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BCM Chess Book Reviews : May 2002

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Secrets of Chess Intuition by Alexander Beliavsky and Adrian Mikhalchishin, Gambit, 176 pages, £13.99.

Until now few authors have extensively tackled the problem of how to cultivate intuition. This is not surprising, since by its very nature intuition is impossible to analyse rationally, and indeed the generalisations and quotations which begin this book do not get us far. Subsequent chapters examine various kinds of intuitive decision, relating to combinations, sacrifices, positional judgements, rook placement, opening choice, psychology, and so on. Finally there are 22 challenging exercises.
     Appropriately for the subject, the two Ukrainian grandmasters avoid trying to draw many general conclusions, instead presenting a galaxy of example game fragments. The lack of complete games may annoy some readers, but the authors have a knack of choosing exciting, critical middlegame positions: they have clearly researched widely (despite the absence of a bibliography). A nice feature is that games by one particular player of distinctive style – Tal, Smyslov, Capablanca – are often clustered together, giving some continuity to an otherwise rather miscellaneous book.
     Annotations are generally light, with variations minimal, presumably because intuition should be about feeling rather than precise calculation. This approach perhaps works better in some chapters than others. It is suitable for illustrating “Mysterious Quiet Moves”, but in some of the complex tactical examples one suspects that the players did much more concrete calculating than the commentaries suggest. At times the authors seem to drift into using “intuitive” to mean “good”, which can be a way to avoid giving a full explanation for a particular decision. However, the excellent chapter “Analysis, Intuition and Mistakes in Judgement” partly addresses this problem, acknowledging that no player’s intuition is infallible. The essence of intuition is still a secret by the end of the book, but study of the diverse, entertaining games and notes should help any player accumulate the kinds of pattern intuition feeds on. Review by James Vigus.
 

Can You Be a Tactical Chess Genius? by James Plaskett, Everyman, 144 pages, £14.99.

This is a fairly conventional chess puzzle book. There are 12 tests, each with 15 puzzles to solve, with each puzzle worth 5, 10 or 15 points. One novel twist is that you can “ask a grandmaster” – perhaps the author was thinking of the TV quiz show where you can “phone a friend”. Asking a grandmaster means looking up a textual hint which steers you in the right general direction without actually telling you the answer; it costs you 2, 4 or 6 points each time you do so. A bright and breezy book from a master tactician. We spotted the Porterfield-Rynd versus Lynam “game” being quoted; people who read John Roycroft’s masterly article in the December 2001 BCM will know that this was probably a concoction, although the interesting position is useful material for a book such as this.

How to Become a Deadly Chess Tactician by David LeMoir, Gambit, 240 pages, £14.99.

Another book from the author of the humorous How to be Lucky in Chess (reviewed in the November 2001 BCM). This one tells you all about motivation, imagination, calculation – and swindling. As with his first book for Gambit, LeMoir’s book is enhanced by his father’s cartoons, which feature a cobra snake - a useful metaphor for the dangerous tactician we have all encountered in our chess careers – and can become ourselves if we follow the author’s advice. LeMoir’s choice of material is a judicious blend of top-level games and club/county chess, and he doesn’t fall into the trap of using too many hackneyed examples. This is a ‘feel-good’ chess book – though the point of it is to make your opponent feel bad.

New in Chess Yearbook 62, Ed. Sosonko/vd Sterren, New in Chess, 233 pages, £14.95.

The publishers have revamped the format and relaunched the series to make it better than ever. See the advert on the opposite page for a list of the opening surveys in this edition. As well as these, there are quite a number of informative letters in the ‘forum’ section, often from top players, and some of which amount to articles in themselves. ‘Sosonko’s Corner’ in this edition is devoted to a variation of the Slav (1 d4 d5 2 c4 c6 3 Nc3 e6 5 g3 dxc4 6 Ne5!?). There is an impressive list of contributors, including Almasi, Tiviakov, Sosonko, Golubev, Rowson, Flear, van der Wiel. Glenn Flear also contributes some interesting reviews of recent books.

Elmars Zemgalis by John Donaldson, Pomeranian Publishing, 160 pages, £12.99.

There have been quite a number of retrospectives recently on obscure but talented players. Sub-titled Grandmaster without the Title, this is a short chess biography (with 36 annotated games, a further 154 unannotated and photos) of a Latvian player who shone briefly in the late 1940s whilst living as a displaced person in Germany. He was good enough to share first place with Bogolyubow in a big tournament at Oldenburg in 1949. Thankfully this is not another book with a depressing final chapter describing how X died in a labour camp or Y took his own life; Zemgalis is alive and living in Seattle, where he enjoyed a long career as a maths professor. Donaldson makes out a good case for his being awarded a FIDE title.

A History of Chess by HJR Murray, Oxford University Press, 900 pages hardcover, £35.00.

This is a welcome reprint of the complete, standard and definitive history of chess, published in 1913. It is a stupendous work of scholarship which has been the main reference work for the chess historian since its publication nearly 90 years ago – it is unlikely that it will ever be equalled in breadth and depth. Be warned: the general reader is likely to find it hard going. Also, Murray’s history ends where most chess players’ knowledge of chess history starts (i.e. around the end of the 19th century). Don’t expect to read much about the doings of Staunton, Morphy and their contemporaries in it.
     That said, it contains fascinating, if arcane, material. One only has to open the book at a random page to discover some unfamiliar aspect of chess which one had probably never come across before. On the other hand you might be unlucky and chance upon a long passage in Latin or mediaeval Spanish.There are some genuinely ‘chessy’ parts, with studies and problems – for Shatranj. There is even opening theory for this game; the reviewer looked at the ‘Double Mujannah’ but got stuck after 1 Pf3 Pf6 2 Pf4 Pf5 – it’s chess, but not as we know it. The work will probably appeal most to people who enjoy reading books such as Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable or like to pass the time in their local reference library. Note, special postage rates apply: add £5 (UK), £10 (Rest of the World Airmail).

