BOOK REVIEW: Petrosian's Legacy

To tell the truth, I only bought this because I found it at a library book sale for a buck--solely for the novelty of it (since usually you just find Freddies and Irvings at such events, not any real chess books). And I was figuring that it wouldn't be any great shakes, since I hadn't been all that impressed by Petrosian's notes in that games collection of his I'd gone over.

But this small volume turns out to be (surprisingly) very good indeed. Yes, there were a few translational impasses--and I did have a bit of difficulty getting adjusted to the horizontal format that they used when presenting the moves. But there is much of interest here, and the analysis of his adjournment with Korchnoi was particularly intriguing. I also greatly enjoyed the presentation of his masterful game against Spassky from the 1966 match (although later on the same game was presented, without notes--apparently nobody noticed the repetition).

Then too there is the discussion of opening theory (his variation of the KID, among others), which gave a real insight into the way GMs operate and shift their sights and keep on searching. That aspect made it all of more than topical interest.

The thrown-together, hodgepodge arrangement I also found quite appealing. Basically, it was like sitting on Uncle Tigran's lap while he regaled you by the hour with scoopful after scoopful of dandy chess lore. :)