King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game

Reading this book made me want to read Mr. Hoffman's other books, which seem to be out of print. I do not know what impression this book could make on someone who doesn't play chess. Myself, I can't imagine my life without chess. So, if you play chess, love chess and it's history, it's hard to imagine you won't find this book interesting, entertaining and instructive. At least one reviewer didn't like the fact that the relationship between the author and his father is the thread that leads through the book. It didn't bother me at all, in fact, it's what holds the book together.

The author has spent a significant amount of time getting to know many of this era's top players. He weaves his visits with these players into an entertaining and informative look behind the scenes of the world of professional chess. You get the feel of how players react to winning, and to the loss of games due to blunders caused by time pressure. Also discussed are some of the bickering and conniving that take place. If you have even a passing interest in the game of chess, you will thoroughly enjoy this book.

Paul Hoffman's new book, King's Gambit: A Son, A Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game, can be enjoyed by everyone, whether they are avid chess players or not. Hoffman is a gifted story-teller with a knack for bringing to life the personalities of real people, especially quirky real people. (See his previous bestselling book, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers.) Fortunately, the world of chess is amply supplied with quirky people! Hoffman, like many chess players, learned the game as a child from his father. Through his teenage years he played often in tournaments and became a strong amateur player, but in college he let go of his interest in chess. A quarter century later, now a successful editor going through a sort of midlife crisis, he took the game up again as a welcome distraction from his problems. But soon chess became an obsession. This book is a fascinating chronicle of the places that his obsession took him. One of those places was back into his own childhood, as he began to re-evaluate his relationship with his late father. Hoffman's view of the chess world is none too flattering--it is a world full of insecure, selfish people and con men--but it helps him to realize that his father was a bird of the same feather. It's almost as if his father, by introducing Hoffman to the chess world, was unwittingly giving him the keys to his own inner fortress. While the chess-as-psychotherapy part of the book is interesting, I feel that King's Gambit really hits its stride when Hoffman starts writing about other people. Don't miss the story of his trip to the 2004 world championships, which was held (of all places) in Libya--the erstwhile bogeyman of American politics, before Iraq usurped that role. The Libyan authorities are not quite sure what to do with the American journalist who has suddenly popped up in their country. Suffice it to say that Hoffman narrowly escapes deportation to Siberia. But there is an unexpected silver lining to his ordeal. During the course of the trip Hoffman forms a close bond with the Canadian champion, Pascal Charbonneau, who comes off as the book's one shining example of a normal, well-adjusted, down-to-earth grandmaster (thereby disproving once and for all the notion that you have to be crazy to be a world-class chess player!). Another wonderfully entertaining chapter, "Anatomy of a Hustler," takes a hard look at the con-man culture in chess, and discovers a personality type that I never knew existed. Hoffman calls them the Grobsters. The Grob opening, you see, is the Bart Simpson of chess openings. It's ugly and crude, it violates the precepts of civilized chess behavior--and it has a unique knack for pulling down the pants of opponents who don't take it seriously enough. It is, in short, the ideal opening for a chess hustler to use: first he looks like a complete rube, and then before you know it, he's taken your money. Grobsters, Hoffman concludes, are wise guys who just can't be bothered to play by soci

Paul Hoffman's "King's Gambit" is a book that is hard to put down once you've started it. He weaves tales of his difficult childhood, his encounters with grandmasters in the chess world, and his own introspections into a non-linear tapestry that (while easy to follow) grips the reader in an elegant restraint, and does not let go until the last page. Indeed, I had difficulty letting go even after the book was over; I wanted more. As a former editor of the Encyclopedia Brittanica and Discover magazine, Hoffman writes with a fluid, lucid style that squeezes a great deal of meaning from simple phrasing and word-choice. The book starts with a bang, as at the end of the first chapter he courageously reveals a secret about himself that provides the impetus for writing the book. No spoilers here, but suffice it to say that this revelation is the book's true gambit, as the reader could easily put the book down at this point and dismiss Hoffman as a reprobate. However, Hoffman's own blunt horror at his actions gives the reader a glimmer that there really is something about chess that will drive men (and women) to act amorally. He then spends the rest of the book discovering a great deal about the myriad of personalities in the chess world, but moreover, about himself. Very highly recommended for chess players and non-chess players alike, and especially for those who struggle everyday to understand themselves and their own choices in life.