International Master Tibor Karolyi has written a three-volume series on Alexander Alekhine's games with the most artistic beauty and instructional value. This is the first best games collection of the fourth world champion written in the era of modern super-computers enhanced by neural networks. The series has been conceived as a companion to Sergey Voronkov's
Alexander Alekhine: The Russian Sphinx series. Karolyi's first volume covers Alekhine's early career to 1921, which is where the period covered by volume I of
The Russian Sphinx also ends. As such, this volume contains 199 games and fragments played by Alekhine from 1902 to 1921. Among the all-time greats, Alekhine had perhaps the greatest influence on the development and understanding of the game. The earlier world champions did not publish nearly as much, and nor did they handle the openings at such a high level, while the later champions no longer had the opportunity to discover as many new ideas. Further, alongside Kasparov and Tal, Alekhine was one of those players whose style is almost impossible to imitate. At the same time, the author was surprised to discover how much Kasparov reminded him of the first Russian world champion. One example is how frequently both players operated on the edge of the board.Another interesting discovery is that Alekhine often managed to exploit his advantage by attacking on both sides of the board even in closed positions. He was also an early proponent among elite players of long castling to attack more freely on the kingside.An essential addition to any chess fan's library.
