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BCM Chess Book Reviews : June 2004Return to the BCM Review Index
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NO LONGER AVAILABLE
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This documentary feature film made in 2002/3 features Garry Kasparov
and the story of his dramatic defeat at the hands of Deep Blue in 1997.
Kasparov has never accepted that his defeat was attributable solely to
the silicon monster’s chess-playing prowess, and he reiterates his
suspicions in this fascinating examination of the circumstances surrounding
this controversial match. The film-makers persuaded the world’s greatest
chess player to speak as freely as he has ever done and also gives a fair
chance to Deep Blue’s programmers and consultants to tell their side
of the story. The charges levelled at IBM remained unconvincing but there
is no denying Kasparov’s personal charm. He is a natural in front
of the camera.There is a full review of the movie on pages 24-27 of the
January 2004 BCM. The DVD’s specification is region 2, so
is only usable in UK, Europe and Japan or on multi-region DVD machines.
It runs for 85 minutes. The disk also includes a full working copy of
Fritz 6 (loadable via a DVD-ROM drive only). JS
Volume one of this two-volume series was reviewed in the May
issue. Volume two covers the Dragon, Scheveningen and Najdorf variations.
Despite the title it cannot be complete, or even faintly comprehensive,
but nevertheless such ground as it does cover is useful, informative and
even-handed. There is plenty of textual content: the English is quirky
but comprehensible, and tinged with the late author’s offbeat humour.
JS
2003 was another year without world championship matches, but there was
still plenty of other top-class action to whet the appetite. This well-produced
book brings together all the games, fully annotated, from the year’s
four most prestigious events: Wijk aan Zee, Linares, Dortmund and Hoogeveen.
Annotations are by Khalifman, Shipov, Beim, Golubev and other grandmasters.
There is some interesting background material about each of these ‘grand
slam’ events, plus 16 pages of excellently reproduced colour photographs.
A quality book and very good value for money. JS
Two further reprints covering American and world chess in the mid-1950s.
Once again Anthony Santasiere is the most frequent annotator of games
for the periodical. The US team was trounced 7-25 by the Soviet Union,
but there was a silver lining in the shape of Reshevsky’s 2½-1½
win on top board against Botvinnik. The name of a youngster from Erasmus
Hall High School is mentioned for the first time – Bobby Fischer
– but the September/October 1956 issue wrongly gave his age as 15
(he was 13). JS
The latest issue contains 491 annotated games and 481 game fragments
from the events held from October 2003 to the end of January 2004. Events
covered include Wijk aan Zee, Hastings, Bermuda and Plovdiv. There is
a feature devoted to the games and career of Alexander Beliavsky, plus
all the usual selections of endgames, combinations, etc. Anand-Bologan,
Dortmund 2003 (BCM, September 2003, p458), was voted the best game
of the previous issue. JS
This is a repertoire book, for both White and Black, by a very experienced
US IM. Kaufman is a serious chess player who (if he will forgive me for
saying this) has his roots in the period before computers ruled the chess
world. He doesn’t provide quick-fix solutions, but aims to provide
the reader with a solid repertoire to grab the initiative with White and
strive for equality with Black. With White, he opts for 1 e4, and claims
that the closest match for his recommended lines is Mickey Adams, although
he hasn’t tailored the repertoire to the English grandmaster’s
game. Amongst his choices for White are the Sicilian Rossolimo, the Exchange
Ruy Lopez and the Tarrasch French. For Black he goes for 1 e4 e5 and the
Berlin Defence. Against 1 d4 it is 1...d5 and the Meran and related defences.
Overall, this is a thorough and very interesting book, and good value
for money. JS
This book contains 30 annotated games , the distinguishing feature being
that every single move comes with a textual comment. After a while this
approach becomes a little artificial (for instance, when the author has
to find something to say about 1...e5 after 1 e4 for the second or third
times). But those who prefer words to variations will find much to their
taste here, and the quantity of diagrams mean that the book becomes possible
to read without using a board. The games are taken from the last 25 years
or so and well-presented by the author, and grouped into chapters based
on openings. Good value. JS
The latest issue of the CD-based magazine has 400 annotated games amongst
the total of 1,264 games. Special features include a lengthy video interview
with Yasser Seirawan, and a video report on Corus Wijk Aan Zee (including
interviews with Zhu Chen, and the Norwegian prodigy Magnus Carlsen and
his father), a third follow-up article on Garry Kasparov’s My
Great Predecessors, and Nigel Short taking on Playchess’s online
players. JS
Alexander Kalinin focuses on typical methods of play in various lines
of this popular opening, with 157 instructive examples, 600 annotated
games and more than 50 tasks for solving. Comes with the chess programs
Crafty and Dragon for playing and analysis. System Requirements: IBM-compatible
PC with Pentium 100 CPU, 64 MB memory RAM, hard disk (100MB of free disk
space), VGA graphics, Windows 98 or higher, CD-ROM drive, MS-compatible
mouse. JS
