For many years I had considered doing a book on Rubinstein's life and games. Why? Because the existing works (see list at the end of this review) didn't shed much light on a man whose life was shrouded in mystery, and they also didn't do a very good job of annotating Rubinstein's games.

Needless to say, I was delighted to hear that Rubinstein's life was finally being tackled by two of our very best chess authors. In fact, while the work was in progress I saw Donaldson travel to one international library after another, sit in piles of dusty books and magazines, contact all of Rubinstein's known ancestors, and complain bitterly that the project seemed to go on and on and on...

Donaldson is like a bulldog when it comes to clamping his jaws on chess facts, and he came up with a lot of material. Crosstables, 474 games in the first book and 514 games in book two, notes by many long dead (legendary) players, notes by Donaldson and Minev, and lots of interesting biographical information makes these, far and away, the best books ever written on Rubinstein.

Now for my one criticism: In my review of Complete Games of Alekhine, Volumes One & Two by Vlastimil Fiala and Jan Kalendovsky, I give the Czech work a hearty recommendation while the Rubinstein books are not greeted as warmly. Though the production value of "Rubinstein" is much higher and the English is perfect (compared to the horrible English in "Alekhine"), I have to object to the writing style and the desire of the authors to shield us from Rubinstein's private life.

In "Alekhine" we get a glimpse into the champion's sexual dementia and are able to take our own moral stances in the face of Alekhine's treatment of women and his fellow players. We are given facts about his escape from a German prison camp and are allowed to make up our own minds as to his claims of being a hero.

"Rubinstein" gives us a more white bread view of the world. In these books, Rubinstein the man is shown as Rubinstein the player. I never got a handle on his quirks and pains and misgivings. I never got to know him through his personality, only through his moves.

In a way, I feel sort of cheated by the authors. They threw away many of the great Rubinstein stories (or went over them quickly) because they felt that there wasn't much truth to them. They leapt from one tournament to another in a way that quickly became monotonous. They offer us truth without energy or panache. This lack of energy failed to give me a feeling of the times and, finally, left me uninterested in Rubinstein himself. Ultimately these books give us polish, lots of factual chess information, a pretty exterior, an endless flow of games, but no soul or personality.

Other Rubinstein Books:

1) Akiba Rubinstein by Korcz: A Polish book which is basically just annotated games. Since I can't read Polish I have no way of knowing if the comments are bad, generic or brilliant.

2) Akiba Rubinstein's Chess Academy by Glatman with introductions by Gelfand and Razuvaev: The introductions are quite interesting but the 734 games have no, or at best meager, notes.

3) Akiba Rubinstein by Pytel: This Polish book features the endgames of this great artist. It also shows his combinations and discusses the way he handled the openings. It actually looks very interesting but once again a definitive opinion can't be rendered due to my complete ignorance concerning the Polish language.

4) Rubinstein's Chess Masterpieces/100 Selected Games by Hans Kmoch: Offering a tiny biography and 100 annotated games, this was my first look at the great Polish genius. I suspect that many other Americans were also introduced to Rubinstein by this little book. This solid little game collection should prove useful to players in the "E" class right up to 2200.