World Champion books

We have two new books at the printer, with their publication date expected as the end of November. I would give an exact date, but the printer isn’t exactly sure on the timing.

The Road to Reykjavik is the first of two books by IM Tibor Karolyi about Bobby Fischer’s life and games. This volume takes us from Bobby’s early years up until his qualification for the world title match. So among many other things, it includes the legendary matches against Taimanov, Larsen and Petrosian. An excerpt is available here. The second volume, on the 1972 match and more, will follow next year.

Magnus Carlsen’s Middlegame Evolution by GM Ivan Sokolov takes us inside the mind of a chess genius and shows what we can learn from Carlsen’s middlegame play and how it has evolved over the years. An excerpt is available here.

I hope you enjoy reading both excerpts.

16 thoughts on “World Champion books”

  1. I don’t want to sound rude, but is the extract from the Fischer book representative of the contents? It seems very different from Karolyi’s previous books. I would expect insightful comments on the games, with some deep analysis at interesting points, and just enough background discussion to put the games in their competitive context. Here we seem to get very brief notes on the games and fatuous reminiscences about a minor character from two other minor characters who hardly knew him.

  2. @Steve
    Ed Edmondson is hardly a minor character- Fischer would almost certainly never have become world champion without him (nor progressed to the actual match). Nor are Sherwin or Saidy minor characters in US chess of that era.

  3. @Steve

    Paul has already rebutted the “minor character” remark and I have nothing to add to his comment about that.

    The main difference between this and the Karpov/Tal books is that this one does not strictly follow a detailed year-by-year examination of Fischer’s career. (This should be obvious from the Contents page.) These books were always intended to mark 50 years since Fischer’s World Championship run, so it’s natural that those matches receive the most detailed coverage.

    Having said that, the first 200 or so pages do cover the 14-year period of Fischer’s career leading up to the Candidates matches. Certain games in that period are analysed in great detail, while other games of interest are presented as shown in the excerpt. We are happy with the balance that has been achieved and we think the readers will like it too. It’s unmistakeably a Karolyi book – but just a little different from before, for the reasons explained.

  4. Hi; I would like to ask you: (1) is the series “Chess from Scratch” still ongoing? If so, when will the first book probably be released? And my last question, (2) are you planning to publish “Revision & Exam 2 (Beyond the basics)” and “Revision & Exam 3 (Mastery)” by Artur Yusupov? If so, when will these remaining books probably be released? Thanks to all of you.

  5. @Al
    1) First few months of 2022. Sorry, the last few years have been horrendous.
    2) Artur has no plans that I know of. We would love for more books, but so far, not planned…

  6. Thanks for the update on these books. Cannot wait for Ivan’s books! They look superb! I’m pretty sure Ivan’s book on Magnus’ middlegame evolution will win an award. It’s something long long overdue for such an amazing writer.

  7. It is always great to have some Fischer-games analysed that are less well known.
    Just wondering: as “Bent Larsen, Master of Counter-Attack” had an enormous impact on my playing style, being the first really serious chessbook I studied (even though on a low level, but it is noticable), if there was any news on the once proposed idea of publishing a book on his best games. (My Sixty Memorable Games was the second one).

    Kind regards

  8. In your 2021 catalogue here is mention of a book on Bent Larsen written by the great Mihail Marin!

    I just wondered if this book is still planned and if so is it on the horizon or some way off?

    Also I’m eagerly awaiting the QGA book, any news?

  9. @George Hollands
    Yes, it is written, have been edited and is getting towards the top of the piles. We are very busy, so one thing after the other. Some additional books popped up during the year.

    No big news on QGA. Think well into 2022.

  10. Lawrence Stevens

    Regarding the Reykjavik 1972 match, the move times are online and publicly available.

    Maybe the move times will help illuminate some of the most interesting game situations—moving too slow, moving too fast, time pressure decisions, errors, etc.

    If you find the info of interest, please use it as you wish.

    Here is the web page, it’s been up since 2008 and it has the story there:
    https://www.crackteam.org/2008/11/02/the-1972-fischer-spassky-times/

    The info was presented in the 45-year retrospective in 2017:
    https://en.chessbase.com/post/bobby-fischer-in-iceland-45-years-ago-5

  11. John Christopher Simmons

    Sokolov’s book well up to usual standard. Found the “Carlsen is human” chapter the most accessible for my level. The games were largely from earlier in career so a little less deep, and his ideas didn’t quite work, which made the games easier to understand. Didn’t realise Carlsen played the Samisch Nimzo Indian as white a lot, and it was possibly a chance to re-use material didn’t publish in a earlier promised book on Nimzo, because of problems found with software. This was one of the harder chapters, but a chance to expand mind a bit.

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