The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games

by Graham Burgess, Dr. John Nunn, John Emms

Improve your chess by studying the greatest games of all time, from Adolf Anderssen's 'Immortal Game' to Anand versus Kramnik 2008, and featuring a foreword by World Champion Vishy Anand.

The 125 greatest chess games of all time, selected, analysed, re-evaluated and explained by a team of British experts and illustrated with over 1,000 chess diagrams. Join the authors in studying these games, the cream of two centuries of international chess, and develop your own chess-playing skills - whatever your current standard. Instructive points at the end of each game highlight the lessons to be learned.

First published in 1998, a second edition of The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games in 2004 included an additional 12 games. This edition includes a further 13 games as well as some significant revisions to the analysis and information regarding other games in earlier editions of the book, facilitated by the use of a variety of chess software.

Genres: Chess, Games, Nonfiction, Reference, History

704 pages, Paperback

First published August 27, 1998

About the author

Graham K. Burgess (1968) is an English FIDE Master of chess and a noted writer and trainer. He became a FIDE Master at the age of twenty. He attended Birkdale High School in Southport, Merseyside. In 1989 he graduated from the University of Cambridge with a degree in mathematics. In 1994 he set a world record by playing 510 games of blitz chess (five minutes for each player) in three days, winning 431 games and drawing 25,

Burgess has written more than twenty books and edited more than 250. His book The Mammoth Book of Chess won the British Chess Federation Book of the Year Award in 1997. He is the editorial director of Gambit Publications.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Movie cliche # 17 : the chess game.

In every film scene that involves a chess game, one player gazes at the board and makes a long range move with a queen or bishop which ends up next to the other guy's king, and he - or she - says "Mate".

And the opponent looks suitably amazed or bemused.

This is a wretched lie and would never happen in real life. Okay, it might happen if you're playing a seven year old. Anyone else can see the mate looming at least two or three moves before it happens, and will wriggle and writhe, and will finally accept the inevitable and will resign, with grace or (if your initials are PB) with tetchiness. Unless the mate is particularly elegant (this might happen maybe once every three years), you do not wait for it to be administered. Why would you? By resigning two or three moves before the mate, you are acknowledging your opponent, it is a doffing of your cap, it is respect. And also you are saying to him that you at least had the brains to understand what was about to happen.

Movie directors, especially those crass enough to use chess as a symbol of crafty intrigue and deep thought, do not know this, or if they do, have enough contempt for their audience to assume they don't know this. Movie directors do not think that anyone who watches their movies actually plays chess.



The devil take them all.

[Manny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good anthology of the greatest chess games of all time, but it does raise the question of what selection criteria to use. After a while, you realize that chess games are just another form of literature, and the criteria are in many ways similar to the ones you would, for example, use in a poetry anthology. In particular, some games are included just because they are well known and have become part of chess culture, the way a poetry anthologist might include Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade". (I'm sorry if you happen to like this poem. Personally, I think it's dreadful, but everyone ought to know it, because it's quoted so often). So, here, we have the so-called "Evergreen Game", which might have been brilliant when it was played 150 years ago, but now seems unbearably trite and obvious. Everyone knows that you can play that kind of sacrificial attack. If I'd been on the black side in a three-minute encounter on the Internet Chess Club, I'd probably have responded "nice :) gg" and asked for a rematch; I'd have forgotten about it within an hour. But, at the time it was played, it was remarkable, and it became an archetype which every serious chess player has looked at while they internalized those attacking skills.

Moving further towards the present, it's quite surprising to play through the game from the first match between Kasparov and Deep Blue, where Kasparov lets the machine take one of his pawns, and gets a strong attack in return. Less than 20 years later, again, everyone knows what happens when you let a computer take one of your pawns. You may have a strong attack, which would quite likely win against a human, but the machine will be certain to find the defense, if there is one; most often, there is a line where it can come up with a miracle save. Here too, the machine manages to get its pieces coordinated just in time to save the day. But, when it happened, it was incredible. I remember being shocked that anyone could do this to Kasparov, and the game is justly famous.

