Russell Enterprises has again put out an off-the-beaten-path title (recall Kings, Commoners, and Knaves and The Human Comedy of Chess): Gabriel Velasco's The Life and Games of Carlos Torre, translated, revised, and expanded from the 1993 version in Spanish. The translator is Taylor Kingston, a columnist at chesscafe.com whose book reviews I highly recommend.

Right off, I should say that I consider the book's greatest virtue to be its historical contribution, involving the gathering of biographical material and scores of Torre's games, as well as a rare five-page interview with Torre conducted by the author in 1977, in the year before Torre's death. From the collector's point of view, this is a unique and valuable contribution to the game's literature. Torre was not only Mexico's greatest player, but for a magical year (1925), Torre had brilliant results competing in three tournaments against the world's elite players. In those tournaments, the 21-year-old Torre finished just behind the likes of Capablanca, Lasker, Nimzowitsch, and Bogoljubow, while placing ahead of Reti, Spielmann, Yates, Marshall, Grunfeld, Tartakower and others from the world's upper crust. In the following year, Torre suffered a nervous breakdown, and "never again played a serious game," according to the author. His place in chess history, although fleeting, was significant.

Despite his fine research, I find Velasco's writing style irritating in the biographical sections of the book. Velasco seems to blame Torre's results, good or bad, on his mood, and micro-interprets the results of individual games in terms of Torre's ability to play naturally (with a "bold", "risk-taking" style) or his inability to do so, based upon nervousness, distracting news, or some such. Apart from the lack of evidence for these speculations, I don't think that even a very strong player, especially one not present at the event in question, could safely extrapolate such conclusions from game scores alone. There is also a degree of romanticism about Torre viewing chess as only an art form, without caring in the slightest about victory or defeat. This is based upon the comments of only one friend, and seems unlikely. Why, for example, does Torre react to his phenomenal start at Moscow 1925 (clear first after 9 rounds, clear second after 13) as follows: "In the last rounds, Torre gave way under the nervous pressure and could not keep pace...The Mexican lost inexplicably to players in the lower half of the table..." Velasco doesn't mention that these players were Yates and Bohatyrchuk, neither a slouch, with Bohatyrchuk clear 11th in a stellar field of 21, and thus conveniently described as "in the lower half." Nor does he mention or show the games (a fragment of Yates' game is hidden in a note), both of which were exciting and extremely complicated, with "bold and risk-taking" play on the part of both sides. The Bohatyrchuk game in particular is far more interesting than several (perhaps all) of those which Velasco includes from the same event. Furthermore, Torre murdered the lower half of this talented tournament, which included Rubinstein, Spielmann, Levenfish, Saemisch, Dus-Chotimirsky, and other stars, finishing with 6 wins and 3 draws, apart from the two games Velasco mentions. A lot of these results were achieved in risky and complex positions, so is it really surprising that he could have lost two games in the same manner? Anyway, perhaps Torre's nervousness at the end, if it existed, stemmed from his unexpected position in the tournament and desire for victory (which according to Velasco didn't exist). Who knows? There is no evidence presented to support the author's speculations, which he states as facts. Velasco's description of Torre's last-round loss to Edward Lasker in Chicago 1926 is also inventive. Somehow Lasker's last two "serious" results (over a period of 3 years!) establish that Torre is almost assured of at least a draw, yet, Velasco says, "as the game progressed, however, it became clear that Torre's mind was not fully on the game." The actual game indicates no such thing, rather, a complex struggle which, after mistakes by both sides, eventually turns in Lasker's favor. Even if Torre wasn't at his very best, perhaps it was because this was the decisive game of the tournament, and he desperately wanted to win? Velasco, to his great credit, rejects the truly wild and unfounded speculations by Reuben Fine and other historians about this game. But to have any commentators who weren't even present making speculations about the psychological causes of the result of a single game is just bad history.

I'm also disappointed with the game annotations. I don't know what level of player Velasco is, but his analysis is often lacking, whether making unfounded comments about well-known openings, making dubious assessments, or skipping over the crucial junctures of games entirely. That is not to say that certain positions aren't very well analyzed, but the quality of the annotations is inconsistent. A lot of the games are one-sided and not particularly interesting, and although Velasco's image of Torre as an almost reckless attacking player sometimes proves true, many of his games are marked by cautious play, with the win achieved either by Torre's superior technique or by a blunder on his opponent's part. The author seems to impose his own romantic ideals on Torre's play, when it would have been more interesting to examine how Torre's obvious talent and his inexperience interacted. The notes also contain silly and over-interpretive comments, e.g., in an opening which has been repeated many times, the author cites a Korchnoi game in the same line, and then says "Clearly, the great Victor Korchnoi has studied the games of Carlos Torre," though there is nothing in the Korchnoi game to indicate that. In fact, I played a very similar game myself in the same opening without seeing either of these earlier games.

In my opinion, then, this is not a particularly high-quality book from a player's point of view, nor is it as instructive as it might have been with a better annotator. The Life and Games of Carlos Torre is, however, the story of a remarkable player who only briefly graced the halls of international competition. Mr. Velasco has done a thorough job of digging up a lot of hitherto unknown material about Torre, and collectors, historians, and fans of that era will undoubtedly find such material to their liking.

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