I have Tibor Karolyi's books on Karpov that are also very good, so would definitely recommend the Spassky ones too
dude in the picture just realized there's only supposed to be 2 kings on the board
That was time that Spassky gets some love in chess literature. Great post!
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I'm currently reading through Karolyi's book on Karpov and I'm not a fan. Much of his commentary is filler nonsense (just like you described in the Spassky book), the evaluations are not always consistent with stockfish 16 (meaning its wrong), he rarely criticizes Karpov when stockfish clearly hows Karpov made a "mistake" or blundered, and some games have what looks like too much engine analysis with little insight to the player's strategies. I'm not too familiar with Marin's books but from what I can see online all his books get great reviews. I have my eye on Marin's Learn from the Legends which looks like a terrific read. I'll check out Franco's book on Spassky. Thanks!
Interesting to get some life story clues. Readable blog, and clear about the nature of sources and their uncertainty. Demystifying to some extent to hear those things. Human failings. How refreshing. no kidding.
Hello again chesspawn123, I haven't got Karolyi on Karpov, but since it was written a long time before Stockfish 16 it's inevitable that those evaluations wouldn't match up. That doesn't necessarily make the older analysis useless, though I know what you mean about the frustration of reading annotations that contain a mass of older engine analysis. Have you seen some of Matthew Sadler's early blog posts where he read older books as a training method, tried to find mistakes himself, then checked on Stockfish? Also, even Stockfish has limitations as a tool for any of us below (say) GM level - it can't really tell us how a Karpov plan unfolds over a long stretch of a game for instance.
@chesspawn123 read Kmoch "Pawn power in chess" — Stockfish often laughs at the lines and evals he gives. Still, it is a masterpiece with valuable lessons. And no filler words.
Excellent review. I was debating between this book and Karolyi's volumes and you helped me make an informed decision. I wish we had more blogs dedicated to book reviews.