In the past great tournaments were followed by great tournament books, such as "Zürich 1953", but in the last few decades tournament books have gradually disappeared because of the huge effort they demand from the authors. This book about the 2005 World Championship marks the return of outstanding tournament books, and is about a truly outstanding chess tournament.
San Luis 2005 was the chess tournament of the decade. The Bulgarian Grandmaster Veselin Topalov won the tournament by a huge margin, proving himself a worthy successor to previous World Champions such as Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov.
In this ambitious work Alik Gershon and Igor Nor analyse and explain all the games from the tournament. Their in-depth coverage of the occasion and the many colour photographs of the event and Argentinean scenery give the reader the sensation of actually having been present at the tournament.
Alik Gershon is a chess grandmaster from Israel. He has been a junior World Champion twice, and is a former Israeli Champion. He is currently studying Software Engineering at the faculty of Afeka College, Tel Aviv.
Igor Nor is a highly respected Israeli chess trainer.
Foreword by Veselin Topalov
The world championship in San Luis was one of the most difficult, tense, hard-fought and important tournaments I have ever played and because of this it was undoubtedly the most rewarding victory in my chess career. By the end of the tournament I was exhausted both physically and emotionally, but today I can look back and say that all the effort my team and I have made in the last years proved itself in this tournament.
The world championship is the right place for any player to show his best in the very tensest situation. From that point of view I am very satisfied with my level in the tournament. I did not play the most beautiful games of my career, but I think my level of play was high. At this point it is the right place to express my gratitude to all the people who supported me before the tournament and during the course of it and helped me to achieve this level, especially my trainer and manager Silvio Danailov and my second in the past year Ivan Cheparinov.
Two critical games of the event I will remember the most are the win in the first round, when Leko and I were both very nervous and made mistakes, and the win against Svidler, which put me one and a half points ahead of my pursuers. After this I had a clear tournament advantage, even though it brought a lot of pressure and forced me to play stronger and stronger in order not to waste it.
Browsing through the pages of this book I relive the tension that could be felt in the playing hall. I can feel the pressure on each player's shoulders, the concerns, the doubts - move after move, decision after decision, and I am very happy that the authors stood up to the challenge, were not misled by the players' names and Elo's, and managed to compose such detailed and objective analysis, which is worthy of the games played in San Luis.
Based on this tournament, the double round robin formal seems to be a great idea for finding the world champion. Almost all the games in this tournament saw uncompromising battles, from start to end. All the players made their best efforts, without taking time-outs with short draws, and at the end of the day we managed to produce many memorable games, novelties, moves and blunders. It is the kind of chess that has a future and can bring more and more fans to our game. It is the chess I love, and this is what makes me especially happy and proud to be the winner of such an event.
Veselin Topalov,
Spain, August 2006
Content:
005 Foreword by Veselin Topalov
007 Foreword by Nigel Short
013 Preface by Mihail Marin
017 Introduction
041 Round 1
067 Round 2
113 Round 3
141 Round 4
167 Round 5
197 Round 6
227 Round 7
251 Half way report
253 Round 8
279 Round 9
309 Round 10
337 Round 11
365 Round 12
391 Round 13
413 Round 14
432 Tournament table of second half
432 Afterword
433 Full tournament table
435 Chess in the new Millennium or Binary Conspiracies
441 Postscript
442 Index | 
