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BCM Chess Book Reviews : October 2002Return to the BCM Review Index
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In last month’s BCM Steve Giddins commented that the majority of
instructive grandmasterly decisions remain buried unnoticed in obscure
games. It is pleasing when a book brings such hidden gems to light, and
Glenn Flear’s does so admirably. Drawing extensively on his own experience
in tough open tournaments Flear offers 150 exercises designed to test
‘the thinking process’ in the endgame. Practical thought –
not just tactical sharpness or technical knowledge – is demanded
in most of these positions; the solutions often contain usefully detailed
variations, though at times one could wish for more explanatory text.
Chapter one tests ‘Strategic Thinking’, then chapter two requires
the reader to link general plans to specific analysis. Three subsequent
chapters, ‘basic’, ‘intermediate’ and ‘advanced’,
present a variety of critical positions of increasing difficulty. The
‘basic’ chapter is not so basic, even including a couple of
corrections to Flear’s notes in a previous Everyman publication;
some of the ‘advanced’ puzzles strike me as positively fiendish,
but well worth the effort. The only irritating problems are editorial
ones. In the first chapter, exercises one and nine are designated ‘White
to move’, but the solutions reveal that it’s Black’s turn
in each case. The solutions to the first two chapters are confusingly
organised, and chapter six, headed as ‘Hints for Chapters Five and
Six’, actually provides hints (that don’t give much away!) for
chapters four and five. Presentational gremlins aside, however, this is
a rigorous and absorbing book which repays diligent study. Review by
James Vigus.
This opening has grown in importance over the last 20 years or so, and
counts as one of those heavyweight openings used by the likes of Karpov
and Kasparov with both colours. There is quite a lot of theory to know,
much of which can be counter-intuitive (e.g. where to put Black’s
light-squared bishop, b7 or a6, and how far to advance the central pawns),
so this book is very welcome. Aagaard is an honest writer and is not afraid
to share his views on the relative merits of various alternatives. This
is an opening book to Everyman’s successful formula: 66 games annotated
in some detail, stitched together with some variation summaries and a
thoughtful introduction.
This new book introduces the reader to tactical motifs such as forks, double attacks, pins, skewers, trapping pieces, discovered attacks and others. Each has a chapter devoted to it, followed by a selection of related puzzles. Neil McDonald has a pleasantly engaging style of writing and has taken the trouble to use fresh and suitable material for the puzzles. In summary this is a very well written and thoroughly readable primer which will be enjoyed by club and tournament players as well as learners.
The starting point for the book is after the moves 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3
Nc3 Bg7 4 e4 d6 5 Nf3 0-0 6 Be2 e5 7 0-0 Nc6 8 d5 Ne7 as played by Gligoric
with Black against Najdorf at Mar del Plata in 1953. That said, it is
not made entirely clear where the so-called ‘Mar del Plata Variation’
is supposed to start – it could be 7...Nc6 (though Gligoric was not
the first to play this) or it could be 9 Ne1 Nd7 (which the great Yugoslav
grandmaster can truly claim as his own). Be that as it may, the book considers
the various options for White on his 9th move – 9 Ne1, 9 Nd2, 9 Bd2,
9 Bg5 and the currently fashionable 9 b4 (Bayonet Attack). The book starts
off with Gligoric’s account of the birth of the variation and his
part in it. He is at his best when analysing one of his own games, but
the annotations of other games are rather perfunctory. The author’s
foreword gives a clue as to how this might have happened; the book is
based on his own lecture notes but has been enlarged for the English language
book edition by hands other than his own. One of the games, Gligoric-Fischer,
Bled 1961, features Fischer’s complete annotation from My Sixty
Memorable Games, with Gligoric’s own comments interpolated.
The typesetting is variable, sometimes pleasant
on the eye but at other times horribly cramped and with lots of non-textual
material crammed into minimal space. The book has the feel of one of those
‘Greatest Hits’ CDs where the recording star’s famous songs
have been interspersed with a few previously unreleased numbers to force
the die-hard fans to buy. But, then, Gligoric’s handling of the King’s
Indian is music to anyone’s ears.
This edition covers the period from February to the end of May
2002. There are 488 annotated games and 509 variations from the events
of that time including Linares, Cannes, Monaco, Dubai, Essen and Prague.
As usual, the world's top players annotate their own games, plus all the
usual features, including a retrospective on Nigel Short's career and
creative output.
