Must read books to become a better chess player

by Sagar Shah
12/11/2018 – V. Saravanan is a strong chess player, an eloquent speaker and also a fine chess coach. He was also the commentator at the World Junior Championship 2014 and a journalist for many eminent tournaments like the World Championship 2012 and the Sinquefield Cup 2017 and 2018. However, there is one video which made the world see a completely different side of him. Last January, we released a video of Saravanan entitled "Must read books to become a better chess player". It was a one-hour video where the Chennai IM spoke about some of his favourite books of chess. The video became very popular and had over 32,000 views on our YouTube Channel. Now Saravanan is back, this time with part II of his "Must read books to become a better chess player" and this will be premiered LIVE on 11th of December 2018 at 15:00 UTC.
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The book maestro Saravanan is back!

On January 24th, 2018, during the Chennai Open, IM V. Saravanan invited Amruta and me to his home for dinner. I have been to Saravanan's house before and our usual ritual is to sit in his study room and check out some of his favourite books he has in his library. As Sara (his friends call him that) started to passionately show me one book after another, I realised that this knowledge is something that should not be limited inside the four walls of that room. I asked Saravanan if we could do a video recording of the books that he was showing so that I could upload it on the ChessBase India YouTube channel for the world to see at large. Not really shy of the camera, Sara instantly agreed. We had our dinner and then started our "little book session!"

Look at the passion and enthusiasm on Saravanan's face as he spoke about his favourite books in his library 

One hour simply flew by. Back home when I was uploading the video I realised that one hour long videos on YouTube don't really work. But I had enjoyed my time with Saravanan and had learnt a lot. I decided to upload it without any real editing.

The video was entitled "Must Read Books to become a better chess player!"

After a few days when I opened the video, to my surprise, the view count was growing rapidly! But more than that I was seeing comments like the following:

  • I enjoyed every minute of the interview! I hope he makes his own channel and does book reviews of old (classics) and new books. —Alvin Alcala
  • The first YouTube video I’ve watched for half hour straight. Wow!! What a man!!! — Veni Vedi Vici
  • I don’t know how many times I’ve watched this. It’s therapeutic in a sense. —Mvjs27
  • This is such an interesting interview. IM Saravanan is an engaging personality. I have watched the entire clip several times. I find the comments about improving by playing game collections vs targeted training to be enlightening. — John Brosnan
  • Great interview with a chess scholar who has a lot of interesting things to say, really enjoyed it and a couple of books that I hadn't considered before! — Alon Byron
  • This interview by IM Saravanan is amazing. I love the way this guy goes about his business... Fantastic! — Arulkumar Natarajan

These are just a few of the comments. There were many more. The video climbed to a view count of 32,000+. Saravanan's smooth erudition combined with his excellent knowledge and reading habits makes him a fantastic presenter.

The fascinating part was the average view duration. In the present day when people are unable to sit still for even a minute, Saravanan managed to have an average view duration of 9 minutes 57 seconds.

It was clear to me that if there was one thing that I must repeat in the one-year nomadic journey it has to be a visit to Saravanan's house and do another video with him on the books. After the Tata Steel India 2018 ended Amruta and I flew down to Chennai and on 27th November, which was the last day of our 365-day journey we did two very important things. First, we visited Vishy Anand's home in Kotturpuram for an interview about the Carlsen-Caruana match. (This video has crossed 100k views - 102619 to be precise!). The funny thing is that we hadn't booked our flight tickets back from Chennai to Mumbai yet, because our next stop was at Saravanan's place in Anna Nagar to record the part II of "Must Read Books to become a better chess player".

First, we were served some sumptuous south Indian food for lunch by Saravanan's mother

Saravanan was eating his lunch but already thinking about the books he was going to speak about in the video!

Saravanan reads the comments of his fans and critics very carefully. He told me before the video, "Last time someone had complained that I spent a lot of time bringing out the books from my cupboard. So this time I will keep them ready!"

And then we began! Saravanan went over one book after another. The video went on for one hour 43 minutes! I enjoyed thoroughly each and every book shown by Sara. Some of them I had never seen before, some of them I didn't know were so good. It was like a training session where I asked him my doubts about various books and training techniques and he tried to explain and clarify in the best way he could. After the video ended, we booked our flight tickets to Mumbai, thoroughly satisfied at having done two amazing videos on the same day!

Saravanan's enthusiasm is intoxicating!

We went over more than 50 chess books, Saravanan giving his view about whether he likes them or not!

Before leaving we did spend some time playing a very interesting game with Saravanan and his son Nandan!

That's Dog and the Bone, a very nice strategy game. We were blown away by the seven-year-old Nandan who strategised to perfection and beat us all!

The final selfie!

Back in the ChessBase India office in Mumbai, I opened the video to check if I needed to edit something. The more I looked at the video, the more I realized that I just didn't have to cut anything. I kept the video as it is, as that gives the viewers the exact experience of standing inside Saravanan's study room and seeing the books with him. The video was uploaded on YouTube. But instead of pressing the publish button, we decided to use the new feature that YouTube has introduced called "Premiere"!

The idea is that you can decide the date and time when you want the video to be premiered and the viewers can watch it for the very first time like a premiere of a new movie release! But what is the difference between this and viewing it after say a couple of days? Well, while the video is in progress the viewers can chat with the creators of the video in real time. And so I asked Saravanan for his time and he agreed to 15:00 UTC on December 11th, 2018! That being the birthday of Vishy Anand, Saravanan's favourite, made our task of choosing the date easier!

So, today (December 11th) at 15:00 UTC. the "Must Read Books to become a better chess player - Part II" will be premiered. Saravanan will be available for real-time chatting and you can ask him any questions that you have on your mind. I too will be present as ChessBase India during the show.

