann (one, white played the advance variation) to Reti to King's Gambit and many others.

Dispite being one of the best players in his day (and indeed, he continues to be very strong to this day -- still at 70+ years old in the top 50!), the annotations are at a level class players like myself can understand. Variations are kept to a bare minimum in the book.

This book is very similar to Yasser's Winning Chess Brilliancies, but more games, and a little less depth. Victor just gets to the point rapidly, explains the nuances of the position, and moves on.

This book was also named BCF book of the year, for I think good reasons. A third volume in this series should be out soon, I look forward to it, and will purchase the first volume as well.

This book has been a real pleasure to read and study. Korchnoi is so impartial, and doesn't hype himself like other GM's. To boot, he spent 3 days analysing each game. The comments are straight forward with excellent insight to his feelings about different games and moves, and the phychological aspect of these books is well appreciated by me. A great work and a must for every studious and ambitious chessplayer.

Every chess player can easily say a few essential chess books: My system, Alekhine's best games, Tal's life and games. Fischer's 60 games ... well, after the publication of this book we have to rearrange our list!!
Viktor Korchnoi - two times challenger to the title of World Champion - has been around for ever, he has played and beaten the stars of the 1950s through to players who are stars now at the beginning of the 21st century.
Here Korchnoi has chosen 50 of his games with Black from 1952 to 2000, he stresses that he is rather old-fashioned about his black opening strategy, not being a regular exponent of the King's Indian or the Pirc or other `nihilistic' ways of playing with Black.
This is the second volume of a two volume work and there is no doubt: this is the most eagerly waited book of recent months; the first volume last year won the British Chess Federation's Book of the Year award: the decision was unanimous. If you are a chess player you can't live without this book.

Furthermore this OLMS edition is very well done.

This book and its companion volume My Best Games: Games With White are quite simply the two best chess books I have seen in a long, long time. The name Viktor Korchnoi is synonymous with fighting chess, and this collection is his legacy to future generations. There is deep analysis, penetrating psychological assessment, and clear explanation of strategic ideas. The games are chosen as much for their interesting and instructive features as for their quality, and Korchnoi is quite prepared to level criticism where warranted. Following his example, you will be inspired to analyze and understand your own games to a much greater degree. How can this not improve your play? These books are instant classics, and they belong in the library of every serious player, alongside the collections of Fischer, Larsen, Keres, Tal, and Shirov.