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(12/26)  Rose's Rant - Study - Whose Games?:  "When I sent my previous Rant (A Study Plan) for proof-reading Chessville's editor, Jens Madsen commented that "I never mention studying your own games to learn from mistakes. " and asked, " Is this intentional ? "  Actually I did mention it.  But in an earlier Rant (What Makes A Strong Player Strong?)!  Not in A Study Plan which was supposed to describe my study programme.  And the answer is: yes I do believe that studying your own games is essential to improving.  That has always been the "conventional wisdom" even though I have not always believed it..."
 

(12/22)  Breaking News:  The Icelandic Committee to Free Bobby Fischer has appealed to the Japanese Prime Minister to assist in Bobby's release.  Read the complete text of the letter.
 

Fischer Freedom Watch

Chessville has previously reported that Iceland has granted a Residence Permit to Bobby Fischer, although he continues to languish in a Japanese jail.  On 12-20-2004 we the following news from the Icelandic Chess Federation's International Affairs Liaison, Mr. Einar S. Einarsson:

US Government expresses "surprise and disappointment" at the permit, and asked that it be withdrawn.  Iceland's Foreign Minister, Mr. Oddsson, said "that Iceland would stick to its invitation to Bobby for a sanctuary in Iceland."

Read the entire report, including reaction from former World Champion Boris Spassky, and another Fischer interview on Icelandic state radio.
 

(12/19)  Interview: Chessville plays 20 Questions with Tim Krabbé, interviewed by Robert T. Tuohey.  "It was some years ago that I had first had the pleasure of discovering Tim Krabbé ’s wonderful Chess Curiosities site.  What a wealth of information!  Problems, studies, games, comments on current chess events ~ all instructive and entertaining, and often provocative.  Like Tim Krabbé  himself..."
 

(12/19)  Review: The Seven Deadly Chess Sins, by Jonathan Rowson, reviewed by Rick Kennedy.  "With David LeMoir’s encouragement, I decided to review for “My Chess Psychology Bookshelf” Jonathan Rowson’s The Seven Deadly Chess Sins (Gambit 2000), a book that seems to be right up there with sliced bread, as far as Jeremy Silman ranks things (“one of the best chess books to come out in many, many years”); but which seems rather crumby according to Taylor Kingston (“…at best a flawed if earnest effort. At worst… a pretentious, barely mitigated disaster”). Talk about being stuck between a Rook and a hard place!"

Finally, usually somewhere near the bottom of the page, after a long and varied list of attributes (e.g., world traveler, mountain climber, poet, prophet, artist, womanizer, drug user, occultist, and so on), they also toss in that he was a chess expert."

Part One

(11/28)  Review: How to be Lucky In Chess by David LeMoir, reviewed by Rick Kennedy.  "How to Be Lucky in Chess is an enjoyable book – well laid-out, readable, entertaining, enlightening, and very practical.  With the holiday gift-giving season fast approaching, there should be a whole raft of names from your chess club on your shopping list – each of whom could surely make good use of the book.  Of course, the notion of “luck” has to be put into proper perspective.  For little kids, there are usually only two outcomes of a game – either I won or You cheated!  Chess players are much more mature than that – the endings of their games, especially at the club level, are due to either I won or You were lucky!  (That’s one way your club mates got on that gift list – they don’t want to be as good as you, just as lucky.)  The author explains the psychology of How to Be Lucky in Chess..."

(11/28)  Review: ChessBase Magazine 99, Reviewed by Prof. Nagesh Havanur.  "Much has been made of the effortless ease with which Anand dominated the Wijk aan Zee.  But perfection eluded the Maestro from Madras in the early rounds of the tournament.  The following game is a striking example of missed opportunity..."

(11/21)  Review: Inside the Chess Mind by Jacob Aagaard, reviewed by Rick Kennedy.  "With 3 books authored or co-authored in 2003, and 4 titles out in 2004 – plus three software CDs – Jacob Aagaard is not just a chess writer these days, he’s a veritable industry.  From the midst of all of this production, Aagaard’s recent Inside the Chess Mind, appears as if out of an old “I Love Lucy” episode, where an ever-faster conveyor belt frazzles, and then overwhelms, the star with an endless series of sweets.  Jacob!  You have some ’splainin’ to do…"

(11/19)  Review: ChessBase Magazine 98, reviewed by Prof. Nagesh Havanur.  "The patzer is the underdog of the chess world.  Confronted with champions of the game he is easily awed and crushed over the board.  Alexander Huzman, an experienced GM from Israel, is no patzer.  Yet when  he sat down to play Garry Kasparov at the last  European Club Championship, the result appeared to be a foregone conclusion.  Fortunately for him, Caissa intervened and the tide turned….."

(11/14)  Review: The Scandinavian Defence by James Plaskett, reviewed by Darren Radford.  "The Scandinavian Defence, also known in a previous life as the Centre Counter, was the first and only defence to 1.e4 I have ever played, so I ordered this book sight unseen when I spotted it on Amazon.  When I started playing the Scandinavian, recommended by Eric Schiller in his Gambit Opening Repertoire for Black, it was considered somewhat marginal and unknown, and the literature that accompanied the opening was sparse.  Its popularity has increased over recent years, and this book by British GM James Plaskett is the latest treatise on the Scandinavian.  I can find no evidence of the author actually playing this opening, however, so this book is written with a critical, outsiders view..."

