My review of his best games book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Averbakhs-Se...

The author rightly says 'this book should have been published at least a quarter of a century ago'. Yuri Averbakh (b. 1922) was probably one of the world's top dozen players in the 1950s. He qualified for the immensely strong Candidates tournament at Zürich, 1953 (10th), and convincingly won the USSR Championship the following year, and narrowly lost the playoff after a tie in 1956. As he points out, chess is a lot different now, but there were many fine players and great games from that era.

But it's not surprising that this book took so long in coming. Averbakh had his finger in almost every chess pie, as a Judge of Chess Compositions, leading endgame theoretician, President of the USSR Chess Federation, magazine editor, author and trainer.

I can confirm his skill as a trainer, as he was the chief lecturer at an training at a chess seminar in Sukhumi (then part of Soviet Georgia) in 1988 — see my report in NZ Chess, April 1989). His knowledge was vast, and he could communicate it effectively in fluent, albeit heavily accented, English. He was also humble enough to act as an interpreter when a Russian journalist wanted to interview the champion of exotic New Zealand, although his own chess achievements far eclipsed my own.

Two decades before that, Australasia benefited from two visits in the 1960s, when he dominated the tournaments he played in. It must be said that he was a product of the Soviet system to a large extent—see my review of https://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Chess....

Averbakh had a fairly high percentage of draws in his career, and as he says, had a reputation as a technician. But he hoped to show that he had a universal style by presenting games decided in other ways. Indeed, the technical skill shows up well in his white-square exploitation against Najdorf, and an endgame with a knight sacrifice against Euwe at Zürich, 1953; or blocking out an enemy knight against Bannik, which won him the Soviet Title in 1954. But there are also fierce battles with oppositely castled kings against Bronstein, Taimanov and Petrosyan; a devastating opening innovation against a World Correspondence Champion which Averbakh saved for 18 years; and some classic wins, such as against Panno, with his patented 'Averbakh variation' against the King's Indian, still a dangerous weapon. Other scalps include Botvinnik, Smyslov, Keres and Korchnoi.

Only people who were drilled that beauty is everything about them could say so. Unfortunately, many still raise their girls this way. And treat women this way.

Only people who were drilled that beauty is everything about them could say so. Unfortunately, many still raise their girls this way. And treat women this way....>

Achievement may be overstating it, but outliving all your opponents has to be the sweetest plum.>

Great that she didn't say she hated herself when she saw herself in a mirror. That incidentally would have given more point to the riffs that followed on the theme of visual beauty being too highly rated.

She may just have meant that the particular mirror distorted her reflection. She might have meant that her reflection didn't represent what she knew herself to be, and so she hated her mirror.