"This book is dedicated to chess, though I must confess it is not that same chess with which I immediately and eternally fell in love many, many years ago. There were plenty of wonderful moments, and no shortage of horrible disappointments associated with that version of the game in which I certainly considered myself a true professional. The realities of chess life during the second half of the twentieth century are difficult for today's young people to imagine or understand: Tournaments lasting 30, 40 days with adjourned games being completed on specific days allotted for such adjournments. Unbelievable time trouble given that back then only the unre strained dreamer David Bronstein even thought about incremental time to be added after each move. Mountains of cigarette butts in ashtrays - a fixed attribute of the chess battles and battlefields in those severest of days. Finally, suitcases filled to the very brim with Yugoslav Chess Informants and handmade card indexes."

- Vladimir Tukmakov