The Chess-Player's Companion by Staunton - Softcover

The Chess-Player's Companion: Comprising a New Treatise On Odds, and a Collection of Games Contested by the Author with Various Distinguished Players during the last ten years including the Great French Match with Mons. St. Amant; to Which Are Added a Selection of new and instructive problems. This is the third in a series of three books by Howard Staunton, who is considered to have been the best player in the world at that time. The current book, The Chess Player's Companion, deals primarily with handicap games and games with unusual openings such as the Muzio Gambit. Although many of these openings are no longer seen in tournament play, they have never been solved and still could be dangerous weapons. Bobby Fischer went back and re-analyzed and re-studied these games. He concluded that Staunton was one of the ten greatest players of all time. After going through all of the games in this book, Fischer wrote about Howard Staunton: "His games are completely modern, but very few of them show brilliancies. He understood all the positional concepts we now hold so dear."