Robert Huebner on Kasparov's: My Great Presecessors

In German chess magazine SCHACH (11 and 12/2003), GM Robert Huebner from 
Germany has written a very detailed review about Garry Kasparov's book 
(My Great Predecessors, Part I). In fact, I have never seen before such 
a detailed review and criticism (about 25 pages long). Thus, it is 
impossible for me to give here a full picture of his comments and analysis.

Summing up, Huebner verdict is: the historical part of the book is poor, 
while the commented games are well done.

In much detail, Huebner attacks the historical part of Kasparov's book. 
Huebner acknowledges that it is a very ambitious approach to write a 
complete history of competitive chess. However, the book clearly does 
not meet the expectations of historians. The author(s) are not quoting 
properly and, moreover, legends and facts are randomly mixed.

Besides many other points, Huebner makes fun of the over-used argument 
that every player should be regarded as a son of his time. In addition, 
he emphasizes that Lasker should not be reduced to being strong at 
psychology. And Nimzowitsch is much over-valued according to Huebner, 
only because Nimzowitsch was so successful at publishing known concepts 
(at least well known by good players at that time) using his own games. 
On the other side, the poor results of Nimzowitsch againgst top players 
(Alekhine, Capablanca) should not be attributed to some "overwhelming 
spiritual power" of those champions, but to their deeper insight into 
the game.

Much is simplified in the book according to the review, and the language 
is appealing to the emotion (sensation) of the reader rather than his 
intellect. Whoever looks for a superficial introduction to competitive 
chess is well served here, that is what Huebner states.

Huebner does not hide his disappointment about the author being 
incapable of adequately describing the process of thinking during a 
chess game. Therefore, he thinks the book is not able to show the 
progress over time in this area.

On the other side, Huebner praises the part of the book dealing with 
concrete analysis as understandably being the best one. The choice of 
games can be regarded as knowledgable though conventional - no efforts 
were made to find new outstanding games for any player.

Huebner points out that the game analysis is often relying on older 
sources without giving proper credit to them. Some new isolated 
improvements are made typically using computer assistance, which in 
contrast is remarked in the book in great detail. A good lot of new 
insights is to be found here.

And yet, game comments are falling behind standards more often than 
necessary, because the author(s) do not take into account all available 
sources. Huebner is also giving a couple of examples for this.

My impression is that only some bitter disappointment and disagreement 
could have made Robert Huebner giving such a voluminous and elaborate 
review and criticism of Kasparov's book.

Regards, Christoph.