Anatoly Karpov is one of the greatest ever Chess World Champions with his greatest strength being the subtle maneuvering of his positional play. Many of his opponents were baffled by the profundity of his strategies, but in this book award-winning author Tibor Karolyi explains Karpovs genius. Karolyi has selected Karpovs most entertaining and instructive strategic wins from 1961-1985 when Karpov was proving he was a worthy successor to the title vacated by Bobby Fischers retirement.

Genius in the Background introduces brilliant chess that will be unfamiliar to even well-read chessplayers. Twelve chess stars are profiled with examples of their greatest achievements, but these stars are not famous they are geniuses who stay in the background. For example, Pervakov and Afek are not household names but they compose chess studies and puzzles of such elegance and cleverness that they deserve to be famous. Top players such as Garry Kasparov and Veselin Topalov may be famous names to chess fans, but they did not become World Champions without great help two of their coaches are profiled in this book and provide insights into the education of a chess champion. A broad range of chess is covered by the twelve profiles from openings to endgames, puzzles to training. The common thread is beauty and brilliance that deserves to be better known.

Anatoly Karpov is one of the greatest ever Chess World Champions with his greatest strength being the subtle maneuvering of his positional play. Many of his opponents were baffled by the profundity of his strategies, but in this book award-winning author Tibor Karolyi explains Karpovs genius. Karolyi has selected Karpovs most entertaining and instructive strategic wins from 1986-2009 when Karpov was battling with his young rival Garry Kasparov for chess supremacy. It was during this period, at Linares 1994, that Karpov achieved what statistics show to be the finest ever tournament performance.