Books by Harry Golombek

In 1966 and 1969 Tigran Petrosian and Boris Spassky contested two epic battles for the world crown. In the first of these Petrosian became the only world champion to actually win a title defence for 32 years when his inspired defensive technique thwarted all of Spassky's aggressive intentions. In the second of these two ferocious fights Spassky eventually broke through to seize the world title. En route the two great players created some of the most beautiful chess ever witnessed at this high level, sparkling with numerous sacrifices of rook for bishop or knight, piece sacrifices to inaugurate enduring attacks and even a stunning queen sacrifice by Petrosian in game 10 of the first encounter.

Morphy, Charousek, Pillsbury, Fischer... the history of chess is illuminated by shooting stars who burn briefly across the chess firmament, only to vanish without trace. The parabolic career of the Latvian genius Mikhail Tal conforms all too well to this astonishing pattern. As a virtually unknown student in 1957 Tal swept aside the revered phalanxes of Soviet Grandmasters and ultimately annihilated the Red Czar of Soviet chess himself - Mikhail Botvinnik - all within a mere three year period.

A companion volume to Larry Evans's selection from the 1960s, this book takes the story of the best games of the top players from the beginnning of the 20th century up to 1940. This volume is arranged chronologically and reaches the period of the Second World War. The games by such immortals as Capablanca, Alekhine, Lasker, Botvinnik, Nimzowitsch and Rubinstein are annotated with the customary lucidity, authority and elegance synonymous with Golombek.

All too often chess openings books consist of reams of variations and sub-variations and bracketed sub-sub-variations, with no apparent explanation for why a move is chosen or why one path deserves precedence over another. Golombek fought tenaciously against this denigration of his art, for he considered chess an art form. The Grandmaster Emeritus always sought to explain the ideas behind the moves and give the strategic justification for any course of action. For this reason alone Golombek's chief openings manual, reprinted here, will outlive the ephemera which largely characterise rival efforts to explain the entire gamut of openings available to the ambitious player. Armed with Golombek you will understand what you are doing -not just become a performing monkey which apes the movements of the masters!

Jose Capablanca was a phenomenon who burst onto the chess world and took top prize in the first ever elite tournament in which he participated. This was at San Sebastian - otherwise known as Donostia - in the Basque country of Spain in 1911. Capablanca's style was serene - no position seemed to trouble him, and he crushed most of the established European grandmasters with seemingly little effort. Only against the mighty Lasker did he experience serious problems. Then in 1921 Capa - as he was known - obliterated Lasker in their world title match and took the championship without losing a single game. Other triumphs followed, such as London 1922, and Capablanca acquired the legend of an invincible superman when he went for 8 years without losing a game! His supreme moment was in New York 1927 - a quadruple round trial of strength between Capa himself Alekhine, Nimzowitsch and three other contenders for the crown. Capa whitewashed the field, creating a fresh masterpiece practically every day. Possibly this easy victory left him over-confident for later the same year he lost his world title to Alekhine.