My 60 Memorable Games [Paperback]

Bobby Fischer (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Fireside (September 15, 1972)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671214837
• ISBN-13: 978-0671214838
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #237,408 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A suppressed masterpiece., April 2, 2002

By 

tepi "tepi" - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: My 60 Memorable Games (Paperback)

Readers should be aware that there have been several editions of this book. In its original form, in descriptive notation and with Fischer's own annotations, it was very well received indeed, earning high praise from many top players and chess writers. It was also voted the best chess book in any category by the readers of the British Chess Magazine, and I'm sure by others.

Unfortunately, when it was later re-edited and issued in an algebraic edition, something happened to Fischer's original annotations. The editors apparently 'revised' them, and the effect was - as Fischer vehemently complained in a recent radio interview - to make him look like "a patzer." He claims that the new annotations are riddled with errors and could never have come from his hand.

Since 'My 60 Memorable Games' is as about important to students of chess as Shakespeare's plays are to students of literature, it would be nice to be able to tell readers to avoid the mutilated algebraic edition and to make sure they get a reprint of the earlier and untampered-with edition of the book. Unhappily neither edition appears to be available. Both have been allowed to go out of print and remain out of print.

One is left wondering just who is keeping this masterpiece off the market. And why...?

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My 60 Memorable Games, July 16, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: My 60 Memorable Games (Paperback)

The original edition of Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games is a masterpiece and it has been mutilated in the algebraic version. There are thousands upon thousands of changes. There are misspellings and grammatical errors, not to mention changes in analysis. For instance, at the end of game 48 Fischer wrote "with mate to follow shortly" and in the new edition it says "with mate in a few moves" even though there isn't a forced mate in a few moves. They also changed the spelling of "gell" to "jell." Why would they change Fischer's original analysis and misspell words in the new edition? There's also a part of a sentence changed from "White has" to "White's has" which is a grammatical error. The only reason I can think of for why they changed his analysis and grammar is to make him look stupid. In addition, Bobby Fischer doesn't receive any money for the new edition and it is also in complete violation of his contract. Get the original if you can find it but don't get the new edition, unless you want to compare the two and see how Fischer's book has been butchered.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best chess book every published., October 15, 2003

By 

John Kato (Honolulu, Hawaii USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My 60 Memorable Games (Paperback)

This is the one classic that is as relevant in the present as it was when it was written. Although the opennings might be a little dated, this is the most scrutinized book ever published. For over twenty five years, in Chess Life and Review players thinking they m,ight have caught the great Bobby Fischer in an error in analysis. Fischer quickly owned up to three errors. Two were typo and a third was a genuine error. It was not until 1978 that a 13 year old prodigy named Garry Weinstein (who later changed his last name to Kasparov) found a mistake in the game he had with Botvinnik; making it four mistakes.

This is the book most (not just the most frequent stated) chess book reviewers and chess masters would take to a desert island if they could take only one book. Despite the book's age, this book is still very relevant as to how to handle a middle game from an openning and converting a win from a slight advantage.

This book is not just a classic but the definitive example of chess scholarship.

If you have a library and have any pride in it, you have to have this book. If there ever was a must have, it is this book.