WINNING

En herlig imponerende bok av den mangeårige verdenstoppen Nigel Short (født 1965), som kommenterer alle partiene sine i åtte turneringer han vant fra 1987 til 2016. Her er også historie og historier rundt mange av partiene.

Partiene er en veldig skikkelig og ganske grundig kommentert av Short, og slik som vi alle egentlig foretrekker og dessuten lærer mest av, med mange gode og lærerike observasjoner og tanker og ikke flere varianter enn det som er naturlig og nødvendig.

Short forteller at det måtte en pandemi til for at han skulle skrive sin første sjakkbok, og resultatet viser verdien av å kunne konsentrere seg mer enn vanlig om et såpass ambisiøst prosjekt. Kanskje en klisjé, men resultatet tyder på at denne ganske store innbundne boka straks blir en moderne klassiker.

Et godt poeng med en bok som denne er også nettopp at vi får presentert alle partiene i hver turnering, slett ikke bare de mest vellykkede som vanligvis får plass i partisamlinger. Her er både festsjakk og hverdagssjakk, for å låne et uttrykk fra vår avdøde norske sjakkmester Knut Jøran Helmers.

Forordet er høyst leseverdig skrevet av hans mangeårige sjakkvenn Peter Svidler.

Forlagets egen omtale:

Grandmaster Nigel Short realised that every tournament win has a unique narrative and challenge. In this exceptional chess book, Short discusses eight of his foremost tournament wins, describing the drama with insightful game annotations and entertaining anecdotes. For those wanting to win in chess, this book is the place to start.

English GM Nigel Short was one of the most successful chess players of the 1980s and 1990s and was still in the top 100 well into his 50s. The peak of his career came in 1993, when he challenged for the World Championship in a match against Garry Kasparov.

Fra forfatterens innledning:

The format of Winning is highly unusual. Indeed, I believe it is unique in the vast literature of chess. Rather than attempting to squeeze my entire career into a single volume, and failing miserably, or produce an entertaining, but grossly distorted, “best games” selection, in which I might con you into believing that I am a brilliant player; I have chosen instead to focus in detail on eight tournaments spanning several decades. Each a case study if you will.

The happy coincidence that I won all these events satisfies the author’s vanity, but at the same time I hope the inclusion of each partie, in order, will also serve a useful and instructive purpose. For it is only by examining all the games from a tournament that one gets a proper appreciation of how an event unfolded.

The selection is subjective and can by no means be described as the definitive list of my eight greatest tournament victories; although it also includes some of those. These are basically just some events that I am proud of in one way or another. As I have won over 70 tournaments, I could easily have chosen others. With the exception of the Anzali tournament (Chapter 8), which featured the rather rare Scheveningen System format, all the events contained herein were round-robins. This was a deliberate choice, as I am intending (if the book sells) that matches and open tournaments will be covered separately in future editions.