Skip to main content

Lessons with a Grandmaster

If you had actual lessons with a grandmaster, would you be brave enough to publish the transcripts? Well, someone did. And that someone wrote about it in book form — three books, to be precise. In this review, I present my thoughts on the first book in the book series Lessons with a Grandmaster.

If you like these reviews, please consider supporting my work. Visit my patreon page for details.
Become a Patron! 

What can you expect from this book?

Lessons with a GM is written in collaboration between Boris Gulko and Joel Sneed. Gulko is a grandmaster who emigrated from the Soviet Union in the 1980s. According to Wikipedia, he is the only player to win the Soviet as well as US Chess championships. Sneed is a professor of psychology at Queens College in New York as well as an amateur player. 

In essence, this book is a game collection. There are 25 games in the book, all played by Gulko. There are some real heavyweights among his opponents, such as Kasparov, Karpov, Korchnoi, Seirawan, Yusupov, to name a few. However, the book differs from most game collections in a very interesting way; the annotations are made by both authors.

The basic premise is that Gulko presents his games and Sneed asks questions and suggests some lines. Of course, Gulko almost always finds something wrong with his co-writer's analyses. In that sense, the book has some resemblance to books like The Amateur's Mind and Heisman's The improving chess thinker. Here is an example of the exchanges between the authors.


Joel: Why not something simple like 11 b3 - ? There is no dark-squared bishop that might make this move dangerous.

Boris: White doesn't want to place his pawns on the same color as his bishop. Plus the game move might support a queenside pawn storm with the rook better placed on b1 than a1. Generally, there is not much difference between the two moves but 11 Rb1 allows more opportunity.

Joel: Now White cannot castle long. I like the plan of 11...d6, ...Be6, ... Rfc8, with play on the queenside.

Boris: The move you offered is inferior because of 11...d6 12 Nd5 Qd8 13 h4 and Black has simply lost time.


This kind of discussions is what sets this book apart from other game collections. I think it's a nice touch, and it enhances the instructional value of the book. Gulko highlights some typical mistakes in Sneed's analyses along with suggestions for how to improve on them. For the reader, this provides excellent learning opportunities, albeit not the same value as having a coach of your own.

Within each game, there are a number of exercises left for the reader, based on actual positions or analyses of the game. Gulko comments on this in the introduction:
At appropriate moments I will suggest assignments to find the right path. The assignments will be at five levels of difficulty. In each of the games, pose problems for you and the reader to solve, and you have been humble enough to make your thinking process known to everyone. I recommend that the reader solve these problems and to compare with both your analysis and mine. They will probably see similarities with your thinking process and my solutions are aimed to help correct the flaws in your reasoning.
After the presentation of each game, the authors provide a sort of summary where they reflect on what they find most interesting about it and what the main learning points are. I think that's a nice little feature.
 
In this case, the publisher has not provided a pdf sample, but you can take a peek via Amazon's "look inside" feature for more details.

In my review of Chess Fundamentals, I mentioned how I liked that Capablanca presents games he won and ones that he lost. This book does not fall into the same category. It is quite typical of many game collections; it only covers games that Gulko won. In my opinion, this is a weakness of this book. By showcasing some losses, the authors would have an opportunity to learn from typical (and even non-typical) mistakes. Frankly, many all of us would benefit from that.

If you are interested in taking a closer look at the games, I have collected all of them in a lichess study.

Lessons with a GM is a series of three volumes. I have only read the first one, which covers chess strategy and (supposedly) psychology. The second volume focuses on tactics and dynamic play and the third one is about combining tactics and strategy.

Who should read this book?

This book should be a good fit for players in the 1400-1800 range. It will be especially relevant for players who aim to improve their understanding of chess strategy. More advanced players might enjoy it for the games, but they will probably not get as much out of the annotations.

