Chess Duels: My Games With the World Champions by Yasser Seirawan

[Ken MacDonald]

For those who have not had the pleasure of reading this book yet, don't delay any longer. What a great read! It is an autobiography of Mr. Seirawan's chess life (and a little of his pre-chess life) told anecdotally through his meetings/games/working arrangements, etc. with world champions. Even though he never played Bobby Fischer officially, there is a chapter related to Fischer also. I would have bought the book just to read the Fischer, Tal and Petrosian chapters alone. I actually laughed out loud at points. I don't buy chess books for the games or even the deep analysis in this book. My pleasure comes from real life stories and there are plenty here.

[Tom O'Donnell]

Re: Chess Duels: My Games With the World Champions by Yasser Seirawan

For those who have not had the pleasure of reading this book yet, don't delay any longer. What a great read! It is an autobiography of Mr. Seirawan's chess life (and a little of his pre-chess life) told anecdotally through his meetings/games/working arrangements, etc. with world champions. Even though he never played Bobby Fischer officially, there is a chapter related to Fischer also. I would have bought the book just to read the Fischer, Tal and Petrosian chapters alone. I actually laughed out loud at points. I don't buy chess books for the games or even the deep analysis in this book. My pleasure comes from real life stories and there are plenty here.

The analysis in this book is fantastic. Seirawan's style is one of a teacher explaining in detail how to think about chess positions. I thought this book was the very best one I have read in at least the last five years.

[Gilles Groleau]

Re: Chess Duels: My Games With the World Champions by Yasser Seirawan

The analysis in this book is fantastic. Seirawan's style is one of a teacher explaining in detail how to think about chess positions. I thought this book was the very best one I have read in at least the last five years.

i watched his video which is also great.
in one of the game, he played in the first round of a swiss, against a much weaker player. he explained how and why he lost his queen in the opening
kind of blunder.

then few moves later, the game was over. Lot of players rushed to congratute his opponent. BUT the poor guy has to explain that he just resign..
spectators were looking at what was off the board not was on the board,
a great story...

[John Upper]

Re: Chess Duels: My Games With the World Champions by Yasser Seirawan

I've enjoyed this book alot too. The stories are fun and the notes are good, sometimes excellent.

I think YS is one of the best postional players ever: he has a great sense of what's strategically important a willingness to play unusual moves to exploit it.

I have three (relatively minor) caveats about "Chess Duels":

Quite a few of the games are short and dull draws. It's not a collection of Best Games, it's YS vs the World Champs, and sometimes players are happy to split the point early and YS includes those games too... and honestly admits that he's 'not going to win any awards for this dull play'.

Second, YS is a very well mannered man, but I find his PG language --- darn it!, gosh!, my goodness! --- gets cloying pretty fast.

Third, the typography sucks: it looks like 11 point Arial all the way through :P. At the very least, they could have followed the lead of Kasparov's "The Test of Time" and used a second font for those games where YS gives both his original notes and his new comments from 2010.


Having said that, it is an excellent book. If it had been a best games collection, with YS putting his considerable annotating skills into all the games, and not just the most interesting ones, then "Chess Duels" would be up there with Tal's "Life and Games" as one of the best game collections ever.