Karpov's Strategic Wins

Anatoly Karpov's games are legendary among chess enthusiasts. Some GM's have even acknowledged that their path to the GM title involved a long and intensive study of Karpov's play. Were it not for one Garry Kasparov, Karpov would have likely held the title of World Champion for 20 years, so strong was his play for so long. This 2 volume work may well be the best extant work on Karpov's games, with competition only from Karpov's own "My Best Games", which includes 100 games. This volume alone has 76 Karpov games, and several dozen other games as a bonus. This work, as the title implies, focuses only on Karpov's strategic wins. While Anatoly could play great attacking games on occasion, his real claim to fame is as a strategic genius, and it is his strategic play that gets center attention here. Karpov was known for his ability to slowly and surely squeeze his opponent like a python, often placing most of his pieces on his own first rank, where their influence still strangled the opponent's postion. The notes to the games show that this work is a real labor of love. Karolyi gives clear, well thought out explanations of the play. Analysis of variations is in plenty of depth, but the real shining feature is the rich, plentiful explanations in WORDS of what is going on. There is a tremendously rich education in positional/strategic play to be found here. Here is just one of hundreds of such notes, taken from Karpov-Unzicker, 1974 Olympiad: (after 35.Bh5!) "Completing the manoeurvre. In this particular case the side w/ extra space is happy to exchage a pair of pieces, considering that we are talking about Black's best defensive piece. The text move illustrates another important principle: in positions w/ a space advantage , one of the most effective strategies is to attack on both flanks. The defending side may be able to protect one weakness, but the difficulties associated w/ transferring defensive pieces from one side to the other will often prove insurmountable." It is not often that I have seen so much distilled chess wisdom in a games collection. In addition to the pleasure of playing over the games of one of the all-time greats, you will be slowly but surely increasing your strategic understanding, and hence your results, as you play through these masterpieces. Highly recommended.

Professional chess reviewers are calling this the book of the year. I agree! Karpov became 1974-1985 world champion, when Fischer walked away from a $5 million match offer. K was an active world champion, who played played in and won a couple dozen super-tournaments & 7/9 world title matches. In their 5 matches(146 games) Kasparov finished with only +2. This immense book features 76 deeply annotated games (notes for some games run 10-15 pages, lots of diagrams, deep analysis). Chapters are by year, starting with K at 11 yrs old, with 18 junior level games before K enters GM level competitions. Most games have introductory comments,(including K's won-loss record vs each opponent). Tournament results are given in the text(I would have liked an appendix listing for results & also for openings-- though there is appendix of strategic themes). Karolyi stays with his task to describe how the greatest positional player developed his game(a few draws and lucky escapes are even included). Karpov's was known for his efficient, positional squeeze and yet he can also aggressively get in the face of opponents. The English prose is reliable, the notes seem to be error-free, (except the odd date mistake). Production values are excellent, the book lays flat when I study the games, has a sturdy binding. For the current price this is a steal!! This book is a nice complement to other Karpov collections(Mednis,Karpov,Kasparov), with only a few duplicated games. Many famous Karpov wins do not appear in this book. Karolyi selected games based on "instructive and artistic value" & credits other analysts throughout his book. For Karpov's personal history & background stories - read Kasparov & Seirawan. Karolyi is well-known for coaching the Polgars & Leko. I suspect many of these games have been used as student exercises, which explains Karolyi's explanatory writing style. This is a book for long-term studying; as many of Karpov's seemingly simple moves and re-grouping strategies are understandable only under repeated examination.

The last really great book to explain Karpov's way of playing was, "How Karpov Wins", by Grandmaster Edmar Mednis, (1975/1994). GM Mednis has passed away but this book lives on as possibly his most educational. Now comes along Two new books on Karpov's Play, "Karpovs Strategic Wins 1 - 1961-1985", 458 p.p. Quality Chess (2011). & "Karpov's Strategic Wins 2 - 1986-2010, 576 (!) p.p. Quality Chess (2011). Like the Mednis book, these two volumes by the very experienced International Master, Tibor Károlyi (Who also wrote two fantastic volumes on Gary Kasparov, and another good book about Judit Polgar, among others), was well worth waiting for - Superbly indexed, with detailed indexes, and many statistics (Including how Karpov's opponent's did against other world champions), is included in the two volumes. Of course the most important thing is how well the games are annotated & explained - Here again I was thrilled to see a fine blend of deep analysis (where necessary), and verbal explanation that rival's Mednis' earlier work. If you are a chess player with an understanding of the game between experienced beginner, and advanced amateur, and you desire to become a master-level player, then you cannot make a better choice then these two volumes - And even if you don't progress much in your chess ability from reading them, you will come away with hundreds of hours of enjoyment and learning about the play of one of the 3 greatest World Champions since 1972.

