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Rating: 
Summary: Excellent games collection
Review: 40 Games from 1988-1998 with strong analysis makes this a great chess games collection. Tells a unique story that makes Searching For Bobby Fischer look like an American joke- forget about that dumb American movie, book, and the player! and get this book instead. Its real, not hyped American garbage.
Rating:
Summary: An exellent book
Review: In addition to a plenty of good games against some top players, the four-time Woman World Chess Champion provides us a lot of interesting information about her life. The games are illustrated in a very clear and objective way which makes this book an ideal choice for readers with an average chess level.
Rating:
Summary: Mikhail Tal's chess and life in Chinese!!!
Review: It's an amazing book. An instructional book and a fairy tale (Cinderella). A book about chess and about the development of a young chess GM. For a young chess federation (Chinese), to produce a young talented player to win the World Title (thanks to chairman Mao... ;-) ) is something for us to learn.
I haven't looked carefully into the game annotations yet, however with some lessons drawn from them, it's worth at least 2 stars(!); then the stories make up 3 points; this concludes perfect 5 points.
This is similar to Tal's book, except Tal's covers almost complete "the chess and life of Tal"; here the young (but no less admirable) Xie Jun just barely covers 1/3 of her life.
There are many "good" points in here book:
1) Her modesty: lots of drawn and lost games which provide reader some experience.
2) Respectivity: her respect to the former champions and veterans, Spassky, Taimanov, Larsen, Smyslov... are noticeable; also her respect for her match opponents.
3) Honesty: I could count at least 100 times she uses the word "lucky"'s in her book. Her honesty and modesty are exceptional. When I read the part about her loss to Zsuzsa, I thought she just wrote it to smooth out her defeat. But after reading her comments on the games with Gaprindashvili, Ioseliani, Chiburdanidze, Akhsharumora, etc... I felt she is believable and genuine.
4) Will: she often mentions about learning from the GM, veterans, from expereince, trying to improve... She's already in the "male" GM rank at the time!
There are more, but these are the highlights after reading only the stories in one day.PS: When I saw the book's price at 11.50 USD on-line, I thought it was too high. The used book is about 8.00 or so. Then I found out at Borders the special order is 22.95, (It's actually the price tag on the book.), I hurried to order one copy on-line immediately. I guess it is all of supply-and-demand. Not many people prefer non-Western writers, especially about (international, to distinct from the Chinese) chess. At less than 1/2 of listed price tag, we have a good deal here. If you like Tal's, you will like Xie Jun. And she has many more years to come; and wish her all success.
Rating:
Summary: Great book at a great price!
Review: This is a steal since you get almost 50 heavily analysed games at the price of about ... cents per game! Xie Jun was rated over 2500 at the time of most of the games in this book. Follow her career as she beats the best of the past including Smyslov and Taimanov!
Rating:
Summary: Great book at a great price!
Review: This is a steal since you get almost 50 heavily analysed games at the price of about 20 cents per game! Xie Jun was rated over 2500 at the time of most of the games in this book. Follow her career as she beats the best of the past including Smyslov and Taimanov!
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