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The 100 Best Chess Games of the 20th Century, Ranked Paperback – Illustrated, March 7, 2006

by Andrew Soltis (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 13 ratings
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How does one determine the "best" chess games? What one may see as brilliant, another may see as simply necessary. Like some art lovers, chess fans claim that they know a good game when they see it, and that they know better from good. But "best"? How is this articulated? This book, itself a work of art, is brought together by the use of five criteria: the overall aesthetics (clever and relentless are insufficient qualities); the originality (e.g., not yet another white knight sacrifice in a Sicilian); the level of opposition (the loser played very well); the soundness (i.e., are the moves refutable with perfect play?), accuracy (few of the moves are second-best), and difficulty (the winner overcame major obstacles) of the game; and finally the overall breadth and depth (one wants a series of sparkling ideas, with no dry patches).

The 100 best games were taken from an initial field of about 7,000 played from 1900 through 1999 that had already gained some attention in magazines, books and periodicals. Three hundred games were then selected that appeared to have features consistent with the criteria. The 300 games were evaluated with scores--points given for each category of criteria. The games were then ranked, one to 100, by the score they received. No attempt was made to balance the selection according to period, nationality of players or opening. Also included is a chapter on the most overrated games of the twentieth century and one on games that would have made the list if…

Includes 335 diagrams, an index of players and an index of openings by ECO codes.

Previous page
  1. Print length
    271 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    McFarland & Company
  4. Publication date
    March 7, 2006
  5. Reading age
    18 years and up
  6. Dimensions
    7 x 0.54 x 10 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0786427418
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0786427413
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“such thorough work has not been done before”―The Washington Post; “very useful...extremely beautiful. All the games there are analysed in detail...demanding readers will be pleased...the dream of all chess editors and publishers”―Quarterly for Chess History; “highly successful work... should provide...much pleasure and fascination”―ChessCafe.com; “excellent...an entertaining compendium of brilliant games...perfect”―Chess Horizons; “well researched”―Seagaard Chess Reviews; “a unique and eclectic collection”―Winnipeg Free Press; “sumptuous! A marvelous selection of the best games of the 20th century”―Chessco International.

About the Author

Grandmaster Andrew Soltis, eight times champion of the Marshall Chess Club, New York Post editor and Chess Life columnist, is the author of dozens of chess books. He lives in New York City.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ McFarland & Company (March 7, 2006)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 271 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0786427418
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0786427413
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.07 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7 x 0.54 x 10 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 13 ratings

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Andrew Soltis

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4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
13 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

SAGESQ
5.0 out of 5 stars Class Chess Game Compendium
Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2024
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I recommend you play through each of these classic chess games and analyze the subtle moves and defenses used by the masters. You’ll learn a great deal - I know I did! Interesting for anyone who likes chess.
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Wan Koon Yat
5.0 out of 5 stars Games selected are too subjective!!!
Reviewed in the United States on May 13, 2007
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Andrew Soltis is one of the best chess writer, I almost brought all the chess books written by him!! But for this book, I give it 5 stars because of his effort. But I totally disagree with his selection of games. Games, like football, we enjoy the excitement arises from complicated positions where both sides have chances. For football, we like scores. But if one side attacks well but the other side defends perfectly, how can one scores? In chess games, sometimes the best games were those games when both sides make just slight flaws, but the fighting spirit the the main factor. That is why, if you ask me, which game I likes most, I definitely would choose the first game of the 1971 candidite semi-final match between Fischer and Larsen!! Even I had played through this games many times, each time it still causes me excitement. The other one I love is the 13th game in the 1972 championship match between Spassky and Fischer. As other reviewer mentioned, some good games are definitely missed!! So I would recommend other reader to buy Mammoth's greatest games in History as a complementary. Anyway, any greatest games collection cannot miss Anderssen's " Immortal Game.!!!
6 people found this helpful
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Bruce A. Monson
4.0 out of 5 stars A great book... but with a few warts.
Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2016
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Soltis is a prolific writer and generally puts out high quality books. And this is a good book. Also, McFarland isn't known for churning out garbage. I agree with some other reviewers that this book falls short of some of his other works (Soviet Chess 1917-1991 is a classic!), but disagree that it is just a 'paycheck' book. The annotations and game summaries of these 100+ classics is worthy of high praise alone. Still, some of his conclusions are questionable, especially compared with the may other 'best of the best' compilations out there (e.g., The World's Greatest Chess Games, by Nunn, Emms, Anand and Burgess is a prime example). In most of these lists there tends to be a selection of games that always get star status such as Rotlewi-Rubinstein (Lodz 1907) and Bogolyubov-Alekhine (Hastings 1922).

