The idea was towrite about the best players in the USA born at the turn of the century. Theseplayers grew and blossomed thanks to the continuous and generous support by theworld’s biggest chess patron Rex Sinquefield and the Saint Louis Chess Club.
Their success changed the scenery of American chess, set new standards andpropelled the country as the promised land for new talents. Grandmaster AlexColovic will be your guide in his fascinating journey with the US’s Young ChessGuns!
The idea was to write about the best players in the USA born at the turn of the century. These players grew and blossomed thanks to the continuous and generous support by the world’s biggest chess patron Rex Sinquefield and the Saint Louis Chess Club. Their success changed the scenery of American chess, set new standards and propelled the country as the promised land for new talents. Grandmaster Alex Colovic will be your guide in his fascinating journey with the US’s Young Chess Guns!
Introduction
“You should writea book,” he said.
It was December2018 and Josip Asik, Dusan Krunic and myself were sitting in one of Skopje’srestaurants waiting for our food to arrive. Then Josip spoke. I still wonder ifhe would have suggested it had the food come a moment earlier.
Josip and Dusanare my dear friends. Our cooperation started many years ago when they asked meto write for Sahovski Informator (Chess Informant) and after that for British ChessMagazine. Then they moved to conquer America by revamping the American ChessMagazine and this is how the concept of the book came about.
While we werediscussing the idea of the book, now over some good food, I remembered that Ihave always liked to analyze the players’ styles and preferences like Botvinnikdid in his preparations. When his secret notebooks were published I was fascinatedhow he managed to extract precise characteristics based on concrete examples. Asa matter of fact Botvinnik also called these analyses “characteristics.” Hereis an example what he thought about Tal’s play prior to the match in 1960 (mytranslation from Russian from the book Botvinnik-Tal, Return Match): “Thegeneral tendency – to obtain positional advantage by lively play rather thanlong maneuvering”.
Has Botvinnik’sway of analysis become a lost art? Now I had a chance to do it myself.
By the timedessert came we agreed on the concept. Some days later I realised with horrorwhat enormous task I took upon myself.
It took me a yearand a half to complete the analytical work.
To write proper“characteristics” I had to go over hundreds of games of each player. I wantedto learn what they like and dislike, how they react in different situations,what is their preferred way of playing, how they handle themselves. During thefirst “scan” I went relatively quickly over the games, writing down theimpression from each game. This is what Botvinnik did when analyzingBronstein’s play before their match in 1951. I continued with the scan untilthe moment when I felt that I “understood” the player. Then I returned to the gamesthat were most relevant for their “characteristics” and I analyzed them deeply.
The maindifficulty was that sometimes the initial impression of a “characteristic” basedon a game was not exactly what I thought it was as the deeper analysisunearthed details that changed the picture. In such cases I had to discardthose examples and either look for others or to conclude that the“characteristic” was not clear enough to form part of the player’s profile.
Most of theplayers in this book turned 20 in 2020. I intended to analyze their styleswhile they were still juniors, therefore the latest games I consulted were fromearly 2020.
I was absorbed byBotvinnik’s analysis, but nobody writes like that today. In the words of ToniMorrison “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been writtenyet, then you must write it.”
That is how thisbook came into existence.
Alex Colovic
