04.05.2005
Gregory Kaidanov on books
What are your favorite chess books? Did your preferences change over the years?
My first book was "Chessplayer's first book" by Panov. I read and re-read it for five years... A book is like a woman: it is not enough to like it – you have to love it, then you have a chance to learn a lot.
Three-volume collection of Botvinnik's games was very helpful for me. I think it is one of the best chess writings ever. The most difficult task in annotator's work is to find a balance between describing positional ideas, psychological factors and variations. For instance, Kasparov's annotations are overloaded with variations, they are lacking verbal commentary. Botvinnik in this sense is an ideal annotator for me.
Do you make a distinction between 'interesting' and 'useful' books?
Yes, certainly. There are many interesting books that have little practical value. At the same time, there are books that can teach you while it is interesting to read them as well! From the point of view of strong players, say, of a grandmaster level, Dvoretsky's books are beyond comparison. You can't just flick through them – they require a great deal of effort. One could study them for months. In his genre Dvoretsky is a champion, without a doubt.
Generally, in order to benefit from reading chess literature one has to introduce an element of training. Don't just read – solve. I did not simply read Botvinnik's collection – I always tried to guess the moves. Unfortunately, most players simply play the games over, which is not helpful at all.
Why the tournament collections are not so popular nowadays? What genre of books is more popular now?
I think that's because of databases. Before it was impossible to find a complete set of games from a particular tournament. Even the "Chess Bulletin" did not publish all the games played, but only the most important ones from editorial point of view... Now the games are easily accessible, so the demand for the tournament collections has decreased.
Everyone says that chess is changing. Does the chess literature change as well?
This is an interesting question. In past a good chess book was a rare occurrence. Nowadays publishers offer immeasurable amounts of chess literature. It is mostly relevant for the West; the quality chess books are still rare in Russia. In such an astronomic number of publications there are, of course, poor ones, but there are also excellent ones, and not necessarily written by the authors with established reputation. For example, recently I've read a book by Romero Holmes, and it was exceptionally interesting. It is a real modern chess manual with many practical examples, from Holmes' games as well, full of interesting findings. For me as a chess trainer it was very valuable reading. I also heard favorable comments about Valery Beim's book.
Which chess books could be interesting for people that do not play chess, in your opinion? Could recruit new players?
Almost all writings of Bronstein. His style of writing is interesting for all. Many of Kotov's books are aimed at general public. It is curious to read some of Gik's books, although it is a pity to realize that many of the stories he describes never took place, but were simply made up.
I think that well-written books about the epochal matches could recruit new people into chess. For example, one about the match between Kasparov and computer, written by the IBM programmer, is very interesting to read. Such works should be able to attract new enthusiasts into our game.
Photo from ChessBase archive
Questions were asked by Misha Savinov.
This article is published with permission of Association of Chess Professionals
