Capablanca's Best Games (New American Batsford Chess Library))

Rating:
Summary: Lucid annotations by a player who actually knew Capablanca
Review: Algebraic version of Capablanca's Hundred Best Games of Chess, with some notes and editing by John Nunn. Golombek's annotations are easy to understand.

A true chess connoisseur will prefer this to Reinfeld's 'Immortal Games of Capablanca'. A less obsessive person on a budget will prefer the less expensive alternative.

If you don't have Capa in your library, you do not play chess.

Addendum:
John Nunn writes in his introduction, "... one has the impression of strategic plans effortlessly consummated. This strong stylistic feature makes Capablanca a particularly good subject for Golombek's style of annotation, which eschews detailed analysis. Intricate variations would only obscure the overriding principles..."

What's funny is that Golombek writes in his preface, "This simplicity of pefection was the product of supreme art. Playing through a Capablanca game and fully understanding it after close study constitutes a liberal education in the art of chess. For this reason I have found it necessary to annotate the games as exhaustively as was within my powers."

Well, Nunn is a Grandmaster, so his standards may be very high!

At any rate, Golombek's annotations are certainly much more thorough than Reinfeld's, but they are still textual, not deep in variations, and easily understood by anyone who has read a chess book before.

If you can afford it, make this Capablanca collection your choice.