Product Details
Twelve Great Chess Players and Their Best Games

Twelve Great Chess Players and Their Best Games
By Irving Chernev

Price:

This item is not available for purchase from this store.
Click here to go to Amazon to see other purchasing options.


5 new or used available from CDN$ 46.95

Average customer review:

Product Description

Noted authority selects 12 greatest players—Capablanca, Alekhine, Lasker, Fischer, Botvinnik, Petrosian, Tal, Smyslov, Spassky, Bronstein, Rubinstein and Nimzowitsch—and presents 115 memorable games that show these masters at their most brilliant. Games include author’s choice of the greatest game ever played. 12 photos. Indexes. Bibliography.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #544885 in Books
  • Published on: 1995-07-17
  • Original language: English
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 256 pages

Customer Reviews

Overlaps many other collections5
Being a "best of" book, the 115 games here are easy to find elsewhere. For example, all 10 of Alekhine's section are in 'Alekhine's Best Games', and only 4 of Capablanca's were not in 'Capablanca's Best Games' (and 3 of those are in 'The Unknown Capablanca'). And of course, there is some overlap with 'The Mammoth Book of The Greatest Games of Chess' and other such books.

So if you already have several collections, you probably do not need this book.

If you don't (yet) own several collections, then you would be happier with something else by Chernev. Beginners can learn much from 'Logical Chess Move By Move', and intermediate players would find more value in 'Most Instructive Chess Games of All Time'. The games in 'Twelve' can be quite subtle in their exactness, which is not very instructive.

Still, this is easily a 5-star book. So who would enjoy it? If you're interested in the question, "Who's the best player ever?", then you'll enjoy going through this collection of 12 of the top candidates.

Read in that frame of mind, this book is a joy, a sort of Tournament of the Century. If only it were a Top 20, instead of a Top 12! Missing are Reshevsky, Keres, Fine, Euwe, Reti, Steinitz, Anderssen, Morphy, and of course anybody after the publication date of the book.

[By the way, the break-down of games by each player provided by another reviewer only accounts for wins.]

Chernev's Masterpiece5
Maybe Irving Chernev's Best Book

If you can get it, I promise you that you will not be sorry. A real masterpiece. For people who love the game AND players who are looking to improve ... Chernev was one of the greatest chess writers of all time!

Great game collection for most club players5
I read this book when it was titled "The Golden Dozen". Chernev picked some very fine games from the 12 greatest players up to his time, i.e. pre-Karpov.

The vast majority of club players couldn't fail to learn much from studying these games. Chernev's enthusiasm is catching, and he provides good guidance without swamping the reader with forests of variations.