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Chessville
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The Chess Kings Volume One History, Politics, and the Fine Art of Mythmaking in Chess Reviewed by Rick Kennedy
Looking over my reviews for Chessville (about 70 of them), I noticed that there are very few that focus on chess history: a review of Marilyn Yalom’s Birth of the Chess Queen: A History and one of Martin Frère Hillyer’s Thomas Frère and the Brotherhood of Chess - A History of 19th Century Chess in New York City. It is only if I include reviews of historic matches and biographies, that the list approaches “modest” in length: Nizzola’s eBook The Discart – Bonetti Chess Match, 1863; Verhoeven and Skinner’s Alexander Alekhine's Chess Games, 1902-1946 : 2543 Games of the Former World Champion; Dommett’s Emil Josef Diemer 1908-1990 A Life Devoted to Chess; Botvinnik’sMatch for the World Chess Championship: Mikhail Botvinnik – David Bronstein, Moscow 1951 and Return Match for the World Chess Championship: Mikhail Botvinnik – Mikhail Tal, Moscow 1961; and Khalifman’s CD set from Convekta Six World Champions. (Sorry Andy Fletcher, Neil Sullivan and Some Loser, you guys are too close to my age for me to consider your books historic; you too, GM Ehlvest.) So it was with a great expectation of pleasure that I sat down with Calvin Olson’s The Chess Kings Volume One, subtitled History, Politics, and the Fine Art of Mythmaking in Chess, and read my way through. Ah, for the days of the cozy library, brandy and a cigar…! Olson, a chess teacher, Correspondence Chess Master and historian, is a good choice to tackle this topic. He is well-read on the topic, having a personal chess library of over 3,000 volumes. His chess writings have been published (School Mates, Gambit) and he has edited a chess newsletter (The Orange Knight). Incidentally, he has served as proofreader for chess books (including several for Random House). The Chess Kings Volume One is the result of 30 years of studying chess, followed by 10 years of research and writing. What has all this wrought? Take a peek at the Table of Contents:
Preface As Olson puts it:
He touches on the beginnings of chess for a few pages, but devotes most of his time to the period from the mid 18th century to the mid 20th century. That is roughly from Philidor to the beginning of World War II. Olson not only tells the story of the development of chess, he tries to avoid – and correct – errors of past writers on history. Here is one small example among many:
Note the use of footnotes. They are not over-used, but when they appear they point to sources from which Olson quotes, or from which he has extracted a particular theme or idea. They also are used to give short definitions or explanations of terms, although that function is primarily performed by an extensive Glossary. When a chess opening is mentioned for the first time, the footnote gives the relevant moves. The author writes easily and understandably, reflecting an academic awareness, curiosity and perspective – but it is all very accessible. (He suggests age 12 and older.) His eye for irony is sharp, and his sense of humor is sprinkled throughout. For example, I think Olson is tweaking the reader’s nose, as he seemingly adopts the form of a logic puzzle in the manner in which he presents the play of the 1866 Anderssen – Steinitz match:
To refer to The Chess Kings Volume One as merely a “history” is to do it an injustice. When you learn that Emanuel Lasker left Moscow for New York in October of 1937, escaping one of Stalin’s purges, you have not yet reached the half-way point of the book. What remains is part source material, part entertainment, adding up to “a good resource and a good read.” I especially like Appendix E: Chess and Psychology, an annotated list of sources broken down into the Psychoanalytic approach, the Cognitive approach and the Practical advice approach. The Bibliography is annotated, divided into General Histories, Dictionaries and Encyclopedias, Periodicals and Rulebooks – followed by Specific references by Chapter, and the Games section bibliography. Game section? Thirty-one annotated games, with diagrams. The explanations are enlightening not stultifying, and use early sources, the wisdom of the author and the assistance of National Master Robert M. Snyder. It is a pleasant collection to go through, one that somehow does not include the over-exposed Morphy vs Duke of Brunswick game, for which we must be very thankful to Mr. Olson. Readers may have noticed that the publisher of The Chess Kings Volume One is Trafford, a self-publishing, publish-on-demand press. In most cases this means that the quality of the product rests directly in the hands of the author – not only the words, but the organization of the book and the layout of each and every page. Let me reassure you that this is one of the best, if not the best designed self-published chess books that I have ever read. It is easily on par with the quality of many other main-stream publishers. Hats off to Mr. Olson for significant value added. (On a personal note, many thanks for indenting the first line of each paragraph, a pet peeve of mine, and something that seems to have disappeared in many texts that began their lives as word processed documents.) I could go on, but I’d much rather present a small quiz based on a few random things I picked off the pages of The Chess Kings Volume One: 1) About whom was it said, “Chess is his very life and soul, the one thing for which he lives.”? 2) What chess book did Irving Chernev supposedly have rebound and imprinted with the title “The Holy Bible”? 3) Who claimed “I am not a professional player…” 4) When was the earliest use of the term “grandmaster”? 5) Who wrote of “Americanism in Chess”? 6) During the Christmas season of 1926/27 who played a non-title match with the World Champion? 7) At which Olympiad did England field a woman on the “men’s” team? 8) Which player scored 100% of his games at first board at Hamburg 1930, yet did not win the prize for best score? Ok, I’ll admit it. I smoked my last cigar over 30 years ago. And I’m far more likely to pour brandy over some food item that I’ve created and then ignite it, rather than enjoy it in a smoke-filled room. But I do have a very pleasant chess library, and I turn to it quite regularly. I am quite pleased to have added Calvin Olson’s The Chess Kings Volume One to its shelves. It is a book I easily recommend to others. I await Volume Two. Answers to Quiz: 1) Wilhelm Steinitz 2) Siegbert Tarrasch’s Three Hundred Games of Chess. 3) Paul Morphy 4) The book of the 1907 tournament in Ostende 5) Richard Réti in his Modern Ideas in Chess 6) Max Euwe, with Alexander Alekhine 7) Paris 1924, the player was Mrs. Holloway 8) Alexander Alekhine – he only played in 9 of the 17 rounds and was not eligible for the prize.
Some of the nice features of this book:
Along with writing articles for various chess publications, he has been active in Scholastic Chess including editing a scholastic chess newsletter and has worked as a freelance proofreader for Random House publishers and others. He lives in Northern California.
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