This book is
about co-author and international master Michael Basman, who has been an avant-garde
strategist on the chessboard from his early days as a tournament player and who
has collected his share of ridicule and scorn throughout the years. But he has
been fairly successful, so we can ask ourselves who has been right, the master
or his critics.
Former world champion Mikhail Botvinnik saw through the facade
of experimental play and named Basman a creative and talented player. But even
on the British player's home turf, there was often sharp rejection of his way
of playing chess. Interesting wins were more than once described as lucky, and
losses as the natural consequence of sins against chess.
Even in the late
1970s, when Mike Basman was a household name in British chess, British Chess
Magazine was still writing he was ‘handicapping’ himself by his unfortunate
opening choices. An interesting exception to this trend was grandmaster Raymond
Keene, who back in 1982 wrote an extensive article on Basman's games from the
Benedictine Masters in Manchester. He praised the strategical ideas but criticized
the implementation. And he finished his article with an example of how these
ideas could have found a place in one's own strategic arsenal.
