I received the book "My Famous Predecessors" yesterday and spent the
evening reading it.

Despite its weak points, it is an excellent book probably worth buying
for the history only. The game analyses are also valuable.

It is interesting that for every game I tried so far with Fritz8, I
found major mistakes in the analysis. This is not meant as a criticism,
but as a comment on how difficult it can be to analyze a game without
error. I already posted here my "refutation" of the claim that Lasker's
famous g4 in the 7th world Championship against Steinitz was a mistake
(apparently the later h4 move that Fritz8 found and that gives Lasker
the advantage has been overlooked by everyone).

I went over the Anderssen's famous "immortal game", which the book shows
as full of mistakes by both sides, and again found a move that has been
overlooked - at least in the book).

One may find it strange that I claim to find mistakes in Kasparov's
analysis, until one realizes that because of the time it took to write
the book, Kasparov probably had an earlier version of Fritz and a slower
computer, and he could not take the time to spend five minutes on every
move in the book - not to mention the many variations.

Such mistakes do not detract from the value of the book but enhance it
when one realizes that even the oldest classics are still subject to
revision, and that they will probably always be.

This raises the interesting question : to what extgent will it ever be
possible to consider the analysis of a game "closed"? Is it even
possible? I believe not, but I will not go into that for now, since it
raises the question of whether or not chess will ever be "solved".

I will spend many hours going through the games and probably learn a lot
doing it. it would be nice if the games with the analyses were put
online so that one could go through them with Fritz without having to
keep the book open next to the computer (with all my games, there is no
room for a book...).

Now for a question: Kasparov was helped by a colleague. Sometimes there
is a note in the book in italics signed G.K. Does that mean that all the
rest was written by the co-author? If he and not Kasparov did most of
the work, why wasn't he put on as a co-author on the cover? I am just
curious, this is not a criticism.

Highly recommended. Buy it, you'll like it.

Henri