Customer Reviews (1)

Staggering!
This is a great book for the student. Imagine if Capablanca could really write and put things into simple terms that the reader could understand. That is what we have here, as Karpov writes from his throne in the days when his supremacy was absolute. But he never suffered from the arrogance (at least in his writing) that plagues the literature of Capablanca and Kasparov. He tells the story of a game objectively, but chock full of high quality advice. Karpov is the best guy to study, as his games shimmer with clarity, and you can emulate his opening style. Plus, he is a modern player who studies hard, so his openings are not occasionally ridiculous, as was Capablanca's, for instance, in the first game of his disastrous match with Alekhine. He never seeks complications, but always plays solid moves from which tactics logically arise. This is a great, great book. You should certainly buy it. I also own How Karpov Wins by Mednis, Karpov's Best Games by Karpov and the 1976 collection of his games by O'Connell and Adams. I think this is the most valuable of all of them. He was at his peak and most eager to talk, and he knew he would have a legacy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Perhaps The Worst Book Ever By A World Champion
Karpov doesn't show you how to learn from your defeats; he doesn't even give you a clue.Instead his method is to present a lightly annotated (or unannotated) loss followed by a lightly annotated (or unannotated) revenge win over the same opponent.This procedure is repeated until the end of this dreadful volume.

The book is so utterly useless, I suspect it was ghost-written.It's hard to imagine a player of Karpov's caliber allowing his name to be associated with it; I mean, assuming it was ghost-written, how could such an incompetent ghost have the money to get Karpov to pretend to be the author?

This book is not worth the paper it was printed on.It appears to have been written in less time than it would take to read it.

Very Poor Work by Karpov
No wonder this book is not available - it is an attempt to show how we can learn from a defeat. All well and good but there is no such help here! What we have is a mishmash of games where Karpov lost and then achieved avictory against the same player. There is no relationship between openings or an attempt to take advantage of a player's style or idiosyncracies. We even have the ridiculous scenario of Karpov's particular win coming before the defeat.Might just have been named"I don't get mad I get even". ... Read more

Product Description
Kasparov vs Karpov, 1986 London, Leningrad Due to the rematch clause of the 1985 match, Garry Kasparov was forced to defend his title against Anatoly Karpov in 1986. On July 28, the match began. GM Lothar Schmid was the chief match arbiter. GM Ray Keene was the chief match organizer for the London leg. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher conducted the color selection. The match marked the first time in chess history that games between two Soviet players for the world title would be played outside Soviet Union. At the time of the match, Kasparov was 23 years old and rated 2740. Karpov was 35 years old and rated 2705. Kasparov's seconds were GM G.Timoschenko and IM E.Vladimirov. They were replaced during match by IM M.Gurevich and IM E.Magerramov GM Lothar Schmid was the chief match arbiter. GM Ray Keene was the chief match organizer for the London leg. Games 1-12 were in London & Games 13-24 were in Leningrad. ... Read more

Book Description
Anatoly Karpov's legendary endgame technique has always been something of an enigma. Karpov became worldchampion 1975 (having been preceded by Bobby Fischer). He managed to win positions which nearly everybody else estimated as a draw with his fine end game technique. This book for the first time takes a close look at this end game technique, ex plaining the finer points better than Karpov himself has ever cared to do. A very in structive and en tertaining book. ... Read more

Book Description
Author's preface: "I have played a huge amount of tournament and match games during my long chess career, roughly 2,500 altogether. From those games, I have selected only three hundred for this book, - the games I consider my best and most instructive ones.

My goal was to represent my most valuable creative achievements of the thirty years that have passed, from 1966 till 1996. The selection was subordinated to the following three criteria: strong opponent, tense fight, and instructive value. Therefore this collection of games can be treated also as a modern chess instruction book, because the games were played mainly in the strongest events of the last thirty years.

Under such a strict selection procedure, many interesting and instructive games as well as simply beautiful fragments would have inevitably been missing in this book, if the games had been included into it only entirely. Therefore, the final chapter contains a number of my best combinations and finals which are essential for achieving the abovementioned goal; without them, this work would have been incomplete.

I still play a lot and still achieve tournament successes, so it would be premature to accept this book as my final account. I sincerely hope to play a number of good games in upcoming events and to raise my own account of tournament triumphs (I have over 140 of them recently - more than any player in chess history). However, so many chessfriends had expressed their desire to have this book right now that I decided to prepare this sort of an intermediate report on my 30 years in chess. Let reading this work bring you pleasure and improve your understanding of chess inner logic, depth and beauty." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Truly Great Book
I purchased this book recently at a local used book store, just a few blocks away from the University of Chicago campus: Thus, it can be found though it may take some effort. Nonetheless, if you manage to find it, youwill think your toil well rewarded, for this is an excellent book---one ofthe great Botvinnik's last works. It featuresgood analysis of some of themost well know and studied games in the history of chess---for example,Polugaevsky Karpov, 2nd match game and Karpov Spassky 8th and llth matchgames. The author and interesting subject matter make this a worthwhileread. ... Read more

Book Description
The insider report of the latest bruising struggle between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov for the world's to chess prize. Contains the complete game scores, 130 diagrams, strategic evaluations, and expert and computer analyses. ... Read more