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Chessville
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Would You Pay 50 Cents for a Chess Lesson? While chess authors like Irving Chernev, I.A. Horowitz, and Fred Reinfeld were not the strongest players in their day (although of the three, Horowitz was by far the strongest, having won the US championship three times) their chess books have always been among my favorites. In fact, the first chess book I ever bought was Chess in a Nutshell by Reinfeld. This was followed by his big thick black one appropriately called, The Complete Chess Course. Then I picked up perhaps the greatest beginner’s book ever written, Chernev’s Logical Chess Move by Move which claimed to be the first chess book that explained every move of every game! Chernev focused not on variations, but on clear and concise explanations using words that seemed to help dispel some of the mystery that surrounds chess in the mind of the beginner. When it came to learning the openings, I turned to Horowitz’s How to Win in the Chess Openings. This book contained charming black and white photos and featured “chess movies” to help teach the main openings that were popular at the time (1950s). Unfortunately, very few of the chess books that come out today have the same quality of writing. Sure, technically the modern chess books might have more and better analysis, but rarely do they possess the same passion and enthusiasm for the game that these early writers had. The fact was, when you went through a Chernev book, it was obvious he loved chess and he made you love the game. How many chess books can you say that about? In the introduction to 50 Essential Chess Lessons, Giddins talks about another Chernev book that had an influence on him:
A worthwhile, if not lofty goal indeed. Does Mr. Giddins succeed? Well, let’s take a look… Modern games? The book is divided into five sections: 1. Attacking the King; 2. Defence; 3. Piece Power; 4. Pawn-Structure; 5. Endgame themes. So far so good. However, a quick run down of the contents page did give me pause. Surprisingly, two of the three games in the first section (Attacking the King) are from 1959 and 1955 respectively. And the second section (Defence) contains four games, from 1956, 1936, 1965, and 1925. Indeed, the vast majority of the rest of the book’s games are from long ago, some as far back as 1912. Giddens makes a point in his introduction of saying that Chernev’s book “appears rather dated,” and yet he presents a book where many of the games are just as old as Chernev’s!? And in the last sentence above he says, “…the idea was to produce a 21st century version of Chernev’s concept,” yet there are only TWO games in the entire book from the 21st century!? I suspect that Mr. Giddens would argue that it’s not the games, but his analysis that he is referring to as being “21st century.” However, when one hears the words “modern” (as used in the book’s subtitle) and “21st century” (as used in the introduction by Giddins), one really does expect that most, if not all of the games would be from the last few years (while it most likely wasn’t possible to include games from 2006, certainly more games from 2000-2005 could have been used). Still, this is only a minor quibble as I personally believe there is nothing wrong with going over older games, as they can often be quite instructive. It’s just that I suspect there will be those that pick up this book expecting to find modern games and might be surprised at how “old” most of the games are.
Old games or not, it’s the quality of the annotations
that The good news is that the games that Giddins has selected are all interesting and instructive. What’s more, he does such a good job of explaining what’s going on in each of the games, that if you are rated 1200-1800, you are bound to learn a tremendous amount. Like Chernev, Giddens’ comments are light on variations and heavy on verbal explanations, which is just what the class player is hungry for. In fact, I’ll let you in on a little secret. I happened to see this book at Borders a month or two ago, and spent 10 minutes standing there reading it and quite liked it. In fact, I just about went up to the cashier and purchased it. However, I grudgingly forced myself to put it back on the shelf (no easy task), as I figured there was an off chance I might get to review it. I know, a rather petty move on my part, but given I have purchased several hundred dollars worth of poker books over the past few months, one simply has to draw the line somewhere! Luckily, I did end up getting a review copy in, and so here we are. (By the way, it is always a good sign of a book's value if a reviewer was willing to fork out money from his own pocket in order to acquire it!) Now, back to the topic at hand. I want to jump right in by giving you a diagram from the book (pg.152) to look at, and then I have a question for you. Ready? Okay, here it is:
White to move You’re White and it’s your move. Should you take the pawn on a6? (Bxa6?) While the answer may be obvious to Class-A players and above, I suspect a lot of class D-B players would be unsure if it’s the right thing to do. It turns out taking the pawn is wrong. In the game (Game 49: Gulko-Kremenietsky, Moscow Ch, 1983), White played 30.a3, saving his own pawn. And now Giddens explains why:
After reading Giddens' explanation, the answer seems obvious. White in fact did go on to win the game in 16 more moves by marching his king to the center of the board and then using his bishops to tie down Black’s knight and king, while slowly improving his position. Let’s look at another example (Game 31: Filip-Szabo, Bucharest 1953). After the moves 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 exd5 we have a Queen’s Gambit, Exchange Variation, featuring the famous Carlsbad pawn structure (diagram):
Here is Giddens' excellent break down of the position and White’s three main plans of attack:
To me, this type of verbal break down of the position is pure gold and is what I believe most class players really prefer, rather than simply cold, meaningless variations. It’s only after you’ve read and understood a description such as this one that the variations even have any real meaning anyway. In the game, play proceeded with 5.Bg5 Be7 6.e3 0-0 7.Qc2 Re8 8.Nf3 and then Giddens makes a small but instructive comment: “By placing the knight on f3, White signals that he is unlikely to pursue the plan of a central advance.” I really like this comment, because it points out something that can easily be missed by the lower rated player. Namely, that by placing his knight on f3, White blocks his f-pawn and thus pretty much rules out its advance (at least early on). This gives Black information, IF he is paying attention! After 8…Nbd7 9.Bd3 c6 10.0-0 Giddens’ points out: “And now, by castling kingside, White also rules out the kingside attacking plan seen in Game 1.” That game featured white castling queenside and then throwing his kingside pawns forward to launch a big attack on Black’s king. So, thanks to Giddens’ comments, we have a pretty good idea of which plan White is teeing up for in this game. Play continued: 10…Nf8 11.Rab1 g6 12.b4 (diagram):
Says Giddens:
Again, Giddens provides the aspiring student with the dope commentary! And as if this weren’t enough, after the game ends (White won in 43 moves), he even hooks you up with highlights from the lesson:
And this is just a portion from ONE game. Can you imagine going through 50 of these babies!? Each one is like a private lesson where just about all of your questions get answered. Additionally, in the back of the book are an index of players and an index of openings which, thankfully, are now starting to become a regular feature in Gambit books. The Bottom Line
Initially, I was surprised that the majority of the games Giddens chose for
this book were older ones (only two are from this century). However,
that said, this is a truly outstanding book. I can’t imagine any
1200-1800 player not learning a tremendous amount from going through these
games. Giddens dispenses the type of verbal commentary that class
players clamor for. What’s more, the 50 games presented cover most of
the major openings. Thus, you get a nice overview of the strategic
ideas behind each one. When you consider that the cost of the book is
$25.00, you are paying a ridiculous 50 cents per game to get all this
instruction. When looked at like this, it makes this book one of the
best bargains in chess. On a scale of 1-10, 50 Essential
Chess Lessons gets a 9.
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