And Soltis follows suit on these games and many others. But he also has some anomalies that suggest there are some flaws in his selection criteria. For example, his #1 game is Estrin-Berliner (a correspondence game!)! Great game, but I'm with another reviewer who felt including correspondence games with these epic over the board battles is apples and oranges. They shouldn't be included simply because they don't have the same pressures and circumstances that over the board play has. It's comparable to including computer vs. computer games in the list. Just no place for it.

In his defense Soltis does tell us up front that the games are being judged only "on their moves, not by other considerations." But taking games out of their historical context is a bit like claiming a "brilliant" tennis exhibition between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic carries as as much weight as if it had been played in a Wimbledon final.

Perhaps this 'moves only' criteria helps explain the biggest aberration in the entire book: Karpov-Kasparov, game 16, World Ch. match, 1985. This masterpiece is relegated at number 89! Just eleven spots from being off the list completely! How could this be? Many consider this game to be the greatest of all time; top 10 at worst. Kasparov himself considers it his supreme creative achievement. It got graded down because of "opposition." Which is to say the loser did not provide the stiffest resistance. This is where Soltis' method breaks down in my view. Kasparov's ...d5 pawn sacrifice (which Soltis gives an '?!!' mark) evidently marred the game in Soltis' view since it was later determined ex post facto that white had a good line against it (12.Be3). But by not going into the psychological aspects of this idea, which extended back to game 12 of the same match, he doesn't give credit (bonus points) for Kasparov's boldness in entering the line AGAIN at the most critical point in the entire match. Later in the game Soltis criticizes Karpov's resistance, citing move 17 as the key moment where he missed a better move (17.d6). But this misses the point that Karpov's actual move (17.Nab1) was not only logical but the primary move Kasparov had anticipated. In fact, Kasparov's 'home preparation' extended even beyond that, noting that with 19...Bd6! he had achieved the position he had been aiming for!

The point is, even if Karpov did make a mistake or two they were not blunders or even obvious mistakes; they occurred while under extreme pressure and duress. Instead of trying to assign individual moves to his "Opposition" category he would have been better off following the criteria others have followed by applying it to the person himself and his/her historical strength. Was there any more formidable "opposition" than Karpov in the 1980s? What does it mean (in points) to dominate a player of that caliber to the degree Kasparov did here? Just so the reader understands the contention I am raising here, the score for "Opposition" in the Karpov-Kasparov game was only 14 points! By contrast, the score in Estrin-Berliner was 19!

From a production standpoint it also would have been nice to have an indexed page listing all the games 1-100 with page numbers and the players. Maybe that was left out by design, not wanting people to just look at the list to see who got #1, etc. But if that's the case then why start at #1? Why not start at #100 and work your way backwards? I dunno. Small gripe, but an annoyance nonetheless.

