The Life & Games of Vasily Smyslov wins the Averbakh/Boleslavsky Award
The Yuri Averbakh/Isaac Boleslavsky Award for best book published in 2020 goes to “The Life & Games of Vasily Smyslov (The Early Years: 1921-1948)”, written by Andrey Terekhov, and published by Russell Enterprises. The runners up were “Think Like a Machine”, by Noam Manella and Zeev Zohar (published by Quality Chess), and “Masterpieces and Dramas of the Soviet Championships: Volume I (1920-1937)”, written by Sergey Voronkov, and published by Elk and Ruby. About the winner St. Petersburg native Andrey Terekhov is a FIDE Master, an ICCF International Master (correspondence chess) and holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science. His best results at the board were victories in the 2008 Munich Open and the 2012 Nabokov Memorial. He currently resides in Singapore. This is his first book for Russell Enterprises. Vasily Smyslov, the seventh world champion, had a long and illustrious chess career. He played close to 3,000 tournament games over seven decades, from the time of Lasker and Capablanca to the days of Anand and Carlsen. From 1948 to 1958, Smyslov participated in four world championships, becoming world champion in 1957. Smyslov continued playing at the highest level for many years and made a stunning comeback in the early 1980s, making it to the finals of the candidates’ cycle. Only the indomitable energy of 20-year-old Garry Kasparov stopped Smyslov from qualifying for another world championship match at the ripe old age of 63! In this first volume of a multi-volume set, Russian FIDE master Andrey Terekhov traces the development of young Vasily from his formative years and becoming the youngest grandmaster in the Soviet Union to finishing second in the world championship match tournament. With access to rare Soviet-era archival material and invaluable family archives, the author complements his account of Smyslov’s growth into an elite player with dozens of fascinating photographs, many never seen before, as well as 49 deeply annotated games. German grandmaster Karsten Müller’s special look at Smyslov’s endgames rounds out this fascinating first volume. About the runner ups “Think Like a Machine” With the ascent of computer technology, humans have a chance to develop their thinking process based on hard evidence. Think Like a Machine explores human limitations and proposes new avenues for human thinking, inspired by computer engines. In positions taken almost exclusively from modern tournament play, the authors present jaw-dropping continuations which humans struggle to find, not due to lower human computing power, due to conceptual and perceptual limitations. In this book these “crazy” moves are analysed and categorised. If you want to expand your chess imagination, understanding and intuition, Think Like a Machine is the book is for you. Think Like A Machine is the second chess book co-written by Noam Manella and Zeev Zohar. Manella is a digital and Social Networks Researcher; Zohar is an accountant and businessman. Their previous book, Play Unconventional Chess and Win, was a highlight in chess publishing in 2014. “Masterpieces and Dramas of the Soviet Championships: Volume I (1920-1937)” In his three-volume treatise, leading Russian chess historian Sergey Voronkov vividly brings to life the long-forgotten history of the Soviet championships held in 1920-1953. Volume I covers the first 10 championships from 1920-1937, as well as the title match between Botvinnik and Levenfish. The key contestants also include world champion Alekhine and challenger Bogoljubov, lesser-known Soviet champions Romanovsky, Bogatyrchuk, Verlinsky, and Rabinovich, and names that today will be unfamiliar yet were big stars at the time: Riumin, Alatortsev, Makogonov, Rauzer, Ragozin, Chekhover, and many others.
International Chess Day celebrated on July 20
“Dear chess friends, This Tuesday, July 20th, we will celebrate International Chess Day. As you probably know, this date also marks FIDE’s 97th anniversary. Last year, many of you joined us when we made an appeal to the members of our chess community and asked you to teach someone how to play chess to mark this day. This campaign turned into a truly global celebration of chess. Many people and institutions from “outside” the chess world echoed the initiative, and we managed to attract more people to our sport. This resulted in many thousands of new players who joined our ranks. Our family grew bigger, and that is always good news. In view of this success, we would like to repeat this campaign, and probably turn it into a yearly tradition from now on. Chess became one of the hottest trends in 2020, and millions of people are curious and eager to learn chess. Let’s give them a hand! You will find detailed instructions below. I would kindly ask you to distribute this information among your friends, members of your chess club or federation, associates and sponsors, and representatives of the media in your respective countries. Arkady DvorkovichFIDE President” WHO? Preferably a kid (it would be easier, and more rewarding for you both!), but it can also be a grown-up. Learning chess has beneficial effects, at any age! Choose someone close to you. You can change somebody’s life by teaching him/her a beautiful game, but you will also be spending some quality time and creating or reinforcing a special bond with that person. If your children already play, maybe you can invite your nephew or your son’s best friend. Maybe you can finally teach your boyfriend how to play, or your high-school best mate. Or you could propose this as an after-work activity with your colleagues at the office. WHEN? July 20th falls on a Tuesday, so the plan is that we make some preliminary posts on Monday announcing our plans, and then take social media by storm during Tuesday. However, we have the whole week to actually teach someone how to play, culminating with next weekend, July 24-25. Can we start the next week with one million new chess players? We believe so. HOW? Some of you might be seasoned chess teachers, but many others have never taught the basics chess to absolute beginners. During the days leading to the weekend, try to gather some materials, watch some tutorials, and do some reading. From FIDE, we will stimulate the exchange of information and will share the most interesting ones, in different languages. Let’s help each other with the preparations. SOCIAL MEDIA Last year, on International Chess Day, 13,633 tweets from 2,829 different contributors used the hashtag #Internationalchessday. That means we reached an audience of more than 122 million people and 202 million potential impacts – and that’s on Twitter alone! The campaign was also massively followed across other social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook, and International Chess Day became a trending topic in several countries. The trend was so strong that many global brands, institutions, and celebrities, joined the initiative. Let’s try to reach even higher numbers this year! You can start using the hashtag #Internationalchessday in your social media posts during the weekend leading to July 20th. But the very important day is Monday: please make sure to make at least one or two posts with the official hashtag, if possible early in the morning. That will ensure that other users will follow. If you have any doubts or suggestions, or you think you can contribute to this campaign in some other way, please don’t hesitate to contact us: David Lladadavid.llada@fide.com+ 34 623 021 120