Földeak: Geza Marozy - Life and Teachings

Autor: Földeak, Arpad Walter
Verlag: Beyer
Erscheinungsjahr: 2018
Sprache: German
Buchumschlag: book
Seiten: 172

Series: "Milestones of Chess" Volume 14

If in the world of chess – as in other areas of life – there are such things as 'grey eminences' alongside the 'shining stars', then the Hungarian Géza Maróczy undoubtedly belonged to the second category. To avoid any misunderstanding, this does not mean that he was a second-class player.
After all, in his best times he achieved a number of victories and top placings in the strongest tournaments - for example, 2nd place in Nuremberg 1896 - behind Lasker, but ahead of Tarrasch, Pillsbury, Janowski and Steinitz; 1st place in Ostende 1905 ahead of Janowski and Tarrasch; shared 1st place in Barmen 1905 together with Janowski ahead of Marshall, etc.
And so it is no wonder that, alongside Siegbert Tarrasch, he was considered the most worthy challenger to the occasionally faltering world champion Emmanuel Lasker. The fact that there was never a world championship match, however, was mainly due to the fact that Maróczy - unlike Lasker - worked and could only use his sparse vacation to play chess.
His lesser fame may have been due to his style, which was not focused on glamour and glory, but on positional precision and polished endgame management - a definition that, interestingly enough, could today be attributed to the style of none other than the reigning 'super world champion' Magnus Carlsen.
In any case, the author succeeds admirably in bringing us closer to Géza Maróczy, not only the chess player and teacher, but above all the human being.

172 pages, paperback, 2nd edition 2018