Today's game: Chessface (1617) - petlya (1608) [A21] FICS rated standard game, 2004 Fall OCL Tournament (1), 29.10.2004

(11/12)  Review: Practical Chess Psychology: Understanding the Human Factor by Amatzia Avni, reviewed by Rick Kennedy.  "Avni’s Practical Chess Psychology reminds me a lot of my “Introduction to Psychology” textbook of years gone by -- introducing, discussing and explaining many topics competently, without the kind of mind-numbing detail that would send the reader running for a straight jacket.  It is broader, but more general, in its coverage than the author’s later book, The Grandmaster's Mind; which, to continue the analogy, would be akin to Avni’s master’s thesis.  It is no surprise that Avni moves through his subject easily and knowledgeably.  He is a psychologist as well as an FIDE master..."
 

(11/7)  Review: Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking by Neil McDonald, reviewed by Rick Kennedy.  "Neil McDonald, an International Grandmaster and chess trainer, knows the ironic, cold reality that every chessplayer faces, from novice to champion:

When you sit down to play a game of chess you are in command of exactly the same eight pieces and eight pawns that Capablanca, Fischer and Kasparov have used to create masterpieces of grand strategy and tactical precision.  Their pieces didn’t have heightened powers nor more fertile soil on which to work their stratagems: just the same 64 squares, 32 white and 32 black.

Then he twists the knife a bit, while stating what we all know, only too well..."

Happy 4th Birthday

Chess Today!!

Each issue of Chess Today ranges from three to five pages in length and contains a puzzle, news reports from major chess tournaments and matches, and annotated GM/IM games from those events.  Occasional OpEd pieces discuss chess politics and other current chess events.  Some issues contain instructional materials, book review, interviews and cartoons.  Chess Today is simply the best chess daily available!!
 

(10/31)  Review:  The Discart – Bonetti  Chess Match, 1863 by Alessandro Nizzola, eBook Published by ChessCentral, reviewed by Rick Kennedy.  "Return with us now to those thrilling days of yester-year…Not to the Lone Ranger and Tonto, mind you, but to two mid-19^th century Modenese chess swash-bucklers, Francesco Discart and Cornelio Bonetti; and not through the medium of old-time radio, for that matter, but through the new format of the  chess eBook...Discart was one of the strongest players in Modena in the mid-1800s..."
 

(10/22)  Tactical Artwork: Gothic Chess creator Ed Trice takes us on a fanciful flight of tactical imagination on the canvas of the Gothic Chessboard.  "While the masterpieces of Michelangelo ... are known to us from his fantastic labors, as we replay the "renaissance equivalents" through the chess games of Morphy, Tal, and Fischer, we see creativity of a completely different form.  The attacks constructed by these chess renaissance geniuses seem to rain down as though without effort, as if they were "meant to be".  While it takes a Morphy or a Tal or a Fischer to carve such beauty out of the stone of chess, in Gothic Chess, the slab is of a softer substrate, yet the finished product is equally outstanding.  Even newcomers to the game can produce what I call "tactical artwork"; those outstanding combinations that seem to come from out of nowhere."

(10/17)  Chess Position Trainer:  Stefan Renzewitz writes about his creation, "Chess Position Trainer (CPT) is a repertoire-management software which has been developed by a chess player for his own purposes: A tool to organize all of his chess material in a more efficient way (as current software like Bookup, Chess Assistant or Chessbase allowed him to do) and at the same time offer features to study it much more efficiently than ever before.  With chess material we are talking about chess books, CD’s and databases.  They all play an important role in improving someone’s chess skill and CPT doesn’t aim to replace them.  Just the opposite is true.  CPT will help you to get even more out of them, and in a more efficient way."

(10/15)  Review:  Birth of the Chess Queen: A History by Marilyn Yalom, reviewed by Rick Kennedy.  "Years ago, I worked through an impressive collection of Akiba Rubinstein’s chess games, and facetiously decided I could summarize the Polish grandmaster’s winning style this way: a) open with 1.d4;  b) reach a Rook and Pawn endgame;  and c) win the endgame.  In like manner, I can summarize Yalom’s Birth of the Chess Queen:  a) the game of chess we play today has evolved from an earlier game with different rules and pieces;  b) over time, the eleventh through fifteenth centuries, the Vizier, or advisor to the King, was replaced in Europe by the Queen, which then further morphed from the weakest piece on the board to the strongest one; and  c) the transformation of the chess Queen paralleled the rise of various powerful real-life queens.  I recommend Rubinstein to all chess players; Yalom, to a select few."

Go for the Gold!

(10/10)  Review:  Chess Psychology by Angus Dunnington, reviewed by Rick Kennedy.  "When players talk about chess psychology, they usually mean either a) using knowledge about mental processes to improve (or add) good habits, and get rid of bad habits; or b) using different ploys, ruses or strategies to unsettle or in some way get an advantage over an opponent.  Thus, we have seen books from Thought and Choice in Chess to How to Cheat at Chess, with a whole lot of titles in between.  Inevitably, someone will mention Bobby Fischer’s quote, now laden with rusted irony: "I believe in good moves."  As someone who “believes in psychology” (it’s kind of like my “day job”) and who is a chess psych junkie with a stack of books on the subject, I grabbed Dunnington’s Chess Psychology as soon as I could..."
 

(10/3)  Review:  Starting Out: The English by Neil McDonald, reviewed by Rick Kennedy.  "As a life-long 1.e4 player and frequent 1.d4 player (although I always considered the Blackmar Diemer Gambit to be kind of an e4 opening) I figured if Neil McDonald could make the English Opening, 1.c4, make sense to me -- better yet, make it attractive -- that would be enough for me to recommend it highly.  Make no mistake: I recommend it highly..."