As Bobby Fischer was finishing up My 60 Memorable Games in the late 1960s, he was at a pivotal point in his career. Fischer was an extremely strong player (arguably among the best in the world), but he hadn’t particularly proved himself at the world stage. Each time he had played in the Candidates tournaments he hadn’t been particularly successful.
That was to change in 1970 shortly after this book was published, when he won the 1970 Interzonal 3.5 points ahead of the field with a massive score of 18.5/23. He further proved his strength in 1971 by whitewashing strong Grandmasters Mark Taimanov and Bent Larsen 6-0 in Candidates matches, later winning the world crown as the first American to do so.
My 60 Memorable Games Fischer presents a compelling look into the mind of an amazing talent on his way up. If you’re considering reading this book, you’ll be happy to learn that it is not at all difficult to find a copy. The edition that I have is a more recent version (complete with algebraic notation) that you can find here. At 384 pages, it is a somewhat hefty tome. As with the last book we reviewed (you can find that article here), this classic of chess literature has been lauded by most all who have commented on it.
This was on my mind when I first read the book (somewhere around two years ago). Indeed, in most all ways it lived up to my expectations. As the title suggests, this book covers sixty games that Fischer considered to be “memorable” for one reason or another. And yes, he includes three losses and numerous other draws, so it doesn’t only focus on the good memories; an uncharacteristically humble decision by the notoriously brash 11th World Champion.
When I first read this book I was quite impressed by his candid analysis. Fischer articulates his ideas very well, which makes his thought process easy to follow. As a whole I think that I learned a lot from a careful examination of these interesting and hard fought struggles.
With that said, I took a second examination for the purposes of this book review and found a few significant flaws, mostly in opening analysis. While this is natural, as at that time computers were much weaker, it is still a real demerit in an otherwise outstanding work.
A few of the more glaring omissions occur in his recommendations for the Najdorf defense as black. Indeed theory has developed quite a bit since 1969 (when the book was originally published), but the mere fact that the opening analysis here is so outdated turns me off the book a bit. Here are a few of the more noticeable slips in analysis:
A few more notes I found: in game two (Fischer-Larsen), he doesn’t even mention black’s main choice in the Dragon (9… Bd7). Perhaps that was a bit of overconfidence on his part, as he did write in this book “Just how black can attempt to thread his way to equality is not clear” (page 19). While I too believe the Dragon’s days are numbered there is no refutation yet, and both the aforementioned main line (9… Bd7 10. 0-0-0 Rc8 11. Bb3 Na5) and the “Topalov Variation” (11… Nxd4 12. Bxd4 b5) are still very much playable.
Finally, there is his famous error in game 25 (Fischer-Lombardy). If you have not seen it yet here is a diagram:
Fischer recommends …Re8 (which is good as well), but there is a slightly better option which I invite you to seek out. With all of that said, it doesn’t feel good to slice and dice at the analysis of such a great figure as Fischer, but it’s what a good reviewer must do.
On a more serious note, despite the slight analytical errors I think this is a truly top-notch book from a legendary player. The mistakes aside, his analysis is largely very accurate and easy to understand. Meanwhile, the vivid descriptions before each game (written by Larry Evans) help improve the work as well. I would give Fischer’s My 60 Memorable Games four out of five stars.
To my eye the little errors present in Fischer’s analysis somewhat diminish the quality of this book, and perhaps does not live up to the expectations Fischer set for himself. With that said, I would very much recommend this book to those not worried about such slight blotches (myself included), and overall it is a good read that surely belongs in the library of any serious chess player.
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