|
|
|
Home • Shop
• Chess Books • Software
• Magazine • Chess
Sets & Boards • Computers •
Reviews • Ornate
Sets • Equipment
|
|
|
Contact • Links
• Map • Calendar
• Britbase • Bound
Volumes • Bridge •
Go • Backgammon
• Poker • Other
Games
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
BCM Chess Book Reviews : October 2003Return to the BCM Review Index
| Search for other BCM reviews by keyword
| More about BCM...
|
||||||||||||||
Once upon a time, all we knew about Soviet grandmasters came via their
moves in Informator, some reverent pen-pictures in our English-language
magazines and the occasional stone-faced, fuzzy picture in Shakhmatny
Bulletin. Little did we know! Suddenly, with a few flourishes of Sosonko’s
pen, we find that not all of them were po-faced Botvinnik clones, spending
abstemious evenings poring over arcane opening theory. Some were more
reminiscent of Falstaff and his band of ne’er-do-wells in Shakespeare’s
Henry IV. Like the well-known (and exceedingly appropriate) advertising
slogan for Smirnoff vodka: “the effect is shattering”. The description
of grandmasters Lutikov and Stein indulging in a drunken brawl during
the 1969 USSR Championship, and Lutikov subsequently advising a policeman
on the best way to use a rope to tie up a dangerously out of control Stein
is as profoundly shocking as it is hilarious.
This follow-up to Russian Silhouettes, Sosonko’s
2001 volume of reminiscences, contains more of his bitter-sweet reflections
on his grandmaster colleagues. The biographical essays are again mainly
culled from New in Chess, this time including non-Soviet figures
such as Euwe and Miles as well as living players such as Timman and Vaganian.
His stories are told candidly and with dry humour, especially when dealing
with less sympathetic subjects such as Baturinsky and Gufeld. “It
is tempting when talking about [Gufeld] to ignore the well-known saying
about the dead – either good or nothing.” Sosonko succumbs to
this temptation with alacrity but the writing is so good that Gufeld’s
character is not so much assassinated as immortalised. The author should
have resisted the temptation to turn his attention away from the past
to the future; his attempted satire on chess in the year 2024 is laboured,
though it doesn’t spoil what is otherwise an excellent book. JS
This is a collection of columns written for New in Chess Yearbook
by IM Jeroen Bosch about off-beat openings with a sting in the tail.
Bosch writes in a light vein about these openings (which include 1 e4
c5 2 c3 Qa5!? and 1 e4 e6 2 Nf3 d5 3 e5 c5 4 b4!?) but that is not to
say that he doesn’t take them seriously. This is a very readable
and well produced book about some lesser-known opening variations that
deserve a better reputation. JS
| OUT OF PRINT |
The Oxford University IM bases his 1 d4 (followed in the main by 2 c4)
repertoire on fairly sedate lines of the Queen’s Gambit against 1...d5;
3 Nf3 (and then 4 e3) opting for Queen’s (rather than Nimzo) Indian
against 2...e6; 4 Nf3 and 5 Bg5 against the Grünfeld; the Petrosian
system (7 d5) against the King’s Indian; 4 Nf3 against the Benkö;
6 Nf3 and 7 Bf4 against the Benoni; 2 Nc3 against the Dutch; and 3 e4
and 4 Nc3 against the Modern. It’s a thorough and well-researched
work, but the close-packed pages of variations make the book resemble
a reference work which could be a tad intimidating for the club player.
JS
Contains 80 heavily annotated games illustrating play after 1 c4 e5, which often turns into reversed lines of the Sicilian. This closely-printed book is basically ‘variation spaghetti’, but there is some interesting material to be found between its covers. It is up to date to 2003. JS
Gallagher writes much more about the Pirc than the Modern (though the
Modern with c4 by White is covered well), a sensible emphasis for an introductory
work since 1...g6 often transposes to the Pirc anyway. Up-to-date and
clearly written, this book should provide enough material for most players
to take up the Pirc confidently: after all, even the critical lines don’t
demand too much variation-crunching. But Gallagher does not just précis
existing theory; some of his original thoughts will be useful even to
experienced Pirc players. He has himself scored formidably with White
against the Pirc using the 150 Attack (which he thinks deserves a new
name – quite right!), so I was particularly interested to see what
he would recommend for Black in that line. In BCM, July 2003, I gave the
main variation of the 150 Attack as 1 e4 d6 2 d4 Nf6 3 Nc3 g6 4 Be3 Bg7
5 Qd2 c6 6 Nf3 Qa5 7 h3 Nbd7 8 Bd3 0–0 9 0–0, now considering
only McNab’s 9...e5. Gallagher gives a handy alternative here: 9...Qc7!?
