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BCM Chess Book Reviews : January 2003

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Understanding The Leningrad Dutch by Valeri Beim, Gambit, 192 pages, £14.99.

This is another successful Gambit production – a lively and concise introduction to the counterattacking Leningrad Dutch. Grandmaster Beim equips Black with a full repertoire, covering 1 Nf3 f5 2 e4 and all White’s second-move alternatives after 1 d4 f5, before getting into the Leningrad proper. The theory is up-to-date, the explanations are lucid and the illustrative games well-selected. In some cases the balance of material is questionable: the trendy line with an early b4 is dealt with rather briefly, and in the main line (1 d4 f5 2 g3 Nf6 3 Bg2 g6 4 Nf3 Bg7 5 0–0 0–0 6 c4 d6 7 Nc3) the move 7...Nc6 is omitted. However, as well as 7...Qe8, Beim thoroughly covers 7...c6 (the move he usually plays himself – personal enthusiasm is an attractive ingredient in this kind of book) which has been slightly neglected by previous works on the Leningrad. Both these lines produce unbalanced positions in which Black has his fair share of the play. The book concludes with a nice feature, 35 exercises to test the reader’s understanding of key themes. Review by James Vigus.



   

The Cambridge Springs by Krysztof Panczyk and Jacek Ilczuk, Gambit, 192 pages, £13.99.

This is a very different kind of opening book from Beim’s. Its scope is encyclopaedic, presenting a mass of variations with minimal text: a bit like the Cambridge Springs Defence itself (1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 Bg5 Nbd7 5 Nf3 c6 6 e3 Qa5) the work is completely solid and dependable but without thrills. Having enjoyed popularity in the 1930s the Cambridge Springs gradually fell out of fashion until the 1990s when it suddenly reappeared in grandmaster tournaments. So in this book very modern references curiously appear alongside antediluvian ones with little in between, which suggests that the theory of the line is still very much evolving. For now, however, Panczyk and Ilczuk argue persuasively that Black is in good shape after both 7 cxd5 Nxd5 8 Qd2 N7b6 (rather than the more popular 8...Bb4) and 7 Nd2 dxc4 conceding space but gaining the bishop-pair. White often avoids the Cambridge Springs with an early cxd5, producing a different pawn-structure: the authors therefore devote a brief chapter to equip Black players against the Exchange Variation, suggesting that there too Black has good equalising chances. Review by James Vigus.

 
 

The Manual of Chess Combinations 2 by Sergey Ivashchenko, Russian Chess House, 255 pages hardcover, £12.95.

This cheaply-produced hardback book contains 1,188 combinations to solve. It is the second of a two-volume series and the combinations in this volume are a bit harder to solve than those in the first (which is still available at the same price as volume two). The lay-out is straightforward: each page has six positions to solve with an indication of which player is to move and what the result should be. The provenance of the position (whether actual game or composed study) is given with the solution. There is quite a lot of familiar material to be found here, mainly vintage stuff from several decades ago, and nothing to speak of from the last ten years. But, like soup-kitchen fare, it is wholesome – and inexpensive. One curiosity: volume one was published by Kirsan-Chess and had a foreword by the President of the International Chess Federation. But there is no trace of the FIDE president in volume two.

Batsford Chess Puzzles by Leonard Barden, Batsford, 176 pages, £14.99.

Before finding out that there was such a thing as a chess book, this reviewer used to cut chess columns out of newspapers and collect them in a folder. These were nearly always the work of Leonard Barden, with his decades of weekly columns in The Guardian and the Financial Times (UK), and daily positions to solve in London’s Evening Standard. Thousands of other British chess players could probably say that ‘in the beginning, there was Leonard Barden’.
    Thankfully, he is still going strong. This book doesn’t own up to it, but this looks like a selection, 300 in all, from Barden’s columns over a period of 50 years or so, and very welcome it is too. This is not just ‘White to play and win’ material, but includes all sorts of weird and wonderful chess-based puzzles and tests, fleshed out with typical Barden anecdotes and pen-pictures of players. Any non-chess players out there reading this: Batsford Chess Puzzles is the ideal gift for keeping a noisy chess player quiet over the holiday period, but not so good if you want them to help out with the chores.

Ideas Behind The Modern Chess Openings by Gary Lane, Batsford, 176 pages, £14.99.

