107 Great Chess Battles, 1939-1945: Madrigali Guerrieri Et Amorosi

What I love about this book is it shows Alekhine in a more modern era, how he analyzed more of the modern openings that were starting to emerge. His annotations are always great, and at this price, get it!

Though this book has a few chess gems to be enjoyed by everyone, this book isn't for the mere beginner. Sometimes it isn't even for the average player. Alekhine's annotations are thorough, for the most part, but are often tinged with either mocking condescension or complete blase. He tacitly assumes that certain tactical or strategic ideas are obvious, and therefore fails from time to time in teaching the reader anything. The games are often interesting, though, again, not for the player interested in only an occasional game. This is a relatively good book if you have enough experience and can study it deeply, but if you are looking for a book of instruction, look elsewhere.

Dover produces fine books. As for me I don't mind descriptive notation which turns off a lot of potential customers. But here they have the best efforts of a World Champion and it is in algebraic notation, and has clear diagrams. Some of the games fall short of top drawer play, hence I deducted 1 star, but otherwise this is excellent chess and fine commentary by Alekhine. There is also a tribute to his old Nemesis Capablanca. Altogether a must for any player's library

Buy this book before going on to Alekhine's massive collection of games from 1908-1937. If Alekhine's rather imperious style of annotation doesn't exasperate you, you can buy everything he ever wrote without impunity. This book is cheap and worth the money. (A rare Dover chess book written in algebraic notation.)