Crying with gratitude?!

John stumbled over this quote on the English Chess Federation’s Forum:

Just look at the two Judit Polgar books published by Quality Chess. It’s a dead cert that all the notes were written by Marin. This is the best annotated game collection I’ve ever seen in my life (and I think I’ve seen ’em all). Tears of gratitude emanate copiously as I flick through the pages of these two tomes.

We are of course grateful that our books are appreciated, but probably we should clarify what is happening here. Mihail and Judit are friends since she was a small girl and have worked together on a number of occasions. When she decided to write the book, she knew she needed help and turned to one of the best chess writers around. What he is mainly helping with is structure, advice and occasional typing. The opinions, the choices, the variations are all Judit. This year she went a week to Bucharest and he a week to Budapest. They have also both worked independently. There have been sections I have seen that were clearly written by Judit and others written by Marin (detectable from their personal recurring grammar mistakes).

So, it is no secret that Marin is helping a lot with these books; but they are not ghosted as they would be for a footballer or other celebrities. Judit is intensely involved and does not do this for the money at all – which is a good thing, as otherwise the books would not happen. I am personally looking forward to the last volume a lot; the first two have been some of my favourite chess books ever.

4 thoughts on “Crying with gratitude?!”

  1. I like everything about these books: superior typesetting, personal view, useful general remarks, detailed to the point analysis on critical moments and stunning combinations, and the masterpiece against WC anand…

  2. grinding_tolya

    I promised myself these books the moment after finishing re-studying learn from the legends and having played 5 games in which I make a “good” decision due to the motifs discussed in LftL.

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