When you’re an oldster, you sometimes need a nap. Today I went to bed and used this book to read myself to sleep. No such luck. Transfixed by my old friend GM Bora Ivkov’s love of chess, I read it to the end, and still haven’t slept. No world-class player has written such a book, devoted to chess beauty, where the author’s games are placed alongside comparable studies and problems. This is not another routine “My Best Games of Chess” – it includes several instructive mistakes as well. (One of my pleasant memories is from the Olympiad of 1964. I noted Ivkov’s face wreathed in a smile, and went over to his board to see why. He had just made a comical losing blunder. Only a philosopher would react thus.)

Well, I didn’t try to “read” much text, since I understand even less Serbian than Russian. The afterword in English by two aficionados quotes Ivkov’s paean to Mikhail Tal as a person, whom I also loved. But I went thru all the chess games and positions (Serbian notation is even more exotic than Russian). I accept the afterward’s claim that it is good literature too.

Ivkov scaled the heights of achievement – only when he tried. He never prepared! Chess was not his only interest in life. And he paid the price – the continual plague of time pressure. (Why did zeitnot rarely bother Soviet players? They were trained out of it!). In several events, Ivkov could be noted drawing nearly every game and enjoying a vacation. It seems that Havana 1965 was his Waterloo. Having defeated Smyslov & Fischer, he was a cinch for first prize, needing only a draw, and had an overwhelming position vs. H. Garcia – only to blunder the game. Such a setback can extinguish dreams. Nonetheless his career was bookended by two crowns – the World Junior at age 17 and the European Senior at age 72. While at 65 he won the Petrosian Memorial ahead of the cream of the world’s veterans, including two world champs.