My Favorite Chess Book

With the recent passing of GM Vlastimil Hort, the chess community reflects not only on the loss of a great player and very nice person, but also on the huge chess heritage he left behind. While for most people, Hort is associated with his games, opening novelties, and stories about the "Golden Age" of chess, to me, he will always be the author of my favorite chess book. Throughout my whole life, whenever I heard Hort's name, a book he wrote with GM Vlastimil Jansa always popped up in my mind. 

The book Вместе с гроссмейстерами (The Best Move in the English edition) was very special for generations of Soviet players, including young Garry Kasparov. I got this book when I was eight and had just started studying chess. It was way above my head then, but intuitively, I felt that I could learn a lot from it and tried to decipher every word from that book.

In the introduction of Hort, the book mentions his great tournament results and concludes with the words "Elo coefficient as of January 1, 1976, is 2600." I remember asking my parents the meaning of this mysterious phrase, but since they didn't play chess, they couldn't help me. 

I have read this book from cover to cover at least five times, far more than any other book. The first time I read it, I was eight and had gotten it as a present from my parents. I still cherish the inscription "To little Grisha for the excellent grades in the third quarter. Dad, Mom, April 12, 1978."

As I mentioned above, at that point the book was way above my level, so I simply didn't understand it. When I read the book a year later, I was already much better at chess, and while it was still a very difficult read, I could already enjoy it. Throughout the years, I have read the book many more times, and I have enjoyed it more and more every time.

The reason is very simple: The 230 tests it provides are just like little pictures in a photo album. Imagine that you are looking at pictures of strangers. While looking at unfamiliar faces and guessing their personalities might be interesting, it is much more fun to look at pictures of people you know. As I gained more chess experience, I could relate the positions in the book to my own games, and they were no longer strangers to me.

As I read this book again and again, these little patterns got engraved into my mind, and they were almost like my old friends with their own stories. Let me share some of them here.

This example demonstrates why this book would be a very difficult read for anyone rated below US Chess 1500. When I read this book for the first two times, I couldn't understand it at all, despite the author's explanation that this is a typical endgame, which is better for Black, and the e7-square is the best for the black king, which explains Black's maneuver. Many years later, I saw another example of this endgame in the following classical game:

GM Mikhail Botvinnik even sacrificed a pawn to get this kind of favorable endgame. This is a very important pattern for anyone who plays the classical Sicilian!

This was another position that puzzled me. Even though the authors explained that with this pawn sac, Black neutralized his opponent's attack on the kingside, it was still not quite clear to me if it was worth a pawn. I guess, if I had studied this position better, I would have avoided a very painful loss:

While it is embarrassing not to learn from your favorite book, I have an excuse. The material there is so advanced that it was challenging even for one of the book's authors. Judge for yourself:

This nice win over legendary GM Mikhail Tal is given as a test of your defensive skills. Despite what looks like a crushing attack on the g-file, White could save themselves by a very brave queen jump into the opponent's camp (33.Qd7!), gaining time to defend by offering a queen trade. Years later, I was surprised to see that the author didn't follow his own recommendation in one of his games:

You can say that while the ideas are very similar, they are not identical. True. But what about the following position?

I don't want to give you the impression that this book is extremely advanced and intended for grandmasters. While most of the tests are quite challenging, I could solve some of them even when I read the book for the very first time as an eight-year-old kid. The following position is one of them:

If you can get a copy of this book, read it and try to pay attention to every tiny detail. I guarantee that after you go through the entire book, you'll be a better chess player!