Uncompromising Chess

Rating:
Summary: Excellent all-around reading
Review: One of the best modern game collections I've read. There are 71 well-annotated games, with a reasonable amount of historical and biographical text. Belyavsky wins or draws all games, but I can't criticize this feature, since his opponents compose a virtual Who's Who of international chess since 1972 (this date knocks out Fischer, of course; Anand seems the only noteworthy absence). The annotations are highly instructive from the point of view of contemporary opening theory; I particularly liked coverage of the Closed Spanish and various Open Sicilian systems. Belyavsky is candid about subjects like playing slumps, fatigue and time pressure, which are sometimes glossed over. He also provides many brief but informative anecdotes about famous players. One game I really enjoyed, for instance, was Belyavsky-Polugayevsky, Moscow 1979. The reader gets a mini-course on Polugayevsky's famous Sicilian variation, some glimpses into a GM's home preparation laboratory, and some sharp tactics countered by inspired defense, concluding with an aesthetically pleasing endgame. Ken Neat's translating and editing are solid (he also contributed some analysis), and the book's binding is sturdy (unlike some of Cadogan's fatter volumes).

Rating:
Summary: Excellent all-around reading
Review: One of the best modern game collections I've read. There are 71 well-annotated games, with a reasonable amount of historical and biographical text. Belyavsky wins or draws all games, but I can't criticize this feature, since his opponents compose a virtual Who's Who of international chess since 1972 (this date knocks out Fischer, of course; Anand seems the only noteworthy absence). The annotations are highly instructive from the point of view of contemporary opening theory; I particularly liked coverage of the Closed Spanish and various Open Sicilian systems. Belyavsky is candid about subjects like playing slumps, fatigue and time pressure, which are sometimes glossed over. He also provides many brief but informative anecdotes about famous players. One game I really enjoyed, for instance, was Belyavsky-Polugayevsky, Moscow 1979. The reader gets a mini-course on Polugayevsky's famous Sicilian variation, some glimpses into a GM's home preparation laboratory, and some sharp tactics countered by inspired defense, concluding with an aesthetically pleasing endgame. Ken Neat's translating and editing are solid (he also contributed some analysis), and the book's binding is sturdy (unlike some of Cadogan's fatter volumes).

Rating:
Summary: A worthy addition to a collection
Review: This is a book that I without hesitation recommend. Part of this is my belief a player can never have too many chess biographies; chess biographies, particularly if you play those systems as a useful shortcut as to how to handle those positions; and a tool as a general understanding of chess. Chess biographies are for me the best reason to collect chess books. They never go out of style as opposed to openning books, they are great tools to how to handle a very idiosyncartic system of preparation, and you can get a feel for how a strong player looks at chess. Chess biographies can give a short cut in the opennings that the master plays. In this case Beliavsky plays Queen pawn openning as white and closed Ruy Lopez and open Sicilian as black. As a tool for understanding chess chss biographies are at their best. Using analysis from New in Chess you get a real sense of how Beliavsky approaches positions and how he understands chess. As a chess biography the book succeeds on all levels. The only reason why I gave it four stars rather than five stars if that there are so many great books in this genre that this book must be of the level of Fischer and Keres to get the highest standard.