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Rating: 
Summary: Outstanding collection of annotated games.
Review: Most (younger) players today don't even know who Averbakh is, at least as far as I can gather from a few conversations on-line with various chess players. Here is a player who competed in 15 Soviet Championship Tournaments in the span, 1949-1969. (Something of a record.) He won the Premier Championship in 1954. His score, with more wins than draws, (+ 10, = 9, - 0!); ... has few parallels in the history of this grand tournament. (Source: "The Soviet Championships," by B. Cafferty and Mark Taimanov.) He was in the "Top 10 Players" in the world in 1959, according to Jeff Sonas's website. And according to ELO, (in his book); Averbakh's best 5-year rating peak was 2615. (Adjusted for inflation, this would be at least 2675, in terms of FIDE ratings for 2003.) And Keene and Divinsky, in their fascinating but controversial book, "Warriors of The Mind," rank him as the TWENTY-FIFTH (# 25) greatest chess player who ever lived. He is also a very distinguished player, an expert on end-game theory, (He has written over a dozen books on this topic.); a respected opening theoretician, (One Russian player told me, in an e-mail, that Averbakh has contributed material to literally thousands of articles in various Soviet magazines!); a widely read author, a judge of chess compositions, a FIDE arbiter, etc. (The list is almost endless!) He holds several titles in Russia to include "Master of The Sport of Chess," and also "Honored Chess Trainer." So by now, you should realize that here is a player you should listen to and learn from. He has taken a volume of his games that was published in the USSR back in the 1950's, and enlarged and expanded it for a (new) publication in the press. In the end, you get his 60 most memorable and best games (1943-1975) that was played over a career that has spanned some seven decades, although he plays very little now due to advancing age. I received this book about a year ago ... many thanks to the {former} Internet student that sent me this book so that I could review it. I have played over all the games in this book, and studied about 10-15 relatively carefully. (I have also annotated a few of these games; they can be found on my various web sites.) My conclusion is that this is an OUTSTANDING book, I was so pleased with it, I decided to reward it with five stars. The games in here are clean, accessible, and thoroughly explained. (A few of the lines are a shade dated, at least by the standards of modern opening theory.) But in the end, I think that the average player could definitely learn a great deal by a close study of the contests contained within this book. In closing, I would like to add that I sent out a survey to many of my Internet students. The three or four who bought the book and responded had this to say about this volume: "Excellent games, my Internet rating has gone up over a hundred points since I started studying this book," or "I think studying all the end-games in this book will make me better in that phase of the game," and finally, "I am really enjoying this book. The games are carefully explained in a manner that even I can follow!"
Rating:
Summary: Exciting chess, great writing
Review: The author rightly says 'this book should have been published at least a quarter of a century ago'. Yuri Averbakh (b. 1922) was probably one of the world's top dozen players in the 1950s. He qualified for the immensely strong Candidates tournament at Zürich, 1953 (10th), and convincingly won the USSR Championship the following year, and narrowly lost the playoff after a tie in 1956. As he points out, chess is a lot different now, but there were many fine players and great games from that era. But it's not surprising that this book took so long in coming. Averbakh had his finger in almost every chess pie, as a Judge of Chess Compositions, leading endgame theoretician, President of the USSR Chess Federation, magazine editor, author and trainer. I myself have benefited from his training at a chess seminar in Sukhumi, and Australasia benefited from two visits in the 1960s, when he dominated the tournaments he played in. It must be said that he was a product of the Soviet system to a large extent -- see my review of _The Soviet School of Chess_. Averbakh had a fairly high percentage of draws in his career, and as he says, had a reputation as a technician. But he hoped to show that he had a universal style by presenting games decided in other ways. Indeed, the technical skill shows up well in his white-square exploitation against Najdorf, and an endgame with a knight sacrifice against Euwe at Zürich, 1953; or blocking out an enemy knight against Bannik, which won him the Soviet Title in 1954. But there are also fierce battles with oppositely castled kings against Bronstein, Taimanov and Petrosyan; a devastating opening innovation against a World Correspondence Champion which Averbakh saved for 18 years; and some classic wins, such as against Panno, with his patented 'Averbakh variation' against the King's Indian, still a dangerous weapon. Other scalps include Botvinnik, Smyslov, Keres and Korchnoi. It's also nice to see a book where annotations are in clear and interesting prose rather than Informator symbols. The publishers Cadogan are to be congratulated on an excellently produced book which does the contents justice.
Rating:
Summary: Well-annotated game collection by leading 50s player
Review: The author rightly says 'this book should have been published at least a quarter of a century ago'. Yuri Averbakh (b. 1922) was probably one of the world's top dozen players in the 1950s. He qualified for the immensely strong Candidates tournament at Zürich, 1953 (10th), and convincingly won the USSR Championship the following year, and narrowly lost the playoff after a tie in 1956. As he points out, chess is a lot different now, but there were many fine players and great games from that era. But it's not surprising that this book took so long in coming. Averbakh had his finger in almost every chess pie, as a Judge of Chess Compositions, leading endgame theoretician, President of the USSR Chess Federation, magazine editor, author and trainer. I myself have benefited from his training at a chess seminar in Sukhumi, and Australasia benefited from two visits in the 1960s, when he dominated the tournaments he played in. It must be said that he was a product of the Soviet system to a large extent -- see my review of _The Soviet School of Chess_. Averbakh had a fairly high percentage of draws in his career, and as he says, had a reputation as a technician. But he hoped to show that he had a universal style by presenting games decided in other ways. Indeed, the technical skill shows up well in his white-square exploitation against Najdorf, and an endgame with a knight sacrifice against Euwe at Zürich, 1953; or blocking out an enemy knight against Bannik, which won him the Soviet Title in 1954. But there are also fierce battles with oppositely castled kings against Bronstein, Taimanov and Petrosyan; a devastating opening innovation against a World Correspondence Champion which Averbakh saved for 18 years; and some classic wins, such as against Panno, with his patented 'Averbakh variation' against the King's Indian, still a dangerous weapon. Other scalps include Botvinnik, Smyslov, Keres and Korchnoi. It's also nice to see a book where annotations are in clear and interesting prose rather than Informator symbols. The publishers Cadogan are to be congratulated on an excellently produced book which does the contents justice.
Rating:
Summary: Another great book of games
Review: This games collectio is especially interesting for the chance to see how this awesome theorist played the openings. Very good one.
Rating:
Summary: Exciting chess, great writing
Review: This is a beautiful book, and I find Averbakh to be a great writer. He explains things clearly in a manner that the intermediate player can understand, in a way that can help you improve. This book actually improved the way I analyzed games. And there are many great wins against the world's best players at the time. This book deserves a five-star review, even if Averbakh was not a world champ. How many players can be world champs? Not many, even those who deserve it. Averbakh is a giant of chess.
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