My Chess World

This book is not a pure (auto)biography, rather a games collection. It consists mainly of interesting high-class games played by me, including many losses. Most of the games are preceded by accompanying texts, which vary from essays to tournament reports. The title of the book might seem presumptuous, but I wanted to show how I see or experience the competitions without denying the chess worlds of others. While the texts are mostly light and subjective, at the same time I tried hard to stick to the facts and provide some food for thought.” ~ David Navara

Teaser – David Navara – My Chess World

 

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David Navara – My Chess World – ISBN 9789492510808 – 616 pages.

Teaser – David Navara – My Chess World

I feel that for a career as a professional chess player to make sense, it must be devoted to a considerable degree to the public. This is why I agreed to write the book you now have in front of you. I publish many of my games for the chess public, but don’t take only the result into consideration. I often include my losses. There were considerably more in the original Czech book, but when working on the English version, I decided that my opponents can write up their victories over me themselves.

There might appear to be nothing easier than annotating your own games, but it’s actually not that easy. I often come up against the so-called Navara Antinomy:

1. Substantial games are interesting.
2. Substantial games require extensive annotations.
3. Extensive annotations are boring.

I couldn’t make this a true paradox, but that wasn’t really my aim, quite the opposite!

Interestingly, my writing style differs from my reading tastes, not only in writing articles, but maybe even more so in annotating games. As a reader, I like concise and clear comments without too many variations, whereas as an annotator, the unrealised possibilities generally appear too important to leave out. I would like to assure you that I offer the reader my personal insights into how a player thinks, combined with important computer precision.

I made extensive use of chess programs in the annotations, but I generally do not reference them. When I do refer to Stockfish, Komodo or other engines, it indicates the absence of my own thoughts, rather like the expressions ‘anyway’, ‘that is to say’ or ‘well’ in colloquial language.

I recall how Pavel Matocha once told me that I should give fewer variations, but more diagrams and written commentary. He emphasised that many people don’t play through annotations, and generally skip long variations. I had to smile, because I myself belong to that group of readers. Despite this, I haven’t learnt how to write concisely. Often something jumps into my head and I diverge completely from the original topic. What did I actually want to write about?

About my own play of course. I can immodestly claim that I have played many interesting games in the course of my career. Rather more humbly, I should add that they were often far from perfect.

No matter how I write this book, it couldn’t include all the games I would like to see in it. For this publication, I have chosen almost exclusively games played at a classical (slow) time control. I generally chose games against strong opponents and avoided games which I have already annotated for ChessBase. I made some changes from the Czech version, and included several games from my most successful competitions.

I don’t rule out writing another book, but I have no plans at the moment because I’ve seen how much work it is to write.

Finally, I would like to thank mygrandparents and parents for all the care which they have devoted to me, all my trainers for helping me develop my talent and Pavel Matocha for the opportunity to exercise my acquired ability. As well as Pavel, I thank everyone who contributed to the production of this publication, in particular Mike Kwan for the translations and GM Igor Štohl for his great help with annotations to four of the games presented below. And last but not least, I thank you, the reader. Although it may not always appear so, I didn’t write this book for myself!

Nine-time Czech champion David Navara, 35, became a grandmaster in 2002 at the age of sixteen.

Amongst his many achievements are:

1st= at the Ordix Open rapid tournament in Mainz, Germany, in 2007.

World Cup quarterfinalist in 2011.

Gold medal winner on 2nd board at the 2012 Chess Olympiad in Istanbul.

Gold medallist with the Nový Bor team at the 2013 European Club Cup in Rhodes, Greece.

Winner of the European Blitz Championship in Wrocław, Poland, in 2014.

Silver medallist in the European Individual Championship in Jerusalem in 2015.

Additional information

Weight 1 kg
Pages

616

21 reviews for My Chess World

  1. Alain Fayard (verified owner)

    Super livre avec des commentaires brillants un auteur à découvrir

  2. Jorma (verified owner)

    David, he’s one of the most interesting players.

  3. Andrew B. (verified owner)

    Super quick delivery, well-packaged, superb book, highly recommended

  4. KONOPKA JEREMIE

    Super livre, on va en entendre parler c’est sûr! 5 étoiles !!!

  5. Paul Tobin (verified owner)

  6. Hassan Roger (verified owner)

    Speedy Gonzalez delivery by Thinkers Publishing, thanks. Just received the book by and about a player that stands out as a wonderful artist and personality.

  7. Martin (verified owner)

    Beautiful book by best Czech grandmaster with own comments.

  8. Michael Kwan (verified owner)

  9. STEFANOS KAOURAS (verified owner)

  10. Alexander C. (verified owner)

  11. Paul Coenen (verified owner)

  12. Antonio Sala Espí (verified owner)

  13. Jonathan O’Connor (verified owner)

    I can’t comment on the content, as I’ve just received the book. However for 40€ including shipping, I would have preferred the book in hardback. My fear is that the soft-cover binding will grow tatty over the years.

  14. Steffen Wirth (verified owner)

    Great Work!

  15. Zoran Petronijevic (verified owner)

    Great annotations.

  16. Anonymous (verified owner)

    What an extra ordinary book. At sometime you notice that the writing is done by non english native speaker but that doesnt make the book worth any less. Many great stories are included in this book always presented with a bit of selfirony and “wittyness”.
    One of my favorite stories so far is the story about the Match Korchnoi-Navara 2003. I knew this story befor I bought the book but I didn’t know that it included David Navara.
    Long story short: Korchnoi lost a game, was mad and left the playing hall. Navara went up to the “press conference” and explained his game and gave some analysis. Then Korchnoi out of nowhere changed his mind and came to the analysis and showed where he could have improved his play.
    David commented said something among those lines: The resulting position is unclear.
    Korchnoi replied: Only to you!
    What a legendary moment.
    I explained it quite poorly to be honest. GM Navara explains the whole situation way better.
    Some players claim that you didn’t play good chess if Korchnoi didn’t insult you after the game. Therefore GM Navara has the stamp of approval by Viktor Korchnoi himself (one of the most legendary players to play the game)
    Thats just one story there are many more. Buy the book and find out for yourself about other great storys and the chesslife of czech Nr 1. GM David Navara.

  17. Tomasz (verified owner)

    OUSTANDING book – this one is absolutelly a jewel – IF I could give it the score in 10-points scale it would have gotten 10/10!!!

  18. T.H. Bakker (verified owner)

  19. Jeroen Dohmen (verified owner)

    Very well, fast delivery

  20. Michael S. (verified owner)

    It’s always a pleasure to get into the thinking processes of a top grandmaster. Dedication to the game of chess separates woodpushers from the best players.

  21. Gunter (verified owner)

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