2006-12-03 Fourth book in a historic series.

This is a luxuriant hardcover volume of 496 pages. Each page is crammed full of analysis by arguably the greatest analyst in the world; Kasparov. I say this due to his competitive success, his workrate, and his support of the analytical approach to chess improvement all the way through his career, inherited from his mentor Botvinnik. Kasparov's search for the truth in chess and his obsession with objectivity, (obviously having been important to his unfathomable success rate in modern chess), is the spirit of this entire series, and it is a great privilege to take this journey into chess history with such a guide.

Any chess player - regardless of strength - can enjoy reading the story in history that this book tells, and in playing through the games. However, I believe weaker players can benefit from reading certain parts of the analysis in small doses to gradually gain more chess understanding, but admittedly, struggling with the analysis of a sacrifice that Kasparov is testing the validity of with numerous nested lines of analysis could be a waste of time if there is little comprehension being made of the lines given. On the other hand, for a reasonably strong club player, this book - and all the others in the series - are a true treasure trove of chess discovery. I particularly enjoy following Kasparov's analysis in the sharpest positions as Kasparov is extremely strong at playing out an attack and looking for the objectively best lines, and it is very beneficial in terms of exercising your tactical brain and also improving your instinct for the best continuations of an attack. This however is only one level on which to enjoy the analysis in these books. Someone interested, for example, in particular in the opening evolution of chess in the modern game, (from Steinitz to Karpov), will enjoy Kasparov's annotations of the openings on that level. Let us not forget that Kasparov is the most notorious openings expert the game has ever known.

So overall, this book, and the other 4 volumes in the 5 volume series, are a great treasure trove and something that will be treasured forever by any chess enthusiast.