Como bati el record de Bobby Fischer

by Judit Polgár

In chess, great achievements often take a lifetime of preparation, but when these achievements are becoming the World Number 1 woman chess player at the age of 12 and the youngest ever grandmaster at the age of 15, you have to start early! In this very personal book Judit Polgar describes her early moments of success and the chess ideas she needed to master in order to achieve them. This exceptional book is the beginning of a unique project where one of the greatest players of our time transforms her personal journey to the top into a roadmap for everyone who ever wanted to better themselves in the game of chess.

Genres: Chess, Biography, Games, Reference

Paperback

First published September 18, 2012

About the author

Judit Polgár (born 23 July 1976) is a Hungarian chess grandmaster. She is by far the strongest female chess player in history. In 1991, Polgár achieved the title of Grandmaster at the age of 15 years and 4 months, the youngest person to do so at that point.

Reviews

[Igor Zveglic]

An amazing book by a truly unique lady!

She is both confident and proud and full of respect for her rivals and their mastery.
The games are wonderful and amazingly well analyzed. The selection itself is personal of course, as Judit rises to power while the very peak of the game dominated by her male rivals.
One can only admire such dedication and devotion to chess.

I will have to read the other 2 parts as well, hopefully soon!

Highly recommended!

[Steven jb]

Excellent chess book going over Ms. Polgar's earlier years and games. The format provides frequent position graphics so it is far easier to follow the games than the usual chess book. Although I can play 10 or so moves in my head looking at a position graphic, I cannot easily visualize all the nuances. This book allows that and clearly explains what is happening in the position. I highly recommend it.

[Spiros Ilan]

A great book, recounting the first steps of the amazing career of Judit Polgar, the best female chess-player of all times!

[lolly]

Like the title suggests, this book covers Judit's childhood, up until she beat Fischer's record (becoming the youngest grandmaster ever). She did it at 15 years, 4 months, and 28 days. Fischer's was 15 years, 6 months, and 1 day. This book is part of a trilogy. The last two books cover her later career.

This may be the best annotated game book I've read. She doesn't go to deep into the analysis such that the reader gets lost, but she does go over the key alternatives in a given position.

The chapters are organized by topic (zwishenzug, pawn play, etc). She has game fragments from her games that demonstrate the chapter/topic theme. The last half of the book is annotated games.

I believe this book won chess book of the year in 2013, so this is probably not just me: For such high-level play, I found this captivating and was able to follow along and understand most of the lines. It's very well-written. There are ample diagrams, so reading a physical copy of the book and following along on a physical chess board is a lot easier than many books I've read. A lot of times after she goes down a long alternate line, there will be a diagram of the main line again, so you can re-orient yourself.

It's worth noting the book is available on forward chess too, if you don't want a physical copy.

While I love this book and I can understand the games pretty well, I wouldn't even hope to play this well. Maybe the book helped my game some though.