Introduction
The book will consist of two volumes. Part two is coming out very soon. The first volume covers Spassky’s career from his early childhood to 1968, a year before he became the world champion. The second volume will cover his career from 1969 all the way to this year, 2025. Spassky died this February. His last serious tournament was a match against Korchnoi in 2009, but the last time he himself felt he was playing competitive chess was back in ‘85:
Spassky in a 2007 interview on Kingpin: “All my achievements are in the past, and the last time I played well was the Montpellier Candidates in 1985. If it were not for some physical indisposition at the very end of the tournament I should have qualified for the quarterfinals.”
That makes volume 1 of his best games the more instructive part of his career in my opinion. It covers his early years, his road to becoming the World Champion, and his progress is made clearly visible in Karolyi’s writing. We get to witness a very bright kid make a quantum leap to being one of the strongest players in the Soviet Union within a few years.
Volume two, which we will cover as soon as we get our hands on it, therefore, deals with Spassky at his peak in the beginning of the book, and covers his decline, as it focuses mostly on the period from when he’d lost the title to Fischer in ‘72 to the end of his career.
When asked about why he stopped playing tournaments in the 2007 Kingpin interview Spassky answered:
“I felt that I had no more energy to play, that I had lost any desire to win. I remember that I won the first prize in Linares in 1983 leaving Karpov behind. At that time I was already living in France, but I was still playing under the Soviet flag. Karpov was evidently furious, and soon afterwards the Soviets took away the red flag from my table; what is more, they deprived me of my stipend from the Soviet Sports Committee. These 250 roubles I needed very much to help my family in Russia – my mother, my brother and sister, my children.”
Structure of the book
Boris Spassky’s Best Games are divided into 22 chapters, the first one covers his early years. Spassky was born in 1937. His early years is not accompanied by games and it gives a brief depiction of his childhood. The next 21 chapters cover one year each, starting in 1948 and ending in 1968 in the final chapter. Each chapter covers a selection of Spassky’s games from that year. Some games I would definitely consider among his best are missing, and some that I’ve never seen before are included. The definition of “best” is subjective I suppose. All together, the book consists of 103 annotated games. Each year, or each chapter, ends with Spassky’s results for that year, including his overall score and his tournament performances.
Spassky’s life and career
This is a game collection first and foremost, and the games themselves are the meat and bones of the book, but the biographical part which depicts Spassky’s life and career accompanies them. Karolyi gives a brief introduction and conclusion to each chapter in which he mentions important events both from Spassky’s chess life and from his life away from the board. There are many interesting blurbs from his life, like, for example, this one from 1958, in which Spassky comments on his loss against Tal in Riga:
I feel like Karolyi could have and should have given us more. The book feels “lazy” in a way. He did a great job, but there could have been so much more written. I feel like I didn’t find out as much about Spassky as I could have had the author given his best to collect every piece of information he could have and included it in the book.
Still, what the reader does get is wonderful. If we were to compare Boris Spassky’s Best Games to a perfectly written biography such as The Real Paul Morphy, the difference is huge. A fraction of the text, both in quality and in quantity is given by Karolyi.
Quality of annotations
Now for the most important part of any chess book, the annotations. The book only covers 103 games. Each game is described in around 30 sentences on average. That, in my opinion, is far below a standard for a high quality game collection. I understand that the author was focused on the key moments and the beauty of each game, but not giving us a detailed description of the entire game lowers the instructive value of the book significantly.
Perhaps Karolyi didn’t focus on chess improvers, but has instead tried to assemble a book that would focus on Spassky’s career and chess from a biographical perspective. Having read the book, I can’t help but feel that way. Comparing Boris Spassky’s Best Games to Fire on Board or Ding Liren’s Best Games for example, you definitely learn less from the book.
Difficulty and recommended rating
Boris Spassky’s Best Games are very easy to follow for anyone beyond beginners. The variations are few, as Karolyi focuses on the main lines in the majority of the games. What makes it harder to follow the analysis is the lack of annotated moves, so curious stronger players who are able to analyze well on their own will definitely get more from the book. I think anyone could read it, but it would be best suited for intermediate and advanced players rated between 1700 and 2000. Master level players would probably be annoyed, as neither the annotations nor the historical part of the book meets the standards of the best game collections available.
Conclusion
A decent game collection and a decent biography, but not a great one. Karolyi managed to write an interesting overview of Spassky’s best games and his chess career, but he could have done so much more had he given it his best.