It's time for me to accept just how incredible Karpov was. The man was a GIANT. But I never gave him a chance . . . probably because it felt as if I was betraying Bobby Fischer (and Capitalism) in some way if I admired any of Karpov's achievements. But it's time I let that go. This collection is absolutely extraordinary. Combined with its second volume, it now holds a prime and cherished spot on my chess table. It's so easy to dismiss Karpov. Handed the world title ... then losing it to Kasparov ... and who can compete with Fischer and with Kasparov?! And so we pass over Karpov. Or so I did, anyhow. But look at the facts. The guy was a MONSTER of a chess player. He dominated the world for a good long while and was indisputably the world's greatest tournament player ever. He won more Chess Oscars than any other player but Kasparov. (And consider his record against Kasparov. Sure, Kasparov won more games . . . But not many! Kasparov was only +30 -23 =134 against him, and the bulk of those seven extra wins -- over the course of their entire careers! -- came after Karpov had peaked and was getting older. Imagine not only winning 23 games against the greatest player of all time, but also of drawing 134 games against him!) This collection is especially great because it focuses on the most shining of Karpov's strengths: his absolute supreme positional mastery. The games in this collection are gorgeous and elegant in their precise logic and execution. Plenty of tactics, though most are behind the scenes, as it were, in the annotations. But the real glory of these games is the immaculate precision Karpov brought to the game. I would count Karpov in the top 3 of all time. And to be honest ... much as it pains me to say so ... I might even place him ahead of Fischer at this point. He was that good.

True, it does not have an opening reference for the games. I'll shed a tear for that and get it over with. Why others would give it 1-star (complained about shipping) or 2-star (no opening index) because of this is just pedantic and ignores the true value of this game collection. This is a top-notch product with excellent annotations and commentary and true chess improvers will learn much from Karpov's positional and prophylactic play. This is a great 2-volume work.

Great book, I only been playing for about a year now, but Karpov is truly a chess master, to read and play through the games of such a great player and watch how he came to rise as one of the greatest players ever. 1. Im a Karpov fan 2. The book has a wealth of positional games which like, say Attacking the king or Bishop on the long diagonal and fixing a weakness I think 150 games all together.3. This is a book I love to sit with a board and just play through the games, true it doesn't have an opening index but as you learn more about chess you'll know what a Ruy Lopez or a Karo Cann is. It's page after page year after year from 61 to 85 of some of Karpov's many and brilliant games from when he was young to when he started slowly squeezing his opponents to death in typical Karpovian style.

I am enjoying playing over the games and trying to understand the thought process of the 12th, world champion. This is a must have for chess enthusiasts, highly recommended

I got this book and was excited to learn from Karpov's games with the help of the author's annotations. There is some good historical background on Karpov (not much but a good amount to no distract from the games), the events, and even on his trainers. However, I often find that I learn more about Karpov's games in the book by analyzing them with an engine than with the author's annotations. The print quality is terrific as you would expect from any Quality Chess book. The games are organized in chronological order from 1961 to 1985 which I like. The various indexes in the back of the book are also nice. From here, I'm afraid is a downhill battle. This book is part of a two book series. This volume includes 76 games many of which I question why they were included as they were less than stellar games (borderline mediocre) that only prove that Karpov was human - especially in his younger years. I would say the first seven games could have easily been omitted from this book and nobody would miss them. Game 7 in particular was a terrible game that has no business in this book. In regards to the annotations, the author often inserts a short statement about the position with no support or insight whatsoever. I'm talking about over simplistic statements that do nothing to help the reader understand the game strategies involved. The sad thing is that he's often wrong about his assessments. He rarely critics Karpov even when he blunders and regularly states that the opponent could have made a better move when I can see with Stockfish 16 that the opponent played the best or second best move with similar evaluations. Through the book he goes from offering little to no valuable insight on some games to dumping more engine analysis lines in the book with only a sprinkle commentary than I would ever care to see. Game 14 for example has 10 pages of the author's analysis!! I'm sorry, but this is way overkill for a single game and sadly much of his analysis is plain wrong when you plug in the pgn to Stockfish. This book was first published in 2011 and was republished in 2022 so there is no reason to not take the time to clean up the insane amount of errors and beef up some of the over simplistic annotations in parts of the book. The game selection gets 3-4 stars because most of the games will be of the quality you expect but there are some real duds in there. The author's annotations get 2 stars for the over simplistic annotations, the constant errors in his analysis when reviewed with Stockfish 16 and the overkill of engine analysis in some of the games like game 14. I can't in good conscience give this book more than an overall 3 star rating. If you get this book because you're a Karpov fan like myself get it just for the games and don't waste too much time with the copy and paste engine analysis in the book. Instead, load the game pgns to Stocksfish and do your analysis there as you read through the book. You'll also save time reading the book this way.

Superbe ouvrage en 2 tomes. Karolyi s'attache à disséquer les grandes victoires stratégiques (uniquement, oubliez le tactique plutôt rare chez Karpov) du 12e champion du monde. Chaque année il prend 1 ou 2 parties et les analyse de manière approfondie (l'ordi passe par là) et instructive. Ils ne choisit pas d'ailleurs toujours les plus connues. Il n'oublie pas d'agrémenter le livre du contexte biographique chaque année et ajoute même quelques anecdotes en retrouvant trace 30 ans après d'adversaires oubliés et leur demander leurs souvenirs de la rencontre. Karolyi fait souvent des livres de qualité et celui-ci en fait partie.

So you pay an incredibly high price for this product, and guess what they ship it for you from overseas with the cheapest possible mail and no tracking number. Such an incredible experience.

Impressionante a qualidade literária e do papel das páginas do livro. Fantástico!

Great collection of Karpov's games with good annotation.

A partir des parties de Karpov, l'auteur vagabonde et par analogie retrouve et analyse des positions comparables à celles rencontrées par le champion russe. C'est une démarche trés agréable et intéressante. Les diagrammes résultant de l'analyse aident le lecteur ne disposant pas d'échiquier. Seul petit reproche : la spécificité du style de Karpov n'est pratiquement pas abordée ici, alors que l'on aurait espéré une étude plus personnalisée, surtout à propos d'un champion au style si particulier.