I Play Against Pieces (Batsford Chess Book) [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

~ Svetozar Gligoric (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

For the first time in English, more than 100 of the best games of Yugoslav grandmaster Svetozar Gligoric, once rated the strongest European chess player outside Russia. Gligoric's thoroughly objective approach to chess, always characterized by great clarity and logic, is unmistakable in this acclaimed volume, filled with instructive tactics and strategies. It's a wealth of model games--including classic wins against world champions and other top players.


Beginner

About the Author

Svetozar Gligoric, an acclaimed journalist and grandmaster, is the author of over 20 books on chess - including a best seller on the 1972 Fischer v Spassky which sold over 400,000 copies

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Batsford; illustrated edition edition (June 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0713487704
• ISBN-13: 978-0713487701
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #492,395 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely beautiful work, April 24, 2004

By	Peter June (Bellingham, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you're looking for a great book on the life of a fascinating player, this is the book for you. "I Play Against Pieces" covers 130 of Gligoric's best games, categorized by opening. There's a wide range going from the King's Gambit to the King's Indian, the Nimzo-Indian to the Ruy Lopez; he covers tons of openings, which makes it ideal for somebody who wants to get a full taste of chess.
In addition to all the games there is a preface on Gligoric's life, which gives you some insight into his play. After all of the games, he also gives some interesting information on his contributions to opening theory in chess. All these provide an interesting supplement to the games.
The games are very high quality in here too. Gligoric's style of analysis is different than many other authors I've read. He doesn't spend time going over things like "18.Nc4!? (in the 24th USSR Championship Taimanov played 18.Ne4! against so-and-so resulting in [insert 20 move variation] with small advantage to white)" He sees that as useless commentary. No reader really wants to look into sidelines like that. Instead Gligoric takes a very text-based approach to game annotations with comments like "This is a concession to White since now the black bishop is not so well protected along the diagonal, but black was hesitant of abandoning the blockade of the e6 square and gave up on 29...Qe7." Rather than speaking in the merely concrete terms of chess (i.e. reams and reams of trivial variations) Svetozar instead chooses to instruct the reader in the simplest way possible.
So far as I've checked, this method means less variations which means less errors. I've double-checked the first 8 games with Fritz 8 and I've found practically no errors (one was where he mislabeled a mate in x moves when it was really a mate in x+2 moves). The fact that he doesn't get caught up in baffling analyses means less errors, and the errors with the text-annotations are unfound.
If you're looking for a rich game collection which instructs rather than confuses, buy Svetozar Gligoric's masterpiece: "I Play Against Pieces".

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wealth of interesting material, August 8, 2003

By A Customer

This collection of GM Gligoric's games from the entire span of his long career is rightly considered a classic. He seems to update it once in a decade and it is republished with new material. This edition might be the last update, as the man is probably not playing much chess anymore.

I recommend this game collection over almost any other similar work by other players. Gligoric has the ability to annotate in a very lucid and comprehensible way. As a member of the older generation and as a positional player, his annotations do not include tons of Fritzy lines but are easy to read and follow. On the downside, the analysis is not always very deep as you'd find in a Nunn book, but there is still material here for months of study in this thick tome. And there's some pictures here also, which is rather rare nowadays for a chess book.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stuning collection work, November 26, 2005

By	I. Knezovic (Croatia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Svetozar Gligoric`s name is rarely heard among new kids in chess circles nowdays, and this moderate man was never braging caracter. But Svetozar Gligoric is a chess giant. Lived and played in era od absolute soviet domination, he managed to stay on absolute top in fifties and sixties.
I live in Croatia (which was part of Yugoslavia), and this great serbian GM influenced all of us by his calm and clear works, in which this book goes in piedestal of biography chess colection books there are. To the sheer quality of this book I can only compare the book "Life and games of Mikhail Tal", also written by author himself.
Gligoric is not starting his anotations at move 25. No, they begin when he predict player will lost the tread of logic of it, and that usually means somewhere around move 5. Sometimes even at move 1, not to explain the move by itself, but to give a broader picture of game.
Also, games are organized by openings, which greatly helps to follow authors mind paths in differing from game to game.
Author used to play more d4-s as write (70% vs 30% e4), and against d4 played KID, Nimzo, QGD, and vs e4 played mostely e5, and few c5.
He showed his 130 wins, almost every one was against the world top. For example, there are 4 wins vs Fisher(!) amongst lot of wins against Smislov, Botvinik, Larsen, Tal and frankely every
other from top.
Atomic bomb of positional chess.
Apsolutely recomended.