   

Solving in Style by John Nunn, Gambit, 238 pages, £12.99.

This is a welcome, unaltered reproduction of a book first published in 1985. Since the problem world does not change as rapidly as other areas of chess, the book has stood the test of time and remains the classic introduction to problem solving. Review by Ray Edwards.

Super Nezh: Rashid Nezhmetdinov by Alex Pishkin, Thinker’s Press, 221 pages hardcover, £22.99.

A limited hardcover edition of a book published in 2000 and originally reviewed in BCM, January 2001, where Steve Giddins described it as “a wonderful book, which is a veritable feast of glorious games.”

The Treasury of Chess Openings, Volume I: Open Games by Attila Schneider, Caissa KFT, 284 pages, £14.95.

This book purports to give 1 e4 e5 openings the encyclopaedic treatment, with coverage of the obscure lines as well as the more conventional. There is explanatory text and complete example games from the 19th through to the 21st century. But the indexing is very poor and the overall impression is of a very skimpy and shoddy article. Not recommended.

World Champion Emanuel Lasker, ChessBase CD-ROM, £18.50.

This CD-ROM features extensive biographical material on Lasker: a complete collection of all his 1,182 games or game fragments, reports of all significant tournaments and matches, analyses of major games, a multi-media database with interviews with Averbakh, Baumbach, etc, plus video footage from the Lasker Conference in Potsdam in 2001, with Hübner, Unzicker, etc, plus Lilienthal going through his game with Lasker from Moscow 1935. Only the Averbakh interview is in English; all the others are in German. Despite the language barrier, it is almost worth buying the CD-ROM just to watch the 90-year-old Lilienthal demonstrating his draw against Lasker from Moscow 1935.

Bird Opening by Dmitrij Oleinikov, ChessBase CD-ROM, £18.50.

The Bird Opening (1 f4), more commonly known as Bird’s Opening, does not get many outings at super-grandmaster level, but the rest of us (particularly the “theoretically challenged”) maintain a healthy respect for its potency. This is a very well laid-out CD with some useful background material on the opening, and on the player after whom it was named, HE Bird. There is plenty of sensible advice (in 14 text chapters) on the best way to play the opening. The author is clearly a resourceful man; he wanted to know which were the commonest ways of meeting the Bird Opening in practice, so sat down and played 1,000 games with it on the Internet Chess Club, and then worked it out from this prodigious sample. 47 training tests, database of 15,093 games and a variation tree. One of the best ChessBase opening disks so far.

The Chess Monthly Vol.10 (Sept 1888 – Aug 1889), Ed. Hoffer, Moravian Chess, 380 pages hardcover, £24.99.

This is a particularly good example of the magazine, with annotated games, gossip and a modicum of vituperation (mainly directed at Steinitz). In the May edition, two problems were published in tribute to the late US problemist Mr Charles A Gilberg.

The Chess Monthly Vol.11 (Sept 1889 – Aug 1890), Ed. Hoffer, Moravian Chess, 380 pages hardcover, £24.99.

In the first issue of the year, the editor published a letter from Mr Charles A Gilberg (see previous review) in which the US problemist expressed appreciation for the fulsome obituary written about him the previous month, but took issue with its timing as he was not yet dead.

The Chess Monthly Vol.12 (Sept 1890 – Aug 1891), Ed. Hoffer, Moravian Chess, 380 pages hardcover, £24.99.

Another obituary, this time of Captain George H Mackenzie who died of tuberculosis aged 54. He had still been playing good chess in 1890, giving Tarrasch a good run for his money in the Manchester tournament.

The Columbia Chess Chronicle, Vol.1 (July 1867 – Dec 1887), Moravian Chess, 280 pages hardcover, £24.99.

A periodical connected with the Columbia Chess Club of New York, but reporting on international, as well as domestic, chess news. There is coverage of the Frankfurt tournament.

Mr. Blackburne’s Games at Chess, Moravian Chess, 331 pages hardcover, £18.50.

Published in 1899, the sub-title reads “selected, annotated and arranged by himself” but this is really P. Anderson Graham’s book. It contains 407 games (many offhand or from simultaneous play) and also a selection of Blackburne’s composed problems. With the lapse of time Blackburne tends to be forgotten when people assess the greatest British chessplayers of all time. In his prime he ranked amongst the best half dozen players in the world.

American Chess Bulletin, Vol. 40, 1943, Moravian Chess, 120 pages hardcover, £19.50.

Despite the world being in the thick of war, there was still some chess activity for the USA’s excellent chess periodical to report. New York’s chess clubs were still carrying on their championships, while George Koltanowski was stunning the onlookers with his blindfold simultaneous play.
 

American Chess Bulletin, Vol. 41, 1944, Moravian Chess, 120 pages hardcover, £19.50.

A photograph in the September-October issue showed Arnold Denker shaking hands with the British champion Hugh Alexander. The latter was based in Washington for two months though, bearing in mind his Second World War code-breaking activities, it is hardly surprising that the magazine does not allude to his reason for being there. Denker went on to finish a point clear of Fine in the 1944 US Championship.
   

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