My Great Predecessors 5

Three fascinating characters, far beyond its status as chess players were the big stars of mental sport between 1975 and 2005.

The youngest, Gary Kasparov, radiography in this book with his usual precision and brilliance the work of the other two, Viktor Korchnoi and Anatoly Karpov, who both taught.

Those three K share a romantic life, and also represent three ways of understanding life in the former USSR: Korchnoi and dissidents; Karpov and Kremlin old guard; Kasparov and perestroika.

But if we talk only about chess, three are myths. No one questions that Karpov and Kasparov are among the top five of all time. Korchnoi was not world champion because their best years coincided with those of Bobby Fischer and Karpov, but even today, fight with elite sport in a feat of longevity.

The reader will enjoy in these pages many of the most memorable bouts held on the board during the last quarter of the twentieth century, as well as the valuable contributions and interpretations of Kasparov. And when you reach the last page, probably it deemed unfair that chess is not written with K.