The video will begin at 15:00 UTC above

In case you would like to chat with Saravanan, then you need to go to this link:

Must read books to become a better chess player (Part II)

So grab your popcorn and be there to watch the very interesting Premiere of Saravanan talking about his favourite books. Do share the above link with your friends!

Topics: Books
Sagar is an International Master from India with two GM norms. He loves to cover chess tournaments, as that helps him understand and improve at the game he loves so much. He is the co-founder and CEO of ChessBase India, the biggest chess news portal in the country. His YouTube channel has over a million subscribers, and to date close to a billion views. ChessBase India is the sole distributor of ChessBase products in India and seven adjoining countries, where the software is available at a 60% discount. compared to International prices.

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chessbibliophile chessbibliophile 1/3/2021 05:31
Part II of the interview also has issues of its own.
1) Saravanan thinks, the Frankenstein-Dracula Variation of the Vienna Game is refuted. It is not and modern GMS avoid the same as it happened in a game, Nakamura-Duda, 2019. The work on this variation has been done by CC players, and the writing by Tim Harding. The interviewer is also aware that Black has very good play here and mentions how once Kupreichik avoided it with White. This did happen in the game, Kupreichik- Markosian 2009 and it was drawn in 20 moves. However, his memory lets him down when he says, the Kupreichik game is mentioned in Irving Chernev’s book, ”The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever played”. The trouble is that this book was published in 1965 and Chernev himself passed away in 1981. There was no way in which he would have seen this game played in 2009.
2)Saravanan thinks, Vukovic’s book, “The Art of Attack in Chess” was edited for the present day reader by Karsten Müller. In fact it was done by John Nunn. But what about Karsten Müller? He has edited a different classic, Rudolph Spielmann’s “The Art of Sacrifice in Chess”
3) Saravanan explains how he demonstrated the logical play of Karpov against Boris Spassky in the USSR Championship 1973. In fact this game was played in the USSR Team Championship 1973. However, Spassky almost had Karpov on the ropes in a tactical melee in the USSR Chess Championship, 1973:
https://bit.ly/3rOGZ5P
chessbibliophile chessbibliophile 1/3/2021 05:19
More on errors of omission and commission from Part I of the interview:
1)Saravanan manages to get the name of the author wrong in one particular case.
‘How Fischer plays chess’ is written by David Levy, not by Amatzia Avni.
Incidentally, the best and the most comprehensive book on the American genius today is “Bobby Fischer and his world” by William John Donaldson.
2)He should not have commended “ Joys of Chess,” by Christian Hesse, one of the worst cases of plagiarism as pointed out by readers here time and again.
3)He wrongly compares Karpov’s style of weaving spider’s web against the opponent with a symphony. It applies to the harmonious play of Smyslov whose style is more aesthetically pleasing than Karpov’s.
Perhaps he should check out the new book, “ Vassily Smyslov: Early Years” by Andrey Terekhov.
Similarly he overstates the case by claiming that Karpov is the only positional player who aims for an attack against the king. This is arguable. Importantly the games of Rubinstein, Capablanca and smyslov feature many elegant displays of attack against the king.
chessbibliophile chessbibliophile 1/3/2021 05:12
There are quite a few issues with the Saravanan series on chess books:
Here are some from Part I of the Interview.
He quotes “The Test of Time” by Kasparov in which Garry recounts his victories with White against “Meran Botvinnik”. According to Saravan this happened in the USSR Championship 1983. Garry first beat Timoshenko and in the post-mortem that followed fellow grandmasters did not agree with his play at all and “big noise” was made by Gufeld on the feasibility of the whole line by White. As it happened, in the next round Kupreichik faced Kasparov. He took up the challenge as Black on behalf of every one else and played the same variation as Timoshenko did. The “improvement” did not work and he lost. Two rounds later Tal played that opening with Black and this time it was a draw.
Here the names of the dramatic personae and the dates need serious correction.
1)For starters, the USSR Championship was played in 1981 (not 1983). In the 13th round Garry was White and he beat Timoshenko in Botvinnik Slav (the term that is currently used) with a brilliant piece sacrifice.
2) Strong disagreement with Kasparov’s sacrifice was expressed by Dorfman and Sveshnikov. Gufeld was nowhere in the picture.
3)Kupreichik did not play this line at all with Kasparov .He played the Main Line Slav and it was a draw. So who played the Botvinnik Slav and took up the challenge with Kasparov? Dorfman did and lost.
After seeing Dorfman’s defeat Sveshnikov decided not to tempt fate and played a different line.
4)Tal did not play this opening “two rounds later” for the simple reason that he was not in this championship at all.
He did it two years later in USSR Spartakiad, (Chess Olympiad). That encounter Kasparov-Tal, a fighting draw is one of the greatest games ever played.
https://en.chessbase.com/post/tal-in-memoriam
thehaymaker thehaymaker 12/12/2018 09:54
Awesome and informative video. Thank you to all involved.
genem genem 12/12/2018 10:49
I agree with V.Saravanan that the book - "From London to Elista" - is an exceptionally interesting chess book: an inside look at Match World Chess Championship matches written by the seconds who helped Kramnik, in his matches against Kasparov 2000, and Leko 2004 (the book falls down vs Topalov 2006 because Bareev was no longer a second). Discussed in the first video around the 25 minute mark.
genem genem 12/12/2018 10:44
What does V.Saravanan feel about "active chess ebooks", such as those downloadable from ForwardChess, or from Gambit or Everyman?
Those active chess ebooks are intended to directly address the problem of massive analysis moves such as those he somewhat criticized in the Kasparov 'Predecessors' book.
Philip Feeley Philip Feeley 12/12/2018 04:36
While he's a good speaker, the problem I have is that some of the names he mentions are garbled, because of his accent. Subtitles might be nice.
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