An Entertaining Night

It was supposed to be bedtime until i felt like playing over a game or two from one of my books in the shelf. Scriblling with my index finger over the rows of books i came across Nunn's books "Nunn's Best games" and "GM Chess move by move". The reason? Well, just out of curiosity of an inspirational quotation by the late Botvinnik that  a retired masters analysis is more trustworthy than that of an active one. I had the urge to seek for the reason why he is right. At the back of my head for all practical reasons i know he is right coz a chess master had to make a living. And by giving away the fruits of his research could prove fatal and his standing amongst his contemporaries might dwindle. In short he had to keep something for himself. Thus, my chance for finding the "ugly truth" is finally at hand in a moonlighted night.
I started setting-up my chess set and opened both books. Played a game in a Sicilian in the earlier book, spent about 45 mins studying the game then proceeded to the next book and another 25 to 30 mins on it in the same opening. It gave me a pleasant understanding of the former top notch chess super grandmasters insights of his games. In his latest book he was now as candid as he can be unlike the previous one. A tale of "been there done that" thing. Here is master who at one time became a top calibre player writing a book after retirement from active play. Writing about how he felt before the game, what drove him to play this and that. I never really liked this tall, academically succesfull chess grandmasters style of play because of the way he takes risks in his games. But that is chess. If you want to win then take the risks. We are all humans who at one point may blunder at some stage. And i admire this attitude of his in his games now as i played over his games afterwards. I always thought that the great Larsen was the only one who could convey his ideas with self-depricating humor. I was wrong.

Advertising? Nope!. Hell no!. It is a sort of "enlightenment " on my part that i came across books by the same master who made a book during active play and another afterwards ( and how he annotate his games now compared to then). Understanding something "beyond chess" so to speak. The "itsybitsy" things in a masters mind as he plays his moves and how he relates them to his readers from the "old" masters battle scarred sword.
It was indeed an entertaining night.