Reviewed by Jeremy Silman

This is the first book I’ve seen from the new publishing company, Quality Chess (they haven’t sent me any review copies). I broke down and laid out the hefty $31.99 price due to word of mouth – people that I trust raved about Marin’s latest book and, as a result, I felt I really needed to give it a look.

Apparently I got a lemon, since a slew of pages were missing (something that every publisher has run into at one point or another) and many pages became loose and began falling out. I was assured that this was an anomaly and that a new copy would be forthcoming once their deal with an American distribution firm was finalized, so … perhaps I just got on the one bad egg in the batch.

This ends my negative comments for one simple reason: LEARN FROM THE LEGENDS is a fantastic book! Though I really enjoyed Marin’s earlier SECRETS OF CHESS DEFENSE, here he outdoes himself with a book that is a mix of awesome analysis, historical insight, and highly effective instruction.

The first chapter (50 pages long!) is, in my opinion, the best. Titled “Akiba Rubinstein’s Rook Endings”, the author illustrates the legendary Rubinstein’s “don’t hurry” philosophy in crystal clear fashion. Though I can’t agree with Marin’s assertion that Akiba was a shoo-in to beat Lasker in 1912 (the match never occurred due to the war), there isn’t any doubt that the awesome Pole was at worst the second best player in the world during this period. His mastery over Rook endgames, his opening innovations, his deep positional understanding, and his adoption of “the long plan” (as Marin calls it) made Rubinstein an almost unstoppable force during his prime years.

Marin’s love of Rubinstein’s play is apparent, and this translates to the deepest look into his games that I’ve ever seen in print. In fact, I was sad when the Rubinstein section ended since Marin’s notes are so good that a whole book on Akiba would have been very well received.

One of the things Marin does so well is to highlight a great player’s original ideas and show how others copied (and continue to copy) these concepts in modern times. Marin does this with Alekhine (“Alexander Alekhine and the Fourth Phase of the Game”), Botvinnik (“In the Patriarch’s Footsteps”), Tal (“Tal’s Super Rooks vs. Two Minor Pieces”), Petrosian (“Petrosian’s Exchange Sacrifices”), Fischer (“Bobby Fischer’s Pet Bishop”), Karpov (“Opposite Colored Bishops Endings in the Games of Karpov”), and finally with Korchnoi (“Viktor, the Non-Existent Hero”) – by the way, here we have a typo: the header reads (“Viktor, the Non-Existient Hero”). This typo reminded me of a similar header error in one of my own books where “Using the Rooks” comically turned into “Using the Rocks” (I got many letters from readers who preferred the “Rocks” version!).

Overall, Marin’s clear writing style, low-key humor, penetrating analytical insight, and ability to teach makes this a must own book for anyone 1800 and up (lower rated players would also enjoy it, though the depth of analysis might prove a bit daunting). I can’t recall having seen a better book in the last two decades, and if the voting for “Book of the Year” were held now, it would be a slam-dunk to win this honor.

My congratulations to Mihail Marin for a magnificent piece of work!