About this book

Author:Boris Gulko & Joel Sneed
Title:Lessons with a Grandmaster
Type of book:Chess improvement, Game collection
Level:Intermediate, (Advanced)
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular reviews

Rapid chess improvement

Would you like to gain 400 rating points in 400 days? That is what Michael de la Maza did. And he wrote a book about his progress and the methods that got him there. Quite an appealing idea, and many players at the beginner and intermediate level will be enticed. I was. Are you? In 2001, Michael de la Maza wrote an article in Chess horizons called "400 points in 400 days" . In the article, he outlines the main components of his training program and gives a short account of his own progress. He managed to to get from about 1300 to 2000 in just two years, which is quite an accomplishment. His ideas were later elaborated upon and presented in the book  Rapid chess improvement. This book was published quite a few years ago, and can be difficult to find. But it has been republished in a new form, together with two other books in A chess course: from beginner to winner . If you decide you want to buy Rapid chess improvement , this three-in-one volume may be a good option. ...
3 comments
Read more

Master of strategy

During the past two years, I’ve been working on improving my strategic/positional play. In this process, I have read a number of books, and two books that have long been on my reading list are the strategy books by Johan Hellsten. So when the Swedish chess federation requested reviewers for two of these books, I didn’t hesitate. I am happy that I was given the opportunity to review these books, and hope this review can be of help to you as a reader. If you like these reviews, please consider supporting my work. Visit my patreon page for details. Become a Patron! What can you expect from these books? Johan Hellsten has created a name for himself as one of the leading experts of chess strategy in modern times. His series of strategy books ( Mastering Opening Strategy , Mastering Chess Strategy and Mastering Endgame Strategy ) have received glowing reviews from many parts of the chess world. So it feels good to finally dig into these nuggets. His endgame book is still in my boo...
Post a Comment
Read more

The best book for patzers?

I have been playing chess since I was a kid, but until about 10 years ago (2009), I had not even considered reading chess books. For some reason, this changed. I cannot remember why, but I decided I wanted to learn more about chess and probably pick up a book or two. I searched the Internet and consulted a few online chess forums, and was recommended the book The Amateur's Mind by Jeremy Silman. I bought the book, and that was the start of my growing collection of chess books. The Amateur's Mind has had a tremendous impact on my understanding of the game. Prior to Reading this book, I had no idea about how to evaluate a position or how to play the opening properly (or any other phase of the game, for that matter). I saw my results improving dramatically, and gained a couple of hundred rating points in just a few months. At this point, I only played online, so I did not have a "proper" rating. But regardless, I learned a lot from reading the book. What can y...
3 comments
Read more

Chaos on the board

Have you ever felt tired of chess? Maybe you’ve been uninspired or perhaps you think it’s too much work. To paraphrase a famous movie: All work and no play makes you a dull person. If that is the case, I may have a cure. You need a fun chess book. Something that will rekindle your joy for the game and inspire you to play creatively. I give you Tiger’s Chaos Theory ! This book found me at a time when I needed it the most. My inspiration and motivation to study chess was way down. And like a bolt from the blue, the Swedish Chess Federation approached me and wanted me to review this book. And the kind people at Quality Chess agreed to send me a review copy. An offer I couldn't refuse. So after this happy turn of events, I have a new review for you. If you like these reviews, please consider supporting my work. Visit my patreon page for details. Become a Patron! What can you expect from this book? Grandmaster Tiger Hillarp Persson, a multi-time Swedish chess champion, has al...
Post a Comment
Read more

Attack the king

One of the finest chess books ever written. Those are tall words from the back cover of this classic book. But The art of attack in chess is one of those books that keep popping up in lists of best chess books. It is highly regarded by many players and trainers, so the initial statement is probably not all wrong. This is a book that has been on my reading list for several years, but it has taken some time for me to actually pick it up. I've been curious about what the hype is all about, and now that I've finally found out for myself, I am ready to share that insight with you. So let's dive in! What can you expect from this book? Before we begin, let me just get one detail out of the way. One thing that struck me when I picked up the book is the title, which seems to be missing a "the". When reading about the book online, it is referred to both with and without "the". When I looked up the original book (this one is a revised edition, edited by Joh...
3 comments
Read more