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LXCORFT

Forgotten Talents

Chessplayers Lost in the Labyrinth of Life

288 Seiten, kartoniert, Russell Enterprises, 1. Auflage 2024

24,95 €
Inkl. MwSt., zzgl. Versandkosten
Lost in the Labyrinth of Life
Throughout the history of chess, elite players have been studied, celebrated and adored. But there also been  players, while perhaps not regarded as world-class competitors, who had a precious gift, but who did not know (or could not find) the way to success. They were lost in the labyrinth of difficulties that life always places before every human being.
In the end, for various reasons, history forgot this select group of masters. For some, their careers were very bright (as in the cases of von Kolisch, Neumann and Charousek) but also extremely short, limiting their renown and depriving them of deserved laurels. For others, chess turned out to be excessively demanding for which their minds were unprepared. Finally, for a truly unfortunate few, tragedy – always an unwelcome guest – took over their lives and then took life itself from them.
An exceptionally researched historical work, these pages contain the stories of 23 players with a very unique way of understanding chess (sometimes ahead of their time) and who prioritized the artistic side of the game over the results: an approach that was not properly appreciated in their time.
Now, for the first time, Spanish author and chess historian Javier Cordero puts these Forgotten Talents in the limelight. Archival photos and almost 200 selected games nicely supplement the biographies of these star-crossed players who became Lost in the Labyrinth of Life.
About the Author
Spanish chess historian Javier Cordero graduated from the Faculty of Science from the University of Valladolid with a degree in physics. A tournament organizer and arbiter, he has a website dedicated to the history of chess in Spain (www.historiadelajedrezespanol.es). This is his first book for Russell Enterprises.
Weitere Informationen
EAN 9781949859874
Gewicht 380 g
Hersteller Russell Enterprises
Breite 15 cm
Höhe 22,7 cm
Medium Buch
Erscheinungsjahr 2024
Autor Javier Cordero
Sprache Englisch
Auflage 1
ISBN-13 978-1-949859-87-4
Seiten 288
Einband kartoniert
Hersteller Informationen
Name Russell Enterprises
Adresse 234 Depot Road
Milford, CT 06460
USA
Internet www.Russell-Enterprises.com
E-Mail hwr@russell-enterprises.com
Triumph and tragedy.
The topic of Javier Cordero book is a fascinating one, suggesting various scenarios of what might have been. He writes about talented chess players who were not blessed by good fortune, players whose achievements (while in most cases considerable) may well have been greater, if circumstances had been just very slightly different.

There are 23 chapters all told, each focussing on a player who has been ‘forgotten’, or not given due attention, and they range from Lionel Kieseritzky (known nowadays, if at all, only as the player on the losing side of Anderssen’s great ‘Immortal Game’) to Viktor Kupreichik, the player that Tal (yes, Tal!) referred to as a ‘caveman’ due to his sole penchant for all-out attack. Each chapter has a similar format, containing usually a brief biographical sketch with two or three briefly annotated games, followed by the player’s tournament and match record and about a further five selected games without notes. Photos aplenty adorn the book and there is a very full bibliography at the end.

We are informed that Forgotten Talents: Chessplayers Lost in the Labyrinth of Life was five years in the making; and it is evident that the book has been built on a solid foundation of rigorous research. Cordero has rescued these chessplayers, or at least given them a voice. Their individual stories are now plain for all to see, their achievements and legacy manifest and prominent. What the stories tell us, if we didn’t already know, is that even great chess talents are not immune from the effects of tragedy in its various forms: ill health, poverty, neglect, mental illness, not to mention the effects of historical events like war, depression and the dissolution of empires. It seems significant also that seven of these players hailed from the Soviet Union: the society that nurtured their talent for chess limited their opportunities to progress.

Though it should be said as well that some players (for example Ignatz von Kolisch) went on to have rewarding careers away from the chessboard, they were able to step away from the game and find success in other spheres.

I very much enjoyed this book and learnt a lot, particularly about Esteban Canal and Gosta Stoltz, two players I have long admired, and Alexander Tolush, a formidable attacking player who I knew only as Spassky’s coach during a period in the 1960s. Kurt Richter is featured here too; his book (it is his book, though Werner Golz and Paul Keres are listed as the authors) Chess Combination as a Fine Art has given me much joy over the years. And then there is Albin Planinc and the afore mentioned Viktor Kupreichik… such wonderful attacking players.

Today elite players are generally much younger than the subjects of Cordero’s book, often know about little else than chess, and come from fairly affluent backgrounds. His book shows you that that was not always so: see Planinc’s story as an example, and his faltering, ultimately forlorn struggles with poverty and mental illness. Proficency in chess can arise in very different people and in the most unlikely of contexts, that’s the biggest takeaway of this extraordinary book.

On a final note, let me record one curious effect of reading this book: it gave me a greater appreciation of Bobby Fischer’s achievement in becoming world champion. Even though Fischer is by no means a ‘forgotten talent’ (far from it!), the obstacles he had to overcome to reach the top, starting by being born poor, the child of a single parent in the 1950s, were immense. And in a curious way, his struggles are paralleled in the lives of the tragic chessplayers herein. Moreover, even though Fischer achieved stellar success, managing for a time to navigate ‘the labyrinth of life’, ultimately he too was lost.
Paul Kane
https://thecaissakid.wordpress.com/2024/10/10/forgotten-talents/
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