The Astounding Games of Carlsen Hardcover – December 13, 2025

In your hands you hold the ultimate Magnus Carlsen games collection, carefully selected 80 masterpieces of the Norwegian world chess champion throughout his career. Some are well known, analysed and rehashed, others more obscure, the unifying thread will inevitably be the game's quality as highly spectacular, highly instructive, or interesting and appealing in some other way. A feature that makes them stand out from the rest. Those might very well be Carlsen's best, only if you could come up with a proper definition of what best is. Swashbuckling attacks, sparkling sacrifices, subtle positional manoeuvering, slow strategic squeeze, extravagant moves - the collection has it all. I guess many other Carlsen collections would boast similar features. What is utterly unique about this book, though, is the decisive and very intriguing interpolation of 4000 elo engine Stockfish in the entire process of analysis, every single move and idea have been thoroughly verified with the monster engine, both in terms of tactical validity, as well as strategical correctness. Because latest versions of Stockfish excel in both fields like never before. A game analysed with an engine from 1998, 2008, 2015 and 2025 are four entirely different things. And the difference is as high as 1500 elos, if you only could imagine that. Thus you will certainly find many revelations in the book, I guess even top grandmasters would find. The games are carefully annotated, including both ample explanations, as well as a thicker ream of concrete variations, whenever necessary, some positions require more verbal explanations, other more specific variations, but the overall balance strives towards achieving a perfect mix, that would make the game more translucid and beneficial to the general audience. While the extreme achievement of Carlsen has been highlighted throughout, I haven't missed to indicate graver mistakes and smaller inaccuracies alike, because such no doubt exist, prolifically in some games too. And while you are browsing the collection, you will notice a pattern - Carlsen commits mistakes, but his rivals commit more and bigger ones. We can only learn from objective position evaluation, game plans and tactical solidity, thus I regard this feature as a plus. 80 games, you will get the same amount of unforgettable experiences and take away a sizable bucket of knowledge and calculation skills, browsing through the games. Enjoy the wonder of Carlsen style, and please don't miss getting stronger, far far stronger. Read more