Chess Book Reviews

Kasparov's Fighting Chess: 1999-2005 (Paperback)
by Tibor Károlyi and Nick Aplin Paperback: 224 pages Publisher: B.T. Batsford Ltd (30 Nov 2007) Language English ISBN-10: 0713489847 ISBN-13: 978-0713489842

This book deals with games played right up to the eve of Kasparov's retirement.

We begin with Wkjk ann Zee 1999 and a tournament that Kasparov had never competed in it before.... he had had a relatively (ie super to you and me!) poor 1998 ... But this was a tournament that he won in style.

This book contains both extensive variations and analysis. But you also get plenty of text on it's own, interesting descriptions of both on and off board events. For example, unusually for this and most books, the 2000 Kasparov v Kramnik game is dealt with entirely in prose. But this turned out to be a great read. And it made me hungry to find and play over the games themselves.

There is a huge variety here, from Rapid games to Olympiads from the Russian Ch to the Super tournaments. The key objective that the authors set themselves was as follows: To get hold of the most competitive and artistic and educational games from the period ... and then use these rich and exciting battles to teach and inspire players. Job done!