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BCM Chess Book Reviews: July 2002Return to the BCM Review Index
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The Scandinavian,
or perhaps more commonly, the Centre Counter Defence, consists of two
main variations: 1 e4 d5 2 exd5 Qxd5 and 2...Nf6 – both are covered
in this ChessBase opening disk in some detail, though where the 2...Nf6
line transposes into other mainstream openings (e.g. the Caro Kann Panov)
there is no coverage. The introductory text has been sensibly laid out
and indexed by the Danish grandmaster Curt Hansen, and you are directed
to the line you are looking for with great ease. There is a chapter on
the evolution of the opening, which is better regarded now than it has
ever been in its long history, thanks to Bent Larsen’s influence
in the 1970s. Basically the whole work has been loaded into one big database,
with about 28,000 games, plus text files and training games. Hansen has
annotated about 77 of the games himself. Plus a variation tree.
Another amiable volume from Chris Ward: the reader
has to choose between five moves or plans from the position, and is awarded
points according to the value of the move chosen. There are four tests,
each of twenty questions. Positions are taken from a wide range of sources,
including famous endgame studies and very recent games. A good test of
a club player’s ability and an entertaining read for a long journey.
Yet another mid-Victorian periodical, with the
difference that this one came out quarterly. It has a distinctly North
of England flavour to it, with the many game scores coming from players
playing in Yorkshire-based competitions. But the rest of the country is
also well represented, and there is a goodly amount of wider chess news
to be found in its pages.
An elegant portrait of the
Rev. GA MacDonnell gazes out from the front of the first issue, with an
obituary of Louis Paulsen contained within. There is coverage of the Steinitz
vs Chigorin match in Havana. Hoffer’s magazine offers everything
you could want from a chess magazine.
More of the
same from Hoffer, who obviously had a vast network of contacts in the
chess world, with news items coming from all round the world as well as
provincial chess clubs within the UK. There are some splendid (and reasonably
reproduced) plates, including photos of the 1893 Oxford and Cambridge
University teams.
There has not been an extensive theoretical treatment
of Bird’s Opening (1 f4) for years, so it is good to see the gap
being filled by this CD. The author describes himself as a journalist
from Moscow, with a best-ever rating of 2300, with a ChessBase CD on the
Budapest Gambit already to his name. The Bird’s CD consists of 13
chapters outlining plans for both sides and providing White players with
theory against each Black response; a “Bird tree” with statistics
to indicate how frequently and with what success particular lines have
been played; two quiz sections to test understanding of typical strategies
and tactics; and a “Birdbase” containing 15,093 games, many
annotated by players other than Oleinikov.
The author recommends the queenside fianchetto for White, and does not
deal with the “Reversed Leningrad” (f4 and g3), although the
Birdbase includes games with the latter system. As he points out, there
is a move-order problem with the queenside fianchetto: 1 f4 d5 2 Nf3 g6
prevents 3 b3; and 1 f4 d5 2 b3 (which Oleinikov does not mention) runs
into 2...Bg4, which has scored well for Black. Oleinikov briefly recommends
the Stonewall (e3 and d4) and the Iljin-Genevsky set-up (e3 and d3) as
counters to Black’s 2...g6, but this still feels like a weak point
in the repertoire. Otherwise, the theoretical material is excellent: general
advice is mixed with links to well-annotated games. From’s Gambit
(1 f4 e5) is tackled especially thoroughly, with plenty of original analysis.
As the author admits, Black has theoretical equality in most lines, but
this CD gives White some dangerous weapons.
The presentation is easy on the eye, but I have a few quibbles. The quiz
sections provide marks for right answers, but despite several mistakes
I somehow scored 130%! The standard of English is erratic: 1 f4 g5 (“!?”
– but actually this is Black’s worst possible first move), for
example, is referred to as “a psychic gambit”. The proofreading
is poor, and some annotations are obscured by nonsensical symbols. But
the chess content of the CD is fortunately of a far higher standard. (Review
by James Vigus – this is BCM’s second review of this disk –
the first may be found in the May
BCM)
Another CD-ROM offering a Bird’s Opening database (in
CBH and PGN formats). This one boasts 35,438 games, 509 with textual annotations
and a further 1,000 with Informator-style symbols, plus some introductory
text files. The database includes about 10,000 blitz games played online
(mainly at the Internet Chess Club); the use of such games will be unpopular
with some, but it can be useful to see how obscure lines perform in practice.
As with the ChessBase equivalent, there is a tree of variations.
The latest reprint of the fine US chess periodical covers the last year
of the war, when those who had survived could return to the 64-square
board.
