Author: chandler yergin
Date: 02:55:32 10/17/05
Go up one level in this thread
On October 16, 2005 at 20:40:28, John Jack wrote:
> Gary Lack Of Respect For Past World Champs
>
>Garry Kasparov is one of the greatest players who ever lived, and earlier
>efforts have also demonstrated that he can be a good author - if he applies
>himself. This volume has also received much attention in the press, some chess
>websites have treated these volumes as if they were the greatest thing to ever
>happen to the chess world.
>
>This volume is part three of a series of books. It focuses primarily on two
>{former} World Champions, Tigran Petrosian and Boris Spassky. (The introduction
>informs us that the authors will also be looking at the contemporaries of these
>two players: Gligoric, Polugayevsky, Portisch and Stein.)
>
>In a way, this book is important - I have a fairly large chess library, so I
>naturally have many books on both of these players. However, current books on
>Petrosian are hard to find, many are out of print and impossible to obtain.
>
>Petrosian is well known for his defensive capabilities, but some of the other
>qualities of his play are not understood. In the late 1950's and early 1960's,
>Petrosian might have been the best blitz player in the world. He had excellent
>tactics, an incredible grasp of the opening, and an uncanny knack for finding
>the weakest part of an opponent's position. And on the days when he felt like
>exerting himself, he could be one of the games deepest thinkers. (See his
>victory over Unzicker at Hamburg, Germany; 1960. White marches his King all the
>way across the board, a triumph of chess strategy, with an incredibly beautiful
>finish. This volume also fails to examine this contest ... which is a terrible
>shame.)
>
>Spassky is one of the greatest players who ever lived, his ability and all-round
>dynamic approach to the game has never been fully appreciated by most amateurs.
>This volume is filled with his beautiful victories ... although a few of his
>greatest games are missing from this particular volume.
>
>Now down to brass tacks. The authors have fewer games in here that do not
>concern the principal players of the volume, so the lack of focus has improved.
>(Although there are still games that seemingly don't belong in here. Garry's
>inclusion of a loss to Petrosian in 1979 has no real bearing on the life of this
>great player. Kasparov almost appears to be looking for some moral justification
>for his defeat ... which is really sad.)
>
>There are still quite a few historical inaccuracies, and while the authors have
>improved in this area, the pundits on the Internet clearly proved they have not
>completely solved this problem, either.
>
>This volume was supposed to be of a much higher standard in terms of analysis, a
>U.S. representative of the publisher personally assured me of this, via a USPS
>letter. However, I see no real change in the overall level of the analysis, I
>spotted many errors just casually playing through the book - without even
>putting them on the PC and running them by the computer's wizardry.
>
>I decided - after much thought and perusal - to only deeply analyze one game in
>this volume, in this way I could complete my review in a timely manner. {I
>eventually plan to publish my complete analysis on my web site.}
>
>The game that I chose was L. Stein - S. Furman; from the 37th URS Championships,
>1969. (Game # 68, page # 253 - of the English edition.) On first blush, the
>analysis appears to be very detailed and well done. However upon deeper
>inspection the authors only updated previous analysis ... and did not do a very
>good job. I found somewhere between 15-20 errors, and these range from only
>minor all the way up to jaw-dropping blunders and oversights. Space would not
>allow a comprehensive review or analysis here, I will confine myself to just a
>few examples to make a point.
>
>The computer likes the move 14...Qb6; however the authors quote a game where
>this was played and Black lost horribly. (Smirin - Gelfand; Sverdlovsk; 1987.)
>The authors make no comment on the moves of this game, but 17...Kc8?? was a
>terrible mistake, any analysis engine will confirm that taking with the Bishop
>was forced.
>
>Nor is this the only failure by the annotators, I will not dabble with many of
>the smaller mistakes and oversights, but save those for my web page. 17.dxc6
>appears to be a routine re-capture, but White had 17.Qe8+!! winning very
>rapidly. (The authors make absolutely no comment at all at this point.) Nor is
>this the only time that I found an improvement, I found at least five major
>improvements over the game or analysis ... many of these required no real work,
>only some close scrutiny with an analysis engine.
>
>The authors do analyze possibilities after White's 30th move ... but come to the
>wrong conclusion. And there is some confusion over what move Black actually
>played on his 37th move. One book - and several Internet sources - give the move
>of "37...K-N5." (...King to the b4-square.) And while the majority of other
>sources give 37...Kb5; as Kasparov and company do here; this still does not
>entirely resolve the problem. If Black's 37th move is incorrect, then the
>authors failed to do basic move verification. And if the 37th move of ...Kb5 is
>what was actually played in the game - as given by MGP - this still does not
>explain why the authors failed to comment on Black's 38th move ... which was
>basically a DOUBLE-QUESTION mark blunder ... which White failed to notice, (or
>capitalize on).
>
>I could go on and on ... but I trust by now you get the point. If you are just
>an average player looking for some interesting games, decently annotated; then
>you should buy this book. However, if you are looking for high-quality analysis
>of the truest caliber, then this volume does not get a passing grade.
>
>John E Jack
The Authors used Computer Analysis; their comments were based on this.
Since you say you found mistakes, is your Computer Program better?
I have checked some games also following their analysis with my Computer, and
found them to dead on target.
But we can agree to disagree.
If you check Nunn's Ches Openings in which all lines have been 'verifed'
by Computer analysis by the Authors, you will find many errors, simply
because they did not let the Program search deep enough to find the best moves.
Overall this is a great effort and work also.
IMO, you shouldn't be too quick to judge.
I see one responder has questioned your analysis.
;)
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