Descending Olympus

Well, that's not I.

there is a batgirl sized hole in what makes up the cc staff , i wonder if it can ever be refilled . keep doing what you do 

I was never an employee (staff) of chess.com.  I've always been my own person.

This is small video of Seirawan talking about Bronstein:

If they did that to me, I would wish them a pleasant life, and move on to find an organization who appreciates my talents.

chess.com has too narrow an idea of what its brand is.  Keep the history coming!

Great video. Seirawan tells a good David Bronstein vs Walter Shaw Browne story.

Thanks!

Great chess books - in my opinion, are those that are written with great depth of immersion for all levels of chess players, from beginners to almost professionals. It's a tricky business to write a book like this.
To reach all types of chess players and amateurs, to grab and hold their attention throughout the book. Perhaps, ideally, such books do not even exist. But there are books that come very close to this.

In some ways, this question has something in common with Chesskom's policy on chess articles and moderation. Reaching almost everything in sufficient depth and with sufficient attention (interest) from the readers is an impossible task. Apparently, they were not flexible when they got rid of a rather deep, but still an author for a not very wide circle of interested readers, as Batgirl is in my opinion.

Bronstein was a genius and very original thinker, but the Soviets were also brought up with their own players as teachers. Scandinavian Carlsen instead mentioned in an interview what an influence Larsen had been on him (his first chess book was the one on planning), and Kramnik who was sitting beside him countered with ”in Russia we consider Larsen to be a patzer” or something like that. In his next game against Kramnik Carlsen played the old Larsen favourite 1. f4 and won :-)

Kasparov has also talked about how Botvinnik used to scare him as a kid about ending up as Larsen if he didn’t stop being too original. And still Larsen was awarded the Chess Oscar for best player in the world in the late 60s… But it is all a question of taste and background, I haven’t heard anyone have anything but praise for Bronstein though. I like him too, but find Larsen more accessible. Maybe stronger players get more out of Bronstein.

Whaaaa so much information to read

Wasn't it Botvinnik who said young Karpov was such a bad player that he had no future in chess?

The top players of our time will probably never write books of the sort the oldies did, they make videos and stuff like that instead.

"The boy doesn't have a clue about chess, and there's no future at all for him in this profession." – Mikhail Botvinnik (referring to a 12-year-old Karpov)

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Anatoly_Karpov

Botvinnik liked Kasparov much more than he liked Karpov, which maybe is a bit surprising. The first time Botvinnik met Kasparov was when the latter was ten, and he had quite a different opinion in that case:

"Botvinnik’s group this time includes a newcomer from Baku, a very bright kid, accompanied by his tall, beautiful, Middle-Eastern looking (as he also) mother. His name is Garik Weinstein. “Show us, Garik, an interesting game you played,” said Botvinnik, as was his habit.

Garik chose a game from one of the junior tournaments. He immediately answered the questions posed by the teacher, showing combinational variations of stunning beauty. He did not always agree with his teacher.

“Okay,” said Botvinnik, looking at his watch, “today’s lesson is over.” Later, he walked up to his assistant, the master Yurkov, and spoke the historic words: “This boy is a genius; I will work with him individually.” And he did work with him, though not for very long"

Yasser seems to have had a little trouble speaking in front of the camera in his youth.

Glad he has worked that issue out.

One book that comes to mind as a good candidat to be useful to a wide audience (from beginners all the way up) might be Ilya Maizeli's Shakhmaty, or Soviet Chess Primer as it's published in English