Standing on their shoulders
I would like to share with you something which a great chess trainer – the Chilean IM Victor Frias – told me about a key aspect of studying chess. Victor, who trained a world junior champion, a US champion, and a Chilean GM, advised that one study the games of the great players, in the order in which they appeared and played. The reason for this is simple: each stood on the shoulders of those who came before him.
FM Dennis Monokroussos has done great work in developing an extensive series of lectures that tells this story through two selections from the games of each of the world champions, from Steinitz through Anand. And as the holiday season approaches, we’ve gathered those lectures into one holiday bundle that includes all three collections – Volume 1, the Classical Era 1886-1946, Volume 2, the Soviet Era 1948-1972 and Volume 3, the Modern Era 1972-2013. Members can find all of these lectures here, but this makes a great holiday gift for your favorite chess enthusiast and it’s now available in our store for just $129.95 (less your member discount, of course – 20% for bronze members, 30% for silver, and 40% for gold and platinum subscribers. To take advantage of your discount, enter your subscription type – e.g., silver if you’re a silver subscriber – in the coupon code box in your shopping cart).
For the same reason, I would also highly recommend World Champion Garry Kasparov’s tremendous five-volume series of books, My Great Predecessors, which takes readers through chess history in the same way, and very deeply as well as broadly – delving deeply into each champion, and also discussing the contributions of the other leading players in each era, too. These books may well provide the most rewarding reading of anything in chess literature nowadays.