As mentioned below, Kasparov just finished a lightning-quick trip to Italy to promote his Great Predecessors book series. He set his new record for books signed in one day, 570! "They were organized like the Ferrari racing team," was how he put it. I stumbled into this page in Italian about his visit to Turin a day earlier to promote the 2006 Chess Olympiad there. I Miei Grandi Predecessori well illustrates the differences between the various editions and translations. Like the Spanish version it includes an incredible number of historical photos while the English editions have none at all. Meanwhile the Germans want to chop the books into smaller volumes. Who out there will collect them all in every language?! More on the Bologna book signing here.
Perhaps the oddest thing about the series is that Kasparov is insistent that the publishers add the volumes of analysis improvements (mostly in Vol. 1) in future printings. Many people will probably end up buying the same (not cheap) book twice, maybe even three times.
Dear Mig
The link you published:
is about a visit Kasparov paid in Turin on May 14th, attending a press conference to present the 2006 Chess Olympiad. Turin (and its sorrounding Alpine valleys) will also be the venue of the 2006 Winter Olympics.
The book signing event was in Bologna, approximately 300km Eastward, on the very next day Saturady 15th, in the biggest Chess-dedicated shop in Italy "Le due Torri". "Torre", tower in English, incidentally is the Italian chess term for "Rook", and two big medieval towers (one of them uncomplete and leaning) define the city skyline:
A pictorial report of the Bologna event is on the Chessbase site under the deceveing name "Kasparov revisits Lasker-Rubinstein 1914":
Best regards
Massimiliano Orsi
Thanks for the info. I didn't know Frederic had posted that Kasparov report at ChessBase yet. I just changed the title to something a little more helpful.
I talked to Garry while he was in the car heading back to Turin on Friday. Something about terrible traffic for some reason, took him forever. I could tell they were talking about the Olympiad. Italian is close enough to Spanish for me. Now German, that's more of a problem...
The fact that future editions of the Predecessors volumes would be corrected and improved is the main reason I never seriously considered buying the first edition. The stories I can read elsewhere, and the analysis can wait - I have enough books to be getting on with, like most players. The same applies to other works, like Dvoretsky's endgame manual, which quickly had a corrected 2nd edition in Germany before the English version was even released.
R:
I admit that there are differences between the various editions and translations of the Great Predecessors, but anyway the book is fascinating and any edition is worth buying. Improved or not, this is where Kasparov subjects the play of his predecessors to a rigorous analysis, and I admire his talent and analytical abilities.