"Together with the Candidates" wins FIDE Book of the Year

Our BOOK OF THE WEEK is FIDE's Book of the Year: Together with the Candidates. Also known as the Averbakh/Boleslavsky Award in respect of these two giants of chess literature, GM Artur Jussupow presided over the three-man independent jury, which also included GM Nigel Short and the World's oldest living grandmaster, Yuri Averbakh.

“Together with the Candidates you should think over the crucial positions, feel the fighting tension and, the most important thing, try to make the right decisions.” - Alexey Kuzmin

Together with the Candidates is firstly a book of tests with their solutions, given in the format of game fragments with detailed comments. All the tasks in this book have been taken from games of the Candidates competitions. They differ very much in their degree of complexity. I hope this will allow a wide circle of readers to find the tests corresponding to their own chess level here.

The first chapter is a presentation of the history of all the Candidates tournamentsand matches. The chapters “Tests for Grandmasters” and “When the Opponent Attacks” have collected the most difficult tests, each one being a hard nut to crack. The tests of the fourth and the fifth chapters are considerably simpler, and the tests from the sixth and final chapter, “The Primary School”, could be a walk in the park for experienced players. The third and the fourth chapters, “When the Opponent Attacks” and “Strategy in Action”, are characterized by a thematic selection of the tests. In the third chapter you have to try to discover the opponent’s threats and plans, to refute them or at least to disarm them. This is one of the most difficult practical tasks that a chess player faces in a game. The title of the fourth one speaks for itself. Relatively easy tests where you should make correct strategic decisions have been gathered here.

Together with the Candidates you should think over the crucial positions, feel the fighting tension and, the most important thing, try to make the right decisions. However if the first component of this book is definitely training, the second one is likely to be called aesthetic or even nostalgic. I remind readers of the great tournaments and matches of yesteryear, dramatic turns of fighting and key moments from the brightest games played there. Of course not all the famous combinations have been included in the book. Some of them, realized already in the initial stage of a game, became a part of opening theory, and some of them were simply not convenient for the tests’ format. That is why Together with the Candidates is not a book of the best games of the Candidates tournaments.

From Budapest 1950 to Berlin 2018, Alexey Kuzmin's book is the presentation of the history of all the Candidates tournaments and matches in the history of chess. Together with the Candidates is available on Forward Chess for a discounted price of $14.99 using coupon code FIDE between now and December 9.