Just to reiterate my opening thoughts, this is an excellent book. An EXCELLENT book! But it has a few gaps. Call it character, like the gap between David Letterman's teeth. In fact, it is easily one of my favorites simply for the annotations and the selection of truly brilliant games. There is something for everyone in here, regardless of your skill level. Highly recommended.
9 people found this helpful
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Phil Baker
5.0 out of 5 stars Well thought out.
Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2022
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Author ranks great chess games according to a numerical system. Games are of a high level and a joy to play over. Recommended.
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A.J. Goldsby I
5.0 out of 5 stars A lifetime of love ..... plus great chess too!
Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2001
I first want to say this is a very fine hard-back book. (It was also a little on the expensive side. Maybe it will be cheaper when - and if - it comes out in paperback.) But it is a great book and may be Soltis's best book ever. (!!) From such a prolific author as this one, that - in itself - is saying a lot!
(Also, if you would like much more info on this book ... AND on Soltis's list, please visit my web page devoted to "The (All-Time) Best Games of Chess Ever Played," at ...)
The author made a very large list of over 7,000 games, (!) then narrowed this list down to around 300 games, and then winnowed it down to the best 100 - using come of the most exacting criteria and the most rigorous research data I have ever seen used for chess games.
He graded the games according to the following criteria: (On a scale of 1 to 20!)
# 1.) Overall Aesthetic Quality.
# 2.) Originality.
# 3.) Level of Opposition.
# 4.) Soundness, Accuracy, Difficulty.
# 5.) Breadth and Depth.
Now I will not give you his list of the ten best chess games here. (You can see which games he picked on my web site and see a discussion of that list there.); But I will tell you I have problems with his list. (And his methodology. See below.) For instance, he rejects Adams - Torre, (New Orleans, 1920.); as a possible fabrication. I think this is unfair and an unproven accusation. (I personally like that game very much and would probably place it in one of the prettiest games ever played. It's maybe THE game for exploiting a weak back-rank.)
He also dismisses 2 other games as fakes, and they probably are. (Alekhine's infamous 5-Queen game vs. N. Grigoriev is positively, absolutely a fake. And there are strong enough suspicions about Botvinnik - Chekover; Moscow, 1935 - to disqualify it as well.)
He also considers postal games together with regular, over-the-board chess, and I have a slight objection to that, as it is like comparing apples and oranges. He also blows off some other pretty good games, such as Nimzovich's "Immortal Zugzwang Game," which was a personal favorite of mine. And he tosses several others for lacking "breadth and depth." (Games like Spassky - Petrosian; Game # 19, World Champ. Match, 1969. Or Keres - Botvinnik; USSR Absolute Championship Tournament, 1941. Both of these games, IMOHO, deserve to be in the, "100 Most Beautiful Games of All Time.") And upon reflection, I must admit that some of his criticisms are valid in certain cases. But overall, his list is interesting, yet in a way - controversial. But when a writer of Soltis's stature picks a list like this, you have to pay attention. (And I will also admit to being a big fan of Andy's.)
METHODOLOGY: A note on Andy Soltis's methodology. At first glance, it would be easy to look at this book, and assume that GM Soltis was very objective. But upon deeper examination, there are MANY problems with the methods that he used. For instance, he had five categories, and he numbered these from 1-20. But what were the exact criteria used? Logically, the larger the gap, the more open to interpretation the numbers are. I might grade a game as an "18" for originality. Soltis might give the same game a score of only 15. (Or much less!) I would have chosen a much smaller bandwidth, with a very exact criterion. For instance, "10" might be "GM opposition with above average defense." A "9" might be " a GM opposition with only average defense." Etc. If Soltis had been more exact in his criteria or further elucidated what his standards were, then we would know more - and have a greater confidence - in the choices that he made. As it is, I think his choices are as subjective as the next person. The only thing that gives his choices any weight at all is the name of the author. And I do not believe that is enough. Personally, I have much more confidence in the methods used by Nunn, Emms, and Burgess in their list. (See my web page on this topic.)
Some of the games that many others consider as the best of all time are left completely off of GM Soltis's list. If you are going to have a major problem with that, then maybe you should consider not getting this book.
[another] One of the nice things about Soltis's book? He goes into great detail about some of the other efforts to define the best games. He also has a very nice list of the "Near-Misses," (Games other authors may have - or may not have - ranked very highly. All very thoroughly annotated.) And some of the "Most Over-Rated Games." (Games Soltis considers being not worthy of the best games list.)
But in the long run, you can argue over the choices all you like. In the end, you would still have to ask yourself, is this book worth the money I am going to pay for it? And the answer is a resounding yes!! You would NOT buy this book to learn OR improve. BUT ... you would definitely do BOTH if you purchased this book and carefully played through all the games contained within. No, buy this book because you love the game, and are curious to see what the author picks as the "100 Most Beautiful Games of the 20th Century." You will be informed, entertained and delighted as only few authors can. This author is maybe the best chess writer in the U.S. today.
This book is the culmination of a lifetime of devotion to the game!! 'Nuff said?
35 people found this helpful
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MAYANK TRIVEDi
5.0 out of 5 stars What a collection!!!!!
Reviewed in India on April 20, 2022
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Chess lovers are going to find this as evergreen literature
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