Benko: My Life Games and Compositions

Six years in the making, this book by Pal Benko and Jeremy Silman is now available. With an opening survey by John Watson, a foreword by Susan Polgar, 138 deeply annotated games, 100 B&W photos, 300 compositions, an index of names and index of openings, the book weighs in at three-and-a-half pounds (668 pages).

Grandmaster Pal Benko is a chess legend. A challenger for the World Championship, an innovator of many modern opening systems, a problem composer par excellence, and a father figure to his close friend Bobby Fischer, Benko has played and defeated most of the top players of the last fifty years.

This amazing collection of 138 deeply annotated games—carefully prepared to be entertaining, enlightening, and instructive—is brought to life by Pal Benko’s memoirs of his early years in war-torn Hungary where he takes the reader into a world of poverty, chaos, pain, and ultimately, personal triumph. 

His insights into famous grandmasters transform their names into real people with substance and personality, and his reminiscences of legendary tournaments take us on a journey of chess history unlike anything that’s been published before.

Pal Benko: My Life, Games and Compositions is a celebration of this great man’s creative legacy: Interviews with other players offer further insights into Benko’s nature. A massive survey of Benko’s openings (by famed author John Watson) shows us the scope of Benko’s theoretical contributions to the game. 

Photos abound, and 300 of Benko’s chess compositions allow lovers of the game to become intimately acquainted with a strikingly beautiful aspect of chess that most have overlooked. 

This highly entertaining and instructive book gives competitors who wish to improve their playing strength a dynamic, fun way to deepen their knowledge and understanding.