Review: Ilham Aliev - Sahmat Yaradiciligim

While we were at the WCCC in Belgrade, we bought the book of Ilham Aliev for only 10 Euro and on top of that received a personal signature. It is titles "Sahmat Yaradiciligim" with two Azerbaijani special letters.

The book contains of around 375 pages, filled with chess diagrams and some dozens of photos. While we can't read Azerbaijani, there seems to be roughly the following content:

Chapter 0. Some favorite studies, a game, some pupils (?). Around 40 pages, 28 diagrams, many photos
Chapter 1: Studies by Ilham Aliev with the material "Kings and pawns". 76 diagrams plus more with predecessors at the solutions. Total of around 60 pages.
Chapter 2: Studies by Ilham Aliev with Malyutka material. 10 diagrams plus one in the solutions. Around 10 pages total.
Chapter 3: Miniature studies by Ilham Aliev. 56 diagrams plus more at the solutions. Around 30 pages total.
Chapter 4: Other studies by Ilham Aliev. 108 diagrams plus more at the solutions. Around 75 pages total.
Chapter 5: Selected study tourneys (possibly those judged by Ilham Aliev?). 198 diagrams plus more at the solutions. Around 60 pages total.
Chapters 6 to 10: Compositions by Ilham Aliev in other genres. 19 (#2) + 5 (#3) + 6 (#n) + 13 (h#) + 2 (s#) diagrams plus one at the solutions. Total around 20 pages.
Chapter 11: Antalya 2008 study solving contest. 6 diagrams, 4 pages (the last one with two photos from Ostroda).
Chapter 12: Practical play combinations by Ilham Aliev. 94 diagrams, partially complete games. Total around 40 pages.

After this follows another around 15 pages of text we don't understand, including a few photos. Then thankfully a person register is provided, showing that two studies of Yours Truly are also included (MatPlus 2008 and Olympia dünyasi 2010 "Study of the Year" with Didukh).

For the price of 10 Euro we can recommend this book that provides a complete work of Aliev. In fact, we could recommend it for double or possibly even triple that price.


The author kindly provided a photo of Yours Truly with the book on Facebook.