Legendary Chess Careers: Alexander Beliavsky (Part 1)

Publisher: Chess Evolution, 2017, Pages: 216, Paperback

As I got on with the enjoyable task of analysing Beliavsky's fantastic games I did not pay much attention to the size of the book; I just selected all the games I found interesting and did not try to limit the depth or length of the annotations. I fi nished the book and happily submitted the material. After a while Chess Evolution replied, informing me that some cuts would be required, so I asked them whether two volumes would be possible. They looked into the material once again and the rich contents of Beliavsky's game convinced them to publish a second volume with the addition of some extra games. I was overjoyed to hear this news.

Where to separate volumes is generally not an easy task, however this time it was rather easy. In the first volume Beliavsky's junior years are covered and it ends when he becomes an established world-class player. He was an exceptionally successful junior winning virtually every possible honour. Soon afterwards he produced a sensational performance by winning the Soviet Championship, sharing first place with the legendary world champion Mikhail Tal. With this he proved himself to be a very strong player, however it took him a few years to become an absolute world-class player.

In addition, once I submitted the material the grandmaster answered some additional questions, and of course these words are very valuable and I was only too happy to insert them into the two volumes. During the years I cover in Volume 1 he showed an incredible improvement - raising his level dramatically. However one thing he was able to deliver right from the very beginning was his ability to produce incredibly entertaining games.