The Perpetual Chess Book Review Series Chess Books Recaptured  returns to discuss the award winning book, San Luis 2005 by GM Alik Gershon and Igor Nor. San Luis 2005 chronicles a crucial tournament in modern chess history, a double round robin whose winner determined the FIDE World Champion. The tournament featured nearly all of the top players of the time including GM Viswanathan Anand, Judit Polgar, Peter Svidler, and the winner, GM Veselin Topalov. As we discuss, GM Vladimir Kramnik was conspicuously absent, as he was already champion of a competing World Championship Faction that was originally founded by GM Garry Kasparov. Kramnik ultimately played the winner of this tournament in a 2006 Championship reunification match. 

  My guest co-host is Dr. Christopher Chabris, a renowned author, cognitive scientist and USCF Master. As Christopher and I discuss, it is a beautiful book with lucid prose and great photos and game analysis. The tournament it covers did not have a suspenseful ending, but it did contain some drama in the form of cheating accusations that were lodged against the tournament winner. As we discuss, these unproven accusations have a lot of parallels to the Carlsen-Niemann scandal. We also discuss why tournament books “don’t sell” and compare this book to other classic tournament books like Zurich 1953. Lastly, I catch up a bit with Dr. Chabris on his OTB tournament plans, and his forthcoming book  Nobody’s Fool: Why we Get Taken in and What we Can do about it. As always, timestamps and links for topics discussed can be found below. 

Prior appearances by Dr. Christopher Chabris:

Episode 95 with Christopher Chabris 

Episode 187 with Christopher Chabris 

Book Recap #4: Think Like a Grandmaster by Kotov 

Book Recap #15: Secrets of Practical Chess and Attack the Strongpoint 

Book Recap #25 (Mammoth Games) 

02:00- Why did we choose San Luis 2005?

Mentioned: Book Recap #17- Zurich 1953 with FM Nate Solon and special guest GM Andy Soltis 

04:00- Historical context: What was happening with the World Championship cycle in 2005? 

Mentioned: Linares! Linares! By Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam

14:00- Chessable Perpetual Chess is brought to you in part by Chessable.com. Check out their latest courses here: https://www.chessable.com/courses/all/new/

16:00- We discuss the origins of the books and the background of the authors 

Mentioned: 2008 Chessbase article about the book, Lichess Study with the Games from the Tournament  

23:00- Why do they say books recapping tournaments “do not sell”? 

Mentioned: Zurich 1953, New York 1924, World Championship 1948

29:00- We share a few quotes from the Intro and preface by GMs Nigel Short and Mihail Marin. 

36:00- Perpetual Chess is brought to you in part by Aimchess.com. Aimchess’ algorithm reviews your games and gives you actionable advice on how to improve your game. Check it out for free, and if you choose to subscribe you can use the code Perpetual30 to save 30%.

38:00- What notable games took place? 

Anand-Adams 2005, Polgar-Kasimdzhanov, Kasimdzhanov-Polgar, Leko-Topalov, Wijk an Zee 1975 by Lubomir Kavalek

48:00- Why was Toplov accused of cheating in this tournament? Was there merit to this claim?

57:00- Dr. Chabris shares his thoughts on the Carlsen-Niemann scandal 

Mentioned: Discussion of the Niemann/Carlsen saga with GMs Jonathan Rowson and David Smerdon 

1:04:00- Patreon mailbag question: Has Chris’ expertise in cognitive science helped his chess game?

1:10:00- What chess books are we looking forward to? 

Mentioned: Book Recap #30 with Carsten Hansen, Dojo Talks- The Best Chess Books, Quality Chess coming in 2023  

Thanks to Dr. Chabris for helping out with this book discussion! 

You can follow him on Twitter here:

https://twitter.com/cfchabris

Order his forthcoming book here: 

 Nobody’s Fool: Why we Get Taken in and What we Can do about it.

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