Grandmasters of Chess

The grandmasters of chess are a strange and fascinating group of men. Several died mad, others led bizarre and dramatic lives. Not one was dull. Each altered the game in some significant way. In Grandmasters of Chess, Harold C. Schonberg traces the history of modern chess through the lives of these great players, the kings of a most demanding and abstruse art. The book is illustrated with many extraordinary photographs and drawings; and a number of complete games are included-history-making contests and immortal performances. What makes a great chess player? Mr. Schonberg is explicit: vast memory, imagination, intuition, technique, a healthy body, relative youth, a high degree of visual imagery, and the unyielding determination to win are the prerequisites. Almost always child prodigies, chess geniuses invariably have massive egos. Mr. Schonberg begins with Francois Philidor, the eighteenth century French-man who laid the foundations for the game as it is played today. Among those who...