Karsten Müller (1970–)

Olms puplication has come up with a games collection of Nakamura going upto 2011.

I had great expectations, and the book disappointed.

Nakamura is an original fighter, and consummate endgame technician, with a remarkable speed of calculation.

The book has sections authored by different people, its depth of analysis is varying. There are prefatory sections to each chapter which add a bit of information and color (what it costs to host a event with appearance fees such as Wijk aan Zee) etc. However, apart from a quiz in one of the chapters with 4 endgame problems from Nakamura's praxis and 4 tactics problems, there were not too many exercises to marvel at.

Reading through the games, some of which were fighting chess, some games better known and a few unknown, I felt that many aspects of the maturing grandmaster's play were covered but that a better job could be done.

His brief apprenticeship with Kasparov is covered.

His devotion as black to the Sicilian Najdorf and his ability to mix it up, his one time penchant as white to play moves such as 2.Qh5 all get treatment.

There is a brief chapter about bullet and Fischerandom chess, the latter, I think, against Aronian and it is a fun one.

Overall, two stars out of five.… (mehr)