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Tal's 100 best games, 1961-1973
The essential sequel to Peter Clarke's companion book on Tal, Mikhail Tal's Best Games of Chess. Cafferty takes us further on Tal's career path, covering his loss to Botvinnik in the revenge match, but also the triumphs of Bled 1961 and Tal's remarkable sequence of tournament victories in 1973. Tal is the chess public's favourite - a knight of the chessboard who knew no fear and joyously sacrificed to fight at close quarters with the enemy king. In the annals of chess, Tal ranks with Anderssen, Alekhine, Stein and Kasparov as the undisputed archetypes of aggression on the 64 squares
- GenresChess
Hardcover
First published November 1, 2003
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March 11, 2012
Naturally, a selection of Tal's wins can hardly be a bad thing. But there are two big problems with this book:
1) Too many games. He should've picked 75 (or say, how about a nice number like 60?). :) But there were a lot of games that just looked like simul-bait (the first one, for example, was terrible). I suppose it is remarkable how Mischa can tear through 2600s like that, but I'd rather just hear about it, not have to play through it.
2) The annotator. At first Cafferty's informal approach came off a bit refreshing, but then he began to annoy. Severely. I get tired of some guy lording it over everybody else, like he's the keeper of the castle or something. He hardly ever attributed the sources for his vars (I doubt very seriously that Bernie came up with all those calculations on his own, and at least Reinfeld in his book on Tarrasch has the decency to give credit where credit is due). He also had an irritating habit of advising on the "correct" move in some fantastically complicated position. I found several mistakes of his even in my cursory going-over of the lines. And his silly forays into name-dropping wore a bit thin after a while ("Tal also tried this move on the board next to mine in a 5-minute tournament..."). Oh well, at least he kept his use of "etc" to a minimum (but unfortunately not "despair")...
Oh yes, and one more thing: there are typos galore. Probably the most annoying one was "P-QR4" instead of P-KR3 (!) in a game with Larsen. And "P-B3" at one point (instead of P-B6) had me scratching my head for a little while as well.
1) Too many games. He should've picked 75 (or say, how about a nice number like 60?). :) But there were a lot of games that just looked like simul-bait (the first one, for example, was terrible). I suppose it is remarkable how Mischa can tear through 2600s like that, but I'd rather just hear about it, not have to play through it.
2) The annotator. At first Cafferty's informal approach came off a bit refreshing, but then he began to annoy. Severely. I get tired of some guy lording it over everybody else, like he's the keeper of the castle or something. He hardly ever attributed the sources for his vars (I doubt very seriously that Bernie came up with all those calculations on his own, and at least Reinfeld in his book on Tarrasch has the decency to give credit where credit is due). He also had an irritating habit of advising on the "correct" move in some fantastically complicated position. I found several mistakes of his even in my cursory going-over of the lines. And his silly forays into name-dropping wore a bit thin after a while ("Tal also tried this move on the board next to mine in a 5-minute tournament..."). Oh well, at least he kept his use of "etc" to a minimum (but unfortunately not "despair")...
Oh yes, and one more thing: there are typos galore. Probably the most annoying one was "P-QR4" instead of P-KR3 (!) in a game with Larsen. And "P-B3" at one point (instead of P-B6) had me scratching my head for a little while as well.
Displaying 1 of 1 review