Smart Chip From St Petersburg: and other tales from a bygone chess area

by Genna Sosonko (Editor)

Genna Sosonko paints portraits of players, both famous and forgotten, from the golden age of Soviet chess, as well as highly personal views on the psychology of the game and its players. This volume radiates the author's love and devotion to chess, yet is tempered by objectivity and detachment. It will enchant not only chess players, but all who recognize the cultural value of chess.

Genres: Chess

208 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2006

Reviews

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

Entertaining tales of chess personalities. To this day I'm convinced that the real artistic personalities are not necessarily the visual artists of today who are more amd more obsessed about instagram followers and all that, but the chess players, who often don't find practical use of all their hard work and can't earn livelihood. The other types of artists e.g. pure mathematicians, painters, illustrators, musicians, I think still have it better in that there are more work opportunities and money to earn.

Gennadi Sosonko is a Soviet Grandmaster who defected to Netherlands and started a life between professional chess and chess journalism. He has personal contacts with the increasingly disappearing world of chess artists. Many of these personalities dedicated their life to chess and barely anyone knew them today, even among chess players, but that's not what it's for since they lived life to the fullest.

[Timothy Ha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Humans playing chess

This is a great book for an age permeated with computer evaluation of human chess games. Computers will not share the love of chess like humans do. The people Genna Sosonko described were those who loved chess, lived and died sharing their love of the game. I’ve read other books by Sosonko and thought this would also mostly contain biographies, but there were some nice digressions on other topics, too. And the opening chapter on Smart Chip and the last one, Hein, are the best. Thanks to the author for another great book.

[Carl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another enjoyable set of essays from Sosonko, but perhaps not as enjoyable as his first book.

There are some truly beautiful reminiscences in this book, with perhaps the sections on Neishtadt, and especially Donner, standing out.

The more general essays on a subject matter are interesting, but less powerful in my mind.

[S · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author has that offhand charm of an uncle who loves telling stories at family gatherings. You really don't need to know how to play the game to enjoy these stories. Aside from archival photos, the book is light on images, which is rare for chess books. Of course games and tournaments are mentioned by name and date with spare descriptions of strategy, but the focus is mainly on personal experiences.

The last few chapters are a bit depressing, what with reflections on mortality and whatnot, but this is an excellent work.