First, why you this book might be for you.



The strengths of this book is the approach to studying the play of Fischer. The technique employed in the development of this book is uncommon and very effective to really analyze the characteristics of a personal playing style. The analysis and discussion is ideal for a developing (but not necessarily already strong player) in most cases. The considerations in analyzing Fischer's style could be applied to any chess master that one might study.



Why did the book drop to three stars?



The analysis is general too superficial to provide any real deep insight into the positions. This most likely due to the strength of the author (FIDE approx. 2250). He certainly does a better job at explaining positions than certain GMs that are just "mailing" in their analysis, but doesn't come anywhere near close to the top chess writers such as Beim, Marin and Soltis (and certain others). There are many occurences where games end with the comment "and then it is Fischer's technique". The book is about technique but the author never really "gets" that Fischer's technique and defensive abilities allowed Fischer to make aggressive decisions. Sure, he alluded to this in many sections, but no synthesis was provided to really provide a picture of why Fischer's ability was so dominate in his run against the Soviets. This kind of discussion would have improved the book considerably. Instead, the book is collection of attributes characterizing a playing style with typically four or five examples. My main problem is that most examples and characteristics could be found for most top GMs. The author did very little to contrast the effectiveness Fischer's style against the players of his time or even the players up to the publication date.



In conclusion ...



If you're an aspiring improving player, this book is an interesting and instructive read but do your own homework! Go through a book like Soltis' Fischer Rediscovered and certainly read Bobby Fischer's My Sixty Most Memorable Games. Just ignore the fact that the attributes are highly related and often an item like "timing" cannot be disconnected from all the other characteristics and probably shouldn't be discussed at its own topic.

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