10 a4 b6 11 Rfe1 e5 (or the more consistent 11...Bb7, not fearing 12 e5
dxe5 13 dxe5 Nxe5 14 Nxe5 Qxe5 15 Bxb6 Qd6 and ...c5), showing a game
he recently won as Black that suggests the loss of tempo involved
in ...Qa5-c7 may not be significant. This is just a small piece of good
news for Black players – but I think it hints at how much this useful
book has to offer. Review by James Vigus.
The stated intention of this book is to attract the reader to the idea
of playing gambits. It does not pretend to go into the theory of specific
lines or make repertoire suggestions, but considers various justifications
for sacrificing a pawn in the opening: gaining time, opening lines, etc.
It is a well-written, practical guide to the fundamentals of gambit play.
JS
The Four Knights’ Opening used to be regarded as a stodgy line
for those desiring a quick half point with White, but its reputation as
the coward’s way out has been turned on its head in recent years.
Pinski’s does justice to its new-found status as a highly respectable
alternative to the Ruy Lopez. He is particularly good on the Belgrade
Gambit, a gambit line beloved of club players and one which has snared
many an unwary Black player. JS
493 games and part-games from the period February to May 2003. The player
feature in this issue is about the great Dane, Bent Larsen. Sutovsky-Smirin,
Israeli Championship 2002, was voted the best game from the previous issue,
while Anand took the ‘TN’ award for a move 23 innovation in
the Sveshnikov, played against Kazimdzhanov, Hyderabad 2002. JS
This is a collection of some 80 games from the 21 USSR correspondence
championships from 1948 to the end which, rather remarkably, was only
last year. The games are annotated either by the authors or the player(s)
of the game. It is a well-produced work, with much information about tournaments,
crosstables and biographical material about the participants. The book
contains a few typos, including the wrong player to move being given in
two of the ‘find the continuation’ positions, which thus sadly
become simple mates in one. Once again, correspondence chess proves its
value as a treasure-house of interesting chess, albeit one rarely visited
by OTB players. A supplied CD-ROM contains all the (as yet) discovered
games from the USSR championship in all major database formats and java
viewers, plus lots of other Soviet correspondence games, the book text
in Russian and yet more biographical material about Soviet CC players.
A labour of love, and excellent value for money. JS
The author’s earlier How to Beat Your Dad at Chess has been
a long-time best-seller in The Chess Shop and this follow-up is another
winner. As with its predecessor, the 50 ‘Tricky Tactics’ will
appeal to ‘kids of all ages’. Each type of tactic is introduced
via a couple of diagrams and then followed up with some examples from
actual play. Attributions are not given, though experienced readers will
recognise a number of them from BCM’s Spot The Continuation
feature and similar sources. Ideal Xmas gift material for children and
‘newbies’. JS
This book contains 135 annotated games from this 17-player all-play-all
correspondence tournament which started in 1985 and no doubt continued
for a number of years. It was won by Roger Chapman of New Zealand ahead
of Claude Pare of Canada. JS
This video features some repertoire material for Black players of the
Nimzo-Indian. Kosten’s counterpunching recommendations include 4...d5
against 4 Qc2 and 4...b6 against 4 e3. 14 games are analysed through to
their conclusions during the running time of 100 minutes. There are significantly
fewer games than appear in (for example) Everyman books, which use the
same game-by-game formula for presenting opening theory. Analysis of certain
games (e.g. a rapidplay game where Kramnik blundered an early pawn against
Kasparov) might have benefited from being truncated at the point when
the eventual outcome became reasonably obvious. The material is well written,
and production very slick. * Also now available in DVD format
. JS
This issue has 1,563 games in the main database. More than 400 games
have annotations. The strongest tournament covered is the Budapest tournament
won by Nigel Short a full point ahead of his closest rivals, Judit Polgar
and Peter Leko. The European Individual Championships in Turkey are the
subject of a multimedia report, produced by Anna Dergatschova-Daus. There
are six separate theory articles with databases. JS