The title of this book probably puts you in mind of two things: Modern Chess Openings and Reuben Fine’s Ideas Behind the Chess Openings. But it has nothing whatsoever to do with either of these well-known publications. The publishers have added to the confusion by putting the first two words in a much smaller typeface on the front cover, so that a very unwary browser might even think he is looking at a copy of MCO. In fact, when you get past what the publisher thinks is in the book, you find that what the author has delivered is a club-player repertoire book for White players who play 1 d4. This is a respectable work in which Lane recommends all-purpose, ‘low-maintenance’ systems with an early Nf3/Bf4 as opposed to a c2-c4 advance. In many lines this leads to the dry but dependable London System, but where Bf4-based lines are less feasible or effective, there are livelier options such as the Barry Attack.




 

Taming the Sicilian by Nigel Davies, Everyman, 144 pages, £14.99.

This is a repertoire book for White players against the Sicilian. Grandmaster Nigel Davies recommends open Sicilian lines with an early g3. This seems like a good compromise between the overly-simplified, all-purpose 2 c3 (or similar anti-Sicilians) without going the whole hog and embracing red-hot theoretical lines of the Najdorf or Dragon. Of course some Sicilian variations don’t really allow g3 possibilities (e.g. the Sveshnikov) but in those cases Davies has selected suitable variations which are neither too hot nor too cold.





 

Young Marshall by John Hilbert, Moravian Chess, 282 pages hardcover, £29.99.

Full title: Young Marshall: The Early Chess Career of Frank James Marshall, with Collected Games 1893-1900. Frank James Marshall (1877-1942) was for 27 years the chess champion of the USA. The facts of his later career are well-known, but what rarely come to the light are the details of his early career. Hilbert has uncovered many fresh and hitherto unknown stories relating to Marshall and his early rivals. The largest part of the book is devoted to Marshall’s games: there are 173 of them, many with annotations by Marshall himself, and supplemented with a fair amount of eye-witness commentary.
 




   

Multiple Choice Chess 2 by Graeme Buckley, Everyman, 160 pages, £14.99.

A follow-up to IM Graeme Buckley’s first book of exercises broadly in the style of BCM’s occasional ‘Test Your Chess’ articles. Every few moves the reader is invited to select one of two to five options and is awarded points based on this selection. The 20 games are grouped into various different chapter headings, to test the reader’s skill in different situations. It’s entertaining stuff and quite educational.

Informator 85, Sahovski Informator, 356 pages, £21.00.

The latest Informator has 492 annotated games and 471 game fragments from events held between June and September 2002. The contributors are as ever of the highest quality, including Kasparov, Anand, Adams, Leko and Ponomariov. The biographical article in this issue is on the great Hungarian Lajos Portisch.







 

Fritz Endgame Trainer: Pawn Endings by Martin Weteshchnik, ChessBase CD-ROM, £18.50.

You’ll need to have a copy of Fritz 6 or upward installed on your computer to use this endgame trainer. It is in effect a database of more than 100 training endgame positions which you access via Fritz proper and then try to win or draw against Fritz. Experienced author and chess trainer Martin Weteschnik has divided the material into six chapters with explanations and ‘workshops’; i.e. commented videos explaining the proceedings on the screen. The range of tasks is immense, reaching from elementary endgames to examples from the practice of the world champions. The scope of the material is very wide indeed, starting from beginner stuff to advanced fare which will test strong amateurs.

Mikhail Botvinnik CD-ROM by Alexander Khalifman, Convekta, £24.95.

This claims to be the most complete collection of Botvinnik’s games ever compiled, with 1,069 games played by Botvinnik from 1924 to 1970, annotated by Alexander Khalifman and IM Sergey Soloviev. It comes with a biography and a tournament/match record, as well as 25 rare photos. There is also a special tutorial section, “Play As Botvinnik”, which includes 350 quiz positions in which you can follow Botvinnik’s lead and find his continuation in his games. The CD-ROM comes complete with the chess-playing engines Crafty and Dragon, and a special ‘Chess Assistant Light’ reader program (plus a 32-page software installation/instruction manual). The down-side to this is that you cannot transfer the data to the database of your choice (e.g. ChessBase or Fritz), but have to use it via the Chess Assistant software. System Requirements: Windows 95 or higher.

Alexander Alekhine Vol. 3 Games 1935-1946, Ed. Alexander Khalifman, Chess Stars, 400 pages, £16.99.

The third and final volume of the series containing Alekhine’s complete games in chronological order. As before, all games have been annotated, Informator-style, with many of the notes being attributed to Alekhine himself. This volume contains 435 games, and the series 1,384 altogether, and there are crosstables of tournaments in which Alekhine took part. A well-produced series of books.




 

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