The book is modeled after Botvinnik's views about the critical analysis of one's own games being the key to improvement. I could see how much depth of calculation and dynamism went into the game of chess in the modern era. This was my first look at modern, top-level chess. Up to that time, I had probably been reading the old classics ( My System, etc ), simple game collections like 500 Master Games of Chess or collections of Rubinstein's games.
I think this was my first book with in-depth analysis by a top modern player. Even if you don't understand everything, this book isn't going to mislead you. If you want to be good at chess, don't have low self-esteem and buy a book like "Chess for Dummies" (or one of the many other books whose titles insult the reader as part of some kind of psychological marketing strategy). I don't believe in dumbing things down for people who are learning something. That said, I was reading it when I was probably 1600 or maybe even lower.
Probably players over 2000 would get the most out of it. This book is most definitely for stronger players. There is none of the arrogance you might expect - besides including games which he lost, Kasparov is also ruthlessly critical of himself, looking for every mistake he made, both in the game and in earlier analysis. The annotations are very deep, and Kasparov tries to be totally objective in his analysis. Everyone uses a computer nowadays to at least check the annotations, but back then (the book was published in 1986) computers were not strong enough. You can't find that anymore in the annotations by today's players. Deep analysis by a world champion, entirely from the pre-computer era - so you get to see how he actually analyses the position without any electronic help. Besides the original annotations (made shortly after each tournament), Kasparov put a lot of work into revising the old annotations, finding mistakes, and introducing the games and describing the tournaments.įor the chess maniacs out there, this book will be great. Unlike some game collections by top players, this was not a slipshod work and was definitely not compiled by someone else. I'm not sure - I got this book a very long time ago, probably around 1995 or 1996, when I was first starting to play chess. The reason for the title of the book - "The Test of Time" - is that Kasparov wants to put his analysis, his games, and his chess philosophy out there to be judged by generations of future readers & players. The focus in the commentary is not so much the opening - most of the major analysis is devoted to the middlegame or even the ending. In some of the new commentary he takes a very harsh tone towards the comments he made several years before. However, his old annotations include revisions made in italic font during the preparation for the book. Most of the annotations of the games were written immediately after the event in which they were played this I think is the best way - the game and also the feelings it evoked are still fresh in the annotator's mind. Not only wins, but also some draws and losses are included. The games are annotated in fairly great depth, although a few games have lighter annotations in some of the games from his candidate matches he shows the whole game and then commentary after it dealing with particular moments. The book contains a prologue by Mikhail Botvinnik and chapters based - for the most part - on each event that he played during that time, chronologically. The book includes his annotations of games starting from his first steps in international chess up to just before he became world champion.
This is Garry Kasparov's game collection The Test of Time. This week I will be reviewing a book that was pretty influential for me when I was growing up.