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BCM Chess Book Reviews : August 2006Return to the BCM Review Index
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This new three-volume series aims to guide intermediate chessplayers
to higher levels of understanding. Grivas is an entertaining writer and
he guides the student through a number of chapters on such subjects as
the exchange sacrifice and the outpost (in volume one), isolated and hanging
pawns (in volume two) and the bishop pair and opposite bishops (there
seems to be a lot about bishops in volume three). None of the subject
matter covered is particularly original but with such works it is often
a matter of whether you like the author’s approach or not. Grivas’s
style does seem to be very reader-friendly and this series would an agreeable
option for players (perhaps in the 1500-2000 range) who want to do some
repair work on the basics of their chess technique. JS.
The second edition of this learned work incorporates substantial revisions
with particular emphasis on rook endgames. There have also been a number
of corrections made in other chapters as well. It remains an authoritative
work on this phase of the game. Some of the text is in a sort of cyan
blue to denote those positions that the author regards as basic endgame
knowledge. Unfortunately this form of presentation is not so easy on the
eye. JS.
A facsimile reprint of a book published in 1859, described as a ‘full and accurate account of his most astounding successes abroad, defeating, in almost every instance , the chess celebrities of Europe’. The book contains 61 of Morphy’s games. JS.
Another reprint of a 1901 book with a selection of Steinitz games, with
an emphasis on those games in which novelties were introduced. The book
includes an eight-page biographical sketch of Steinitz and extensive notes
to many of the games. JS.
Another collection of interesting opening deviations from main line theory
in a handy format. Includes Nigel Povah on the Deferred Staunton Gambit;
Mikhalchishin on the Romanishin Gambit; Van der Werf on 1 d4 d5 2 Íf4;
Jeroen Bosch on Surprise in the Najdorf; Ian Rogers on Thinking Sideways:
1 d4 c6 2 c4 b5; Jeroen Bosch on Rubinstein’s Anti-Meran Variation;
Sergey Tiviakov on the English Four Knights 4 d4 e4!?; and Hikaru Nakamura
on Attacking the Sicilian Centre. JS.
George Renko’s latest disk has more training exercises for elementary
and intermediate players (and provides a refresher course on the rules
of the game just to emphasis its intended readership). It contains training
material in seven databases, and over 11,000 training exercises. Lots
of fun tactics for beginners. JS.
Whether the Four Pawns Attack (1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 g6 3 Nc3 Bg7 4 e4 d6 5 f4
0–0 6 Nf3 c5) really deserves the adjective ‘fearsome’
is a moot point – most Black players of the King’s Indian (or
the equally relevant Modern Benoni to which it can transpose) would probably
prefer to see it than several other more solid lines – but it is
certainly a line that demands great care on the part of both players.
This is a game-based opening book with some old and new examples of Four
Pawns games. It is a fairly workmanlike book on the subject and maintains
a good balance between textual exposition and variations. JS.
Contains 1,585 games, 363 with notes, plus over 3,000 games from correspondence
and email chess events. Multimedia introductions to the contents are provided
by Carsten Müller, Oliver Reh, Jacob Aagaard and Andrew Martin. There
is also an hour of video interviews with Yasser Seirawan, who talks about
the Linares/Morelia Super-GM tournament, Viktor Korchnoi, for whom Yasser
worked as a second, on the online course of lessons that he is planning;
and on the FIDE presidential election. JS.
This disk represents the sum of the authors’ researches into the
specific deficiencies and definite abilities of chessplayers with a view
to helping them understand and acquire the knowledge necessary to achieve
chess mastery. The reviewer did not have long to look at this; it seemed
to contain a bewildering number of test materials and exercises –
the presentation tends towards the dry and academic. JS.
This very popular endgame book by Nikolay Minev is now available on CD-ROM
in ChessBase format and PGN. There are four ways to open and run this
program: with ChessBase Light (which is free but needs to be download
from the ChessBase website), ChessBase 7 (or higher), with a ChessBase
program such as Fritz, Junior, Shredder, or simply load the PGN version
with another chess software package. Installation is simple: the files
on the disk are copied to a suitable folder on the computer hard drive,
and opened via the software of your choice. There are also PDFs with sample
pages from other Russell Enterprises chess book titles. Very good value
for money. JS.