Like the companion volume on the opening (Concise Chess Openings,
by the same author, reviewed
in the September 2001 issue of BCM), this is designed as a ‘pocket
book’ to go anywhere with you, and covers the principles of the endgame.
Nevertheless you will need a rather sturdy and capacious pocket to accommodate
such a chunky tome. But McDonald packs in all the rudiments of the endgame
into what is a useful little volume.
The reviewer had to fight back the temptation to break Tony Miles’s
world record for using the fewest words in a chess book review by saying
“No” in answer to the title. The blurb starts off: “With
the increasing use of powerful computer programs and databases in chess
today, the fear of the ‘death of chess’ is being taken seriously.”
Three words will suffice for that one: “no, it isn’t.”
The tendency to want to tinker with the rules of chess is a ‘world
champion thing’. After losing their title (or their mind), they get
fed up, decide it is the fault of chess, and claim the game is played
out, over-analyzed or ‘has been invaded by computers’. They
then try and drag us off to their new, supposedly improved, version of
the game. The trouble is, for the rest of us, the game is by no means
played out and – more to the point – we still enjoy playing
it.
Gligoric discusses the invention of Fischerandom
and how it grew out of the older ‘shuffle chess’. He also gives
the rules of the new variant, some examples of games played, including
the Adams-Leko match at Mainz in 2001, and other players’ opinions
(mostly tending towards something bland about how “interesting”
it is). There is an account of the post-1993 schism in world championship
chess, presumably with a view to demonstrating how close chess is to death,
and a digression on Fischer’s other ideas (such as his ‘Fischer
clock’). The topic of the book might make a decent enough magazine
article, but hardly rates padding out to book length. The twilight of
Gligo’s years would be far better spent telling us about his experiences
of the good old RNBQKBNR stuff (à la Korchnoi) rather than wasting
his talent on all this Fischerubbish.
The choice of the Scandinavian Defence (1 e4 d5) was always going to be a safe and sensible one for this first effort from the newly-formed Bad Bishop Videos (whose directors are Murray Chandler and Helen Milligan); and so it has proved. This video from IM Andrew Martin concentrates largely on lines after 3 Nc3 Qa5, and also explains lucidly how Black should counter all the probable sidelines that White might employ in order to avoid the main line, including the dreaded Blackmar-Diemer Gambit. With the emphasis on covering established theory at the expense of too much original untested analysis, Martin provides a sound, reliable and quick-to-learn defence to 1 e4 that most club players should find easy to understand. As expected the production values may not be quite up to those Warner Brothers has to offer, but are thankfully better than those provided by most other purveyors of chess videos, and make this video eminently viewable. Though unusually lengthy at 2 hours 18 minutes, the ground covered is only a fraction of that which can be found in a book on the same subject. But with Martin’s amiable charm, clarity and knowledge of the subject matter, this video provides an excellent introduction for the newcomer to the Scandinavian. Review by Paul Harrington. Now available as a DVD.
An early h3 by White against the King’s Indian Defence has long
been a favourite ploy for players wishing to avoid the more heavily-trod
paths of this highly theoretical opening. Kasparov has played it; that
speaks volumes for its value. KID players often have problems readjusting
to a very different set of problems. German FIDE master Martin Breutigam
has cast his net wide to accommodate a number of different move orders
(1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 Bg7 4 e4 d6 5 Nf3 0-0 6 h3, 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3
Nc3 Bg7 4 e4 d6 5 h3, plus the variation 5 Nf3 Bg4, and the Exchange Variation
(5 Nf3 0-0 6 h3 e5 7 dxe5). As well as 17 text files with plenty of explanatory
material, the disk contains 130 fully annotated games, a database of 10,452
games, 20 training exercises and a tree of variations. Excellent value.
The latest issue of ChessBase Magazine contains up-to-the-minute reports
on the first FIDE Grand Prix in Dubai, the Eurotel Trophy in Prague, the
Mitropa Cup in Leipzig, the final rounds of the German, British and Dutch
leagues for 2001/2 and much, much more. As well as top annotations by
grandmasters, the CD-ROM features extensive multi-media reportage on the
‘Advanced Chess’ event in León, including an interview
with Anand, plus Kramnik on computers and the upcoming match against Deep
Fritz, the situation in world chess and his views on the Prague unity
agreement.
