09.05.2005
Sergey Ivanov on books
What are your favorite chess books? Did your preferences change over the years?
I studied chess in the Leningrad Pioneer's Palace. There was a large library with quite a good selection of chess books. My favorite one was the first edition of Botvinnik's selected games. I read it excitedly. One could say that Botvinnik's games formed me as a chessplayer. Later I wrote a large article about him for the "Chess Petersburg". I also enjoyed books by Romanovsky and Lisitsyn, I recommend them to everyone. When I worked as chess trainer in Poland, I used to buy that book in Russia for my Polish students and colleagues... There is also another book that I am ready to suggest for all chess students – "International tournament of grandmasters" by Bronstein.
"My system" was one of my handbooks for some time. I liked works by Nimzovich so much that once I recopied both "My system" and "My system in practice" into a copybook during my stay in a summer camp. I was 14 or 15 and played at 1st category or candidate master level. I still possess that copybook, go over its pages recalling those days from time to time... Naturally, I knew Nimzovich's theory by heart. Everyone knows such classical terms as "blockade", but what about "saw"? It is a sort of a pawn structure with white pawn on d4 and black pawns on e6 and c6. Nimzovich describes Black's counterplay associated with pawn breaks on c- or e-files in detail.
As for more modern books, I was impressed by the game collection of Rubinstein, written by Razuvaev and Murakhvery. This is an excellent positional play manual! Kasparov's "My Great Predecessors" is the best book among the latest ones. I read each volume, analyze the games on board, and it brings me a lot of satisfaction. It is important that Kasparov's books have revived the public interest to chess analysis. Not only a 1st category player Sorokhtin, but also a strong grandmaster Akopian study Kasparov's annotations and participate in a discussion. Just as in time of Botvinnik!
Do you make a distinction between 'interesting' and 'useful' books?
Yes, of course. The 'useful' ones are opening manuals. They are being published in numbers, and most of them are just trash, but one can find some of very high quality. For example, IM Peredrsen wrote a monograph on the Botvinnik Variation, and although I consider myself to be quite knowledgeable in this branch of theory, I found quite a few interesting points in it as well. I would like to praise Psakhis for his extensive three-volume work on the French Defense. Of course, these books are primarily aimed at a strong amateur, but they are well-written. And a professional only needs a fresh idea, a new move that "deserves attention", in order to start his own research. I've discovered some direction for my future work from them as well.
It is useful to study the classics. Being abroad I often notice how many players lack a solid chess foundation, which is formed by studying classical games. All books by Dvoretsky are also very helpful for a chess student.
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that there are very few quality chess books for children in the most countries. Those that exist are either too primitive or not very good. In Sweden, for instance, the choice seems to be very high, hundreds and hundreds of titles, but I still bring Russian books for my friend Evgeny Agrest, because they do not have anything like that in Swedish. Such works as "Journey to the kingdom of chess" or Golenischev's manuals represent a unique heritage of the Soviet chess school. Golenischev's books are very important for the initial phase of one's development - they contain good examples, the general content is well-selected and the methods are confirmed by practice.
And what is your opinion about various puzzle books? How useful can they be?
Perhaps, one could benefit from them as well, but I think that solving selected positions is not very exciting. Books similar to "Together with grandmasters" by Hort and Jansa make more sense. That book offered an element of competition - one had to score points guessing the correct moves - as well as detained explanations of different practical positions written by a world-class grandmaster.
Why the tournament collections are not so popular nowadays? What genre of books is more popular now?
Maybe that's because writing a good collection is a difficult task. It is not easy even to recall someone doing such a job after Bronstein. There is a good game collection from two Interzonals of 1973, however, it bears no similarity to Bronstein's – the editors just put together games annotated by a dozen of players. Look at Russian Superfinal 2004. Annotating all the games is a huge work. I wrote an article about the openings of the Superfinal, and I have to tell you it takes some time and effort. Life is fast, and a grandmaster can't afford to take a few months for writing a high-quality game collection. Especially is the honorarium is not adequate to the effort. Among the high-class players, only world champions can afford writing, because they often have long breaks between the tournaments. I mostly mean Kasparov. Kramnik was in a similar situation; however, we haven't seen any of his new books yet... Khalifman writes the excellent stuff, his "White's opening according to Anand" was recently published in Russian, and receives a lot of compliments.
Everyone says that chess is changing. Does the chess literature change as well?
A number of books aimed at amateurs increases, and especially a number of opening books. A practical approach is very popular – buy a book, learn moves and go play. It is a good easy way, but on the other hand, it does not help players developing an independent thinking... I am glad that real books are being released as well – ones by Kasparov, Dvoretsky... Unlike some authors that simply put together things that are already known, they indeed assist chess development.
As an example of anti-chess I could name a book by Nesis "Exchange Encyclopaedia ". Voronkov wrote a good review of it (in Russian), I don't have much to add. Back in 80s Nesis published a few brochures on various aspects of the problem of exchanging pieces together with Razuvaev and Shulman, and now he has suddenly put those brochures together and published as his own work. The latest examples there are dated 1987, Karpov is still called a world champion, etc. It is obviously a very poor work. Alas, such books are also appearing in the market...
Which chess books could be interesting for people that do not play chess, in your opinion? Could recruit new players?
I read Kotov's "Chessplayers notes" with great interest even before learning the rules of chess. A general public in my opinion welcomes those books that describe players' emotions, their ups and downs, etc. Kasparov currently works on a book that is going to reveal "How life imitates chess" - I am sure it will enjoy a lot of attention. Korchnoi's autobiography is published in Russian soon, and it must be a good read. Also, I believe that chess history books might attract people who like history in general - it is a part of world history, and a part of our culture too.
Questions were asked by Misha Savinov.
This article is published with permission of Association of Chess Professionals
