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BCM Chess Book Reviews : August 2005Return to the BCM Review Index
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Although Dunne has adopted a populist approach in his choice, most of
the major titles are included – by Reti, Nimzowitsch, Euwe, Botvinnik
and so on. The book exhibits a North American bias with too many down-market
titles and one or two odd selections, notably Mates of a Chess Mistress
by a certain Ted Mark, a title which, perhaps fortunately, appears to
be out of print. But half the fun of a book like this is comparing the
reader’s selections with the author. The biggest omission is individual
opening books published by Batsford in the days when Peter Kemmis-Betty
was general editor and Bob Wade chess advisor. It would be invidious to
nominate any individual volume, but collectively they revolutionised the
approach to chess opening theory. Ray Keene’s Flank Openings,
also not included, was very influential in its time. All in all, any chess
book addict will enjoy this book. Review by Ray Edwards.
This book on 1 d4 d5 2 c4 Nc6 comes with a ready-made reputation: the
original 2001 German edition garnered some very favourable reviews. It
has been substantially updated for the new English edition, with some
24 pages added. The result is a well-presented and very detailed work,
with a useful index and bibliography. It is clear that the author has
done a good job of consulting all the relevant experts. The publishers
have also done a very good production job. Overall verdict: excellent.
JS.
This book provides fairly comprehensive coverage of variations involving
3 Bb5 against the Sicilian which, as McDonald argues, is a good
way of playing reasonably sharply against the Sicilian whilst bypassing
vast amounts of mainline theory. He discusses Bb5 against 2...d6
(the Moscow variation) and against 2...Nc6 (the Rossolimo variation)
and analyses most of the common black tries by means of illustrative games.
The book follows the ‘Revealed’ series format with chapters
on “What’s Hot” (trendy lines) and “Tricks and Traps”.
Notable exponents of Bb5 are Fischer (famously against Spassky
in the 1992 return match – with the innovation 7 b4!?); Ivanchuk
(annihilating Kasparov at Linares 1991); and Kasparov himself, for example
in his internet game versus the World (“the most analysed game in
history”). JS.
Another in the “Revealed” series, on the opening 1 d4 d5 2 Bg5, perhaps better known as the Pseudo-Trompowsky. Very much uncharted territory in opening theory, this is the first book devoted to it. Plaskett covers Black’s main responses by means of illustrative games (Julian Hodgson being perhaps the foremost exponent of the opening). JS.
The author’s name may not be too familiar in the English-speaking
world. He is a grandmaster from Paraguay who has long since been resident
in Spain, where he has made his living as a chess coach, with his most
notable pupil being Paco Vallejo Pons. This book is a collation of his
‘Test Your Chess’ style articles from Spanish magazines, translated
into English for the first time. As usual you cover up the page and try
to figure out the best move for one of the players, and finally add up
your score. Sometimes you are asked to choose from two or three alternatives,
and sometimes you are on your own. Full explanations and annotations are
provided where appropriate. An enjoyable book. JS
Swedish grandmaster Hillarp Persson, in his first book, presents the
theory of the Modern Defence with 4...a6 (i.e. 1 e4 g6 2 d4 Bg7
3 Nc3 d6 4 Be3/f4/Nf3 a6). The opening aims at queenside
expansion with ...b5, ...Bb7, ...Nbd7, ...c5 and ...b4,
etc as per some lines of the Sicilian. There is additional material on
slightly unusual lines for White, such as those involving an early Bc4
or Bg5 where the author advocates against playing ...a6. A total
of 69 games, many of them Tiger’s own, illustrate the theory. JS.
The fourth book of the series is devoted to Pirc/Modern opening schemes
which arise after the moves 1 e4 d6, or 1 e4 g6. Former FIDE champion
Alexander Khalifman has once again done a formidable job of assembling
the theory and providing judicious assessments. JS.
This book about the star Polish player consists mainly of 64 games annotated
by Janowski and his contemporaries. There is a list of his career results
plus crosstables and a short note of biographical details, penned by Golombek,
and an equally short memoir by William Winter. There is no bibliography
to indicate the source of the text or annotations, and it is not quite
clear what input the authors had other than to collate the details and
annotate. Rather a slight book – Janowski deserves rather more. JS.
This book does more or less what you would expect from the title. There
are seven chapters on various themes relating to attack in chess. Basically
Marin analyses about 25 positions in great (textual) depth. As with some
of his previous works, it reads rather like a high-level university lecture;
but, given Marin’s light and anecdotal style, it seems to glide along
quite smoothly and you don’t find yourself falling asleep. Marin
has a penchant for classic games, so you get as much Anderssen as Kramnik.
Entertaining as well as educational. JS.
The latest volume comes packed with theoretical material as ever, plus
letters from Scherbakov and Korchnoi, and book reviews by Glenn Flear
and Sergey Tiviakov. JS.
Vol.22 coincides with the year when Alekhine wrested the world championship
from Capablanca. The Games Department is filled with interesting related
material, with William Fairhurst resuming as games editor. In Vol.23 there
is the tale of the heavyweight boxing champion, Gene Tunney, regularly
defeating George Bernard Shaw at chess, although in the next breath it
seeks to dismiss the story as ‘journalese lying’. Sadly, Vol.
24 was the end of the line for this lively periodical, as receipts failed
to cover expenses. With the magazine coming to an end, there was also
no index completed for it. JS.
The 1914 volume has coverage of the 1913 and 1914 BCF Congresses, plus
many other major events of the 1913/14 period, as well as articles on
chess organisation in Britain and various openings. With the Great War
casting a shadow over Europe, there was less chess to report in 1915/16,
hence the conflation of two years into one volume. Nevertheless there
are plenty of games with copious annotations. JS.
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The City of London CC was a cut above your average chess club in a draughty
church hall, and belonged to a more class-conscious age when a player’s
social status mattered as much as his playing ability. Its distinguished
history as one of England’s strongest chess clubs ended in 1939/40
when it merged with the National Chess Centre (itself also defunct). This
book gathers 188 games from the club championship, including such players
as Edward Lasker and Sir Stuart Milner-Barry, plus crosstables and lists
of champions and potted biographies of notable players. JS.
This is a second edition of Oleinikov’s CD-ROM based work on the
Budapest Gambit (1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e5). There are 13 database texts,
a special annotated database of 197 model games, a large database of 13,000
games plus a training database. Well organised and useful. JS.
This set of 555 ‘Test Your Chess’ (or ‘How Good Is Your
Chess’) tests comes with its own ChessBase 9 style interface. The
training questions are multiple choice in format. There is a nice blend
of easy and hard, and old and new, puzzles, some of which ask to find
specific objectives, and others ask for an assessment or an opinion. JS.
Issue 105 has 1,750 recent games, 500 of which are annotated. The multi-media
report features interviews with players at Corus Wijk aan Zee, including
a rather shy Sergey Karyakin, Magnus Carlsen, Topalov, Anand, Seirawan
and Leko. Issue 106 has around 1,640 games and a multimedia section containing
interviews from Linares tournament, plus Garry Kasparov’s press conference
announcing his retirement from competitive chess. JS.
