Second Piatigorsky Cup

Book Overview

Ten of the world's strongest chess players competed in the strongest chess tournament ever held in the US. All ten of the players have provided annotations to their games. Every one of the 90 games in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486235726
• ISBN13: 9780486235721
• Release Date: January 1968
• Publisher: Dover Pubns
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 5.5" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Remarkable Fischer Recovery

If you are tracking Fischer, this tournament was a pivotal point in his career--a miraculous recovery following a disappointing start, after which he seemed energized and unstoppable. Petrosian (then world champion) struggled (he placed 6th/7th, see also Larsen's queen sack against him!), while Bobby and Boris were ascendant. What makes this tournament book standout are the player bios and photos and the many excellent "apparati"--Player/game index, round-by-round summaries, round-by-round results and openings index. I found the above mentioned Larsen-Petrosian game in the player/game index: game #34. The game analysis is sparse, but to the point. But unlike the singular perspective of most game collections prduced by a sole analyst/researcher, there are many games where the opponents have been asked to provide commentary (such as #34), exposing sometimes different insights to the same key move. In this case both agreed the queen sac was not difficult to calculate. Yet, Petrosian concedes that is "was beautiful and rare." Be warned. This appears to be a photo-reproduced copy of the original. Unfortunately the player photos did not reproduce well. They are very dark. And the diagrams, too, appear to have bled a little--probably due to the fact that the master copy itself was old. (-1 star). In spite of these failings, it was exciting to see this tournament book in print again.

Synopsis

If anything, the Second Piatigorsky Cup, organised on behalf of the millionaire Piatigorsky family by USA GM Isaac Kashdan, excelled the First Piatigorsky Cup in tension and excellence of play. Once again the competing grandmasters - including Fischer, Larsen, Petrosian and Spassky - contributed their comments to create a superlative tournament book. The race for first prize between Spassky and Fischer, the temporary eclipse of the reigning world champion Petrosian, and the classic clash of arms between Spassky and Fischer themselves, combined to elevate this to one of the supreme chess experiences of all time.