Expert: Len Molden - 10/28/2011

Question
Mr.Molden:
Thank you in advance for your time and expertise.
In the past you have given me very good advice.
As part of my chess self improvement I like to go over annotated games of chess masters and just recently I obtained the books "Paul Keres :The Road to the Top" and "Paul Keres: The Quest for Perfection" (from a garage sale and brand new!)My question is : what type of chess player was Mr.Keres? What was his style of play? For example conservative,attacking ,endgame player,positional,technical,calculating etc.I know very little about him.
I am an amateur (about 1300 USCF,but I have wins against players up to  1800 in casual play) and I wander if Keres games might be over my head.
Thank you.
Ed

Answer
Hi Ed,

Paul Keres was a great attacking player, and is known as the "strongest player never to become World Chess Champion" - though Soviet Union politics may have been the reason for this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Keres

I think this book would be very good for you to go through and wouldn't be too much too digest.

Along with Paul Morphy, Frank Marshall, Alexander Alekhine, Michael Tal and Bobby Fischer, studying his game collection would be most instructive for any player wanting to improve.

One historical side note about Paul Keres,  his unfortunate death occurred while returning to his native Estonia from a tournament in Vancouver - where I live - in which he had won. The Paul Keres Memorial Tournaments have been held annually mainly in Vancouver and Tallinn ever since.

The next tournament has already been announced: http://www.chess.bc.ca/events.shtml#keres2012

Regards,

Len Molden