Upcoming Boris Spassky game collection

I have seen lately in an interview with Boris Spassky that he is working on a book. I can't remember which interview it was or I would post a link. My inquiry is whether anyone here has any knowledge of this book? Maybe an upcoming titles news section from one of the major publishers has this information? I have poked around some sites and come up with nothing so far. I can only find an older Spassky game collection online and it is not authored by him and therefore not all that interesting to me. I feel that he is underappreciated in the chess publishing world and hope that a game collection being authored by him will be published. Any information on this topic would greatly interest me. Thanks to the forum contributors in advance!

I doubt it will happen too. Probably the best collection available is the chess stars on here

http://seagaard.dk/review/eng/bo_collection/cs_boris_spasskys_400_selected_games.asp?KATID=BO&ID=BO-.

A book Spassky was involved in https://shop.chess.co.uk/Winning-Record-against-World-Champions-p/cb06006.htm, wasn't that great.

That interview you read about on line is a bit old, I read it myself and knew then it would never happen.  Only way it would get finished if someone he could now trust would step in and finish it with him and for him.   Sounds like his personal life isn't going well either. What a shame. He was another one of my favorite players of all time.  What an era he came from. 

It seems true that Spassky might have the least analysis available by ex-champions of that era. At least in English.

I do remember that he did analyze a Karpov match around 1974 for the USCF chess magazine.  Might have been versus Polugaevsky. His annotating style was quite different. Seemed to spend less emphasis on tangible variations and more on the less concrete aspects of the match.

Maybe chess.com Batgirl has some info on this article or other Spassky analysis?

The problem with Spassky is that he always was rather lazy (a trait not uncommon among people with huge natural talent). In an interview he said that the book he wanted to write should be published after his death (presumably he had the idea to be brutally honest about some of his contemporaries, and planned a real reckoning with the Soviet authorities), also because it would be a labour of love, and 'no one makes money from writing chess books'. What with his stroke and all since then, this project has surely been shelved for good.

Spassky would have been better off writing a best games collection in the early to mid 1980s, when he, although past his best, still had considerable playing strength and energy to do the analytical work required, apart from the writing (for which he would have the details relatively fresh in his mind) itself - it would probably have become an instant classic and a bestseller. It wouldn't surprise me if he lost most of his interest in writing a book when the computers became strong.

That was a rather insightful answer @bonthecat . It is a great shame such a project has never happened as this leaves a huge hole in the chess literary canon. I would bet my bottom dollar that Spassky would have told some really great stories.

Yes, I think Spassky would have lots of very interesting things to say about his peak years in Soviet chess. Averbakh wrote a book a few years ago, which sort of hinted at a lot of the underhand dealings going on, but he was never really explicit. In interviews Spassky has spoken of his treatment after he lost the match against Fischer, but not in great detail. One thing Spassky has mentioned is how counterproductive the authorities were through their measures towards not only himself but also towards Taimanov. They were both barred him from travelling abroad for quite some time afterwards, and as Spassky pointed out, at that point, having suffered a bad defeat, what do you want to do? Go and hide in a corner and cry? No! You want to avenge your defeat, you want to show the world that you still know how to play chess. For this reason alone, Spassky's victory in the USSR championship in 1973 must have been very sweet.

I had forgotten that he won this championship just the next year! I'll have to get into some of those games. There's also a tournament book for the second Piatigorsky Cup which Spassky won where each player annotates their own games. This might be a good start.

Definitely, I've got both Piatigorsky Cup books, they're great instructional value!

I wanna get my hands on both Piatigorsky cup books for sure. I find it pretty funny to think of a Soviet chess delegation in sunny California. I also wanna get a set of the Herman Steiner pieces that were used in at least the second tournament to my knowledge, but the official Staunton company no longer makes their version and the others that are available now are just simply not affordable.

 Piatigorsky Cup  books are certainly very nice, in both the contestants to the games give fairly light notes to their games. Think first only available in hardback, but second is available in dover paperback too.

Korchnoi was asked many years ago about Spassky supposedly working on a book about his best games. On the question what opinion he had of such a book he answered: ”That it never will be written!” Korchnoi as many others considered Spassky lazy.

I think you're right there, TwoMove.

Nic_Olas: If you look on Abebooks, you should be able to find inexpensive copies of both First and Second Piatigorsky Cup.