|
1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
classsic chess tournament with great games, 11 May 2003
By A Customer
the 1953 candidates' tournament was won by vassily smyslov ahead of such greats as keres, bronstein, reshevsky, petrosian and former world champion max euwe. winning this tournament gave smyslov the right to challenge botvinnik for the world title.it is rare that one chess competition produces so many outstandingly brilliant games of both attack and defence. some of the classics played here include the famous queen sacrice in averbakh-kotov; euwe's sacrificial masterpieces against geller and najdorf; smyslov's defensive tour de force against keres where he allows the white rooks to rampage into his king's side; and the epic clash between reshevsky and bronstein -perhaps the most thematic king's indian defence against the g3 system ever played with the culmination of a delicate queen and opposite coloured bishop endgame. the author is barry wood, editor of chess magazine, eyewitness to the event and also known as chess columnist for the daily telegraph.his style is chatty , readable and because he was present thru'out the event, well informed. inevitably this reprint of a classic british work invites comparison with bronstein's russian book on the same event which has been translated into english.i think wood's account holds up very well in comparison.in particular he can be honest when it comes to criticising the soviet players for collusion-many years later bronstein admittd that the soviet political commissars who accompanied their players were terrified of reshevsky winning and tried to arrange some soviet results to eliminate this possibility - however at the time in his book bronstein mentions nothing about soviet cooperation-using their huge presence so as to engineer a team effect against rivals. wood - on the other hand-openly refers to-"unabashed consultation by the russian contingent-flagrant coaching from the sidelines-tips passed from one russian player to another during games.reshevsky was deprived of the benefit of a collaborative set up." hot stuff from wood and typical of his outspoken courage!remember wood was a chess profesional and the ussr dominated world chess in those days.
to summarise-this book is highly readable-it contains fabulous games well annotated and it does not shy away from controversy where the author saw injustice being done.
|
With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is). 
Amazon Home