I don't want to give the impression that it's all just history. Far from it. Some of the games still amaze you, even if you're a strong player. For me, the standout is another Kasparov game, the 1999 one against Topalov; I am one of many people who think this is the greatest game of all time. Facing a future world champion, Kasparov sacrifices a whole rook, to start a combination that is all of 20 moves deep, and chases Topalov's king to the other side of the board before he manages to catch the black queen. And it's not all forcing moves. Calculating 20 checks in a row would be nothing special at this level; here, there are points in the combination where Kasparov plays a quiet move, relying on the fact that Topalov can't escape from the net. Kasparov claims he planned the whole sequence before he started. It's simply incredible that a human being is able do such a thing.

As the old Indian proverb has it: chess is a sea where a gnat may drink, and an elephant bathe. Irrespective of your playing strength, if you like chess at all you will enjoy this book.

[P.E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now this one is a trove.

Over 120 of the greatest, legendary, and most emblematic chess games of all time, explained and cross-examined by GM John Nunn and GM John Emms. Read in the 2010 edition.

A top vintage in chess literature!

[Nickvisel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A peerless collection of the greatest games of the world’s greatest game

I was heavily inspired to go through this book after the excellent Perpetual Chess Podcast ep with Ben Johnson and Christopher Chabris, which you should listen to here: https://www.perpetualchesspod.com/new...

I listened to this countless times and every time it got me more excited to study this book!

This book has it all, if what you want is amazing, incredible, peak brilliant, attacking, romantic, rose-colored chess.

It also acts as a substantial primer to chess culture, because you'll learn about the greatest players (sans Morphy) and arguably their greatest games.

From the first to the last game, every page has a little bit to teach you, or to inspire you, and as a chess player (especially an adult chess player), that's the kind of boost you can use to stay encouraged in your journey to improve at the game.

[Serge Pierro · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing collection of one hundred of the greatest chess games ever played. Arranged chonologically, the book presents each game with a little history of both players, and an anecdote about the game. Games from 1834-1997 are included, and some of the top players represented are: Capablanca, Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov, Botvinnik, Alekhine, Lasker, Tal, an many more! Good annotations along with multiple diagrams per game.

[Chris Garrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cheesy title, but a surprisingly good explication of interesting games. The various historical squibs about the featured players are more interesting than you'd expect, too--chess-players frequently lead semi-tragic lives, apparently.

[Tom Ritman-Meer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent Grandmaster game collection with very high quality annotation.

[William Schram · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games is a massive tome collecting 125 games. The book analyses each game and discusses alternate lines that may have worked better for both sides. Each game introduces the players on each side with a brief biography and their performance in tournaments. The games are the main attraction, but I don't know why they included some of them. Furthermore, the book organizes the games in chronological order. So it's all well and good to see a game from the 1800s, but it doesn't do much for a modern player. The last subject discussed for each game is a series of takeaways. What should you glean from these games?

The problem with the book is that it is printed material. You can't update it easily. With the internet and all the websites out there, you would be better off using those.

I enjoyed the book. Thanks for reading my review, and see you next time.

[Tim Reisner · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute masterpiece of chess literature. Such a complete collection of wonderful games from the last ~200 years, with a heavy emphasis on back and forth struggles, that's its hard to imagine how it might be improved.

I've been working through this book for over 10 years now, painstakingly working through all the variations over the board comma more recently with the help of an engine.

There are times when the depth of analysis has been almost frustrating, but you are always ultimately rewarded by some beautiful point right at the end of the variation.

A classic.

Edit: There have been various updates since this edition with the latest now containing an additional 45 games from recent practice.

[Ilia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

An instructive anthology of historic chess games considered the 125 best chess games selected and annotated by grandmasters. Third edition.

[globulon]

I picked this up after reading Manny's review. It's a very cool book.

What I like about it so far is that it presents the games, along with variations, but it also gives biographical information about the players, as well as focusing the reader's attention on the key themes of the game before hand, and then has concluding lessons from each game. I feel I will get quite a bit stronger by studying it. It seems very appropriate to my level, but also seems to be the kind of book that will continue giving rewards as a player gets stronger.

[FranklinTV · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice capture of key games in the history of chess, that if I ever get back fully into chess, Im sure would have make aware of some of the logical joy possible in a game. Good introduction and seemingly good annotations of each game.

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great games, lots of variations.