Tarrasch's Best Games of Chess [Paperback]

Fred Reinfeld (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1947

Tarrasch was the dominant force in European chess in the early 1890's and his ability to win top level tournaments continued via his huge triumph at Vienna 1898 on to the "World Tournament Championship" of Ostend 1907. Tarrasch was rightly regarded as the teacher of generations of European and world Masters , hence his title Praeceptor Germaniae - the Professor from Germany.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 386 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications Inc. (June 1947)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486206440
• ISBN-13: 978-0486206448
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,339,665 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful book by Reinfeld, May 27, 2003

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Tarrasch's Best Games of Chess (Paperback)

The Amazon entry is mistaken: this 385-page collection of 183 of Tarrasch's best games is written by Fred Reinfeld. It is nice to have a Reinfeld book where he is focusing so intently on one player. His annotations are wonderful and typically, aimed at the improving player. The games are gems, as Tarrasch played in a classical style that priduces vast rewards to the interested student. The vast majority of these games are not in 300 Best Games, so this is an essential work to the fan of Tarrasch. A great Dover book.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Synopsis, July 10, 2007

By 

Hugh Davies "Teenage Chess Prodigy" (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tarrasch's Best Games of Chess (Hardinge Simpole Chess Classics) (Paperback)

Tarrasch was the dominant force in European chess in the early 1890's and his ability to win top level tournaments continued via his huge triumph at Vienna 1898 on to the "World Tournament Championship" of Ostend 1907. Tarrasch was rightly regarded as the teacher of generations of European and world Masters , hence his title Praeceptor Germaniae - the Professor from Germany. His victories in individual games included wins against Capablanca, Alekhine, Lasker, Nimzowitsch , Tchigorin , Pillsbury , Steinitz and more. Each of Tarrasch's games is a lesson in method and accuracy in itself, hence his wins are superb teaching models for the aspiring chess student. Fred Reinfeld was a renaissance man, with interests in politics, numismatics and chess. On the latter subject he was known as the man of 100 books, with scholarly essays on Capablanca, Nimzowitsch and - here- Tarrasch to his credit. As a master active on the US chess scene Reinfeld drew with Alekhine and defeated Reshevsky.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent games collection, December 20, 2009

By 

Walter B. Hart ", Canberra, Australia" (Canberra, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

The much maligned Fred Reinfeld wrote a lot of books on chess up to his death in the 1960's and this I believe is his best book. Dover is known for publishing reprints of books, and was very active as a chess publisher up to about the mid 1970s. Their paperbacks tend to be very well put together and some have been updated with additional prefaces and games. While nearly all in descriptive notation (like this book) you get a lot of bang for your buck in collecting their books on famous players (Morphy, Steinitz, Lasker, Pillsbury, Capablanca, Alekhine, Marshall, Rubinstein, Nimzovich, Tartakover, Euwe, Keres, Reshevsky, Fine, Colle, Denker, Smyslov, Tal, etc). This was particularly useful for young players with not a lot of money and you could build a good chess library fairly quickly. This book, just shy of 400 pages, contains 183 fully annotated games covering Tarrasch's (b 1862 d 1934) career from 1883 to 1932. Reinfeld has based his annotations on those of Tarrasch himself and appear to be quite well balanced (unlike Tarrasch who tended to be very judgemental, but put a lot of thought into his annotations as he was keen to teach - Botvinnik copied Tarrasch's educational approach for example), while of course the 'theory' is a bit dated now (circa 1930's). This book was originally published by Chatto & Windus in 1947 and reprinted by Dover in 1960. As far as I know, this is the only complete book of Tarrasch's games available in English (his excellent "300 Games of Chess", translated in the 1990's, only went up to the early 1890's). It is a very good book, particularly if you want to understand Steinitz's theories simply explained and played by Tarrasch. Tarrasch was around the very top of players for a couple of decades to around 1910, and was highly respected by Bobby Fischer. There are some truly fantastic games in this book (e.g. match with Chigorin) and are very instructive, particularly for players at club level. The book has a short biography of Tarrasch and the games are presented in a number of sections: tournaments, matches, and other. This, like all my other Dover books, has lasted for over 40 years and is highly recommended if you can find a copy.