Description
The Battle of Chess Ideas does for contemporary chess what Reti did with his celebrated Modern Ideas in Chess and Masters of the Chessboard. Anthony Saidey first discusses the meaning and fascination of chess and sketches its modern development – including a shrewd assessment of the so-called Soviet School of Chess.
In the main part of the book, the author critically examines ten great players and their best games and shows how they illustrate important ideas in chess. In ‘Botvinnik: the March of Science’ and ‘Larsen: The Vitality of Romance’, he reveals the two poles of chess thought: the technical and the creative. These opposite tendencies operate within each of the great players and contend in the world of chess. Reshevsky exemplifies the spirt of survival, contrasting with Keres the attacker; Bronstein is the master of invention, Symslov of balance; Tal is brilliant in psychology, while Petrosian is the arch ‘preventionist’; and finally in Boris Spassky and in the American Bobby Fischer one sees two superb creative players.
Condition: Very Good. Descriptive notation.
