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Chessville
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Chinese School of Chess Reviewed by Jens I. Madsen
by Liu Wenzhe Batsford, 2003 ISBN: 0713487739 288 Pages, Softcover
The Chinese School of Chess offers a refreshing look at chess from a Chinese perspective. The book’s author, Liu Wenzhe, has been an influential character in fostering the current generation of successful Chinese players, so although largely unknown outside his homeland he is clearly well qualified to write an insightful book on this subject. Asia is poised to become the next power-house of world chess, and in particular Chinese and Indian players are already making quite an impact, so when the back cover promises that Chinese School “… reveals the unique approach, training methods and secrets of the Chinese School of Chess” this ought to trigger your attention. Although, in my opinion, the book fails to fully deliver all that it promises, I still found it a very interesting read. Liu Wenzhe first made notice of himself in the outside world, when he defeated Dutch GM Jan Hein Donner in a spectacular game (crowned by a queen sacrifice) at the 1978 Chess Olympics in Buenos Aires. Incidentally, part of the reason that game hit chess columns worldwide like a bomb was the sensation of a Chinese beating a well-respected GM. While in the meantime we have grown accustomed to spectacular results by Chinese players, this was clearly unheard off in the seventies. Today, Chinese players are dominating women’s chess events, most prominent examples being the two female World Champions Xie Jun and Zhu Chen. Their male compatriots have not been quite as successful, but players like Ye Jiangchuan, Xu Jun, and Zhang Zhong are established names in the world Top 100. Chinese School was clearly written as a labor of love, and the author’s extraordinary commitment shines through in all 288 pages. Chess books written from a truly personal perspective are only encountered rarely, as most authors (rightfully) hide behind the dry technicalities of their subject matter. It seems to me that these rare “personal” books either turn out sublime or atrocious, all depending on whether the author has something valuable to say or not. Some examples that come to mind are: Yermolinsky’s Road to Chess Improvement that clearly fits into the sublime category, and on the atrocious side the self-obsessed ramblings of Don Schultz in ChessDon. Of course, even the world of chess publishing is not as black-and-white (pun intended) as this would seem to suggest, and in my eyes Chinese School falls short of the sublime because it has some basic flaws that I will attempt to address later in this review. Before we get into the nit-picking, I should tell you a little more about Liu Wenzhe as that may help you understand the book better. Most importantly, Wenzhe has served as head coach of the successful Chinese national chess team since 1986. However, the introductory words and first chapter of Chinese School outlines Wenzhe’s story from the late fifties when he first started studying chess systematically. Not unlike the fairy tale of the Ugly Duckling, chess was not held in high esteem until recently in China so it was not always easy for Wenzhe to pursue his goals. Especially during the Cultural Revolution, the political climate in China meant that chess was not an encouraged activity (basically from 1966 to 1976). I liked the description given in the book’s introductory words (written by Yi Shui) on this period: “At that time, moreover, he could not even feed his family and himself. All his food for a day was two steamed buns. He would go in his shabby clothes to Beijing Library to translate Russian writings on chess …..” That is what I call dedication! Next it is time for a closer look at the contents of Chinese School. I spent a great deal of time praising the author’s obvious commitment, but unfortunately there is a minor downside to it as well. In his enthusiasm, Wenzhe has grabbed the chance to take some hobbyhorses of his for a good long ride, and in doing so has produced a somewhat patchy book. The chapters are essentially separate essays, and there is a lack of overall continuity in Chinese School. However, I do not want to give the impression that the patchy feeling is a big problem; it really should not dissuade you from reading this book. Chinese School starts out in Chapter 1 with a brief introduction to its author, beginning with his famous win against Donner. The chapter goes on to muse on the different schools of chess that have existed through the past centuries (the Italian, Classical, Hypermodern, and Soviet/Russian schools) and the special circumstances leading to the creation of the alleged Chinese School of Chess. The first chapter rounds of with a win by Peng Xiaomin from the 1998 Chess Olympiad. In the second chapter (“Strategy in Action”), we find two more games by exponents of the Chinese school with very thorough comments (spanning nearly 30 pages). Then in Chapter 3 (“The Origin and Nature of Chess”), Wenzhe rather convincingly punctures the myth of India as the birthplace of modern chess. He does so by making extensive references to board games described in the Book of Changes, which is an ancient Chinese philosophical work that has very much shaped the Chinese view of the world. Even for someone without a profound understanding of eastern philosophy, this is an interesting chapter, but I am not sure what purpose it serves in this book. Also, I fail to understand the connection with the three annotated games that finish off the chapter. Chapter 4 (“Models of Chess Thought”) starts out asking the grand question: What does a chess player rely on in order to make his move selection? It is obviously very hard to fully answer this question in the 4 pages allotted to it, and Chinese School does not pretend to do so. Of course, raw calculation plays an important role, but once the horizon of calculation has been reached chess intuition is the key factor. Wenzhe gives his definition of chess intuition as composed of four ingredients: imagination, inspiration, passion, and positional sense. Furthermore, he produces a list of 34 elements of positional sense. I am not sure there is anything revolutionizing about Wenzhe’s definitions of chess intuition and positional sense. However, he clearly does place significantly more emphasis on soft, emotional factors, e.g. maintaining a realistic perception on the prospects of victory or defeat, than the more mechanistic view you will find in older positional treatises like My System by Nimzowitsch or the Middlegame books by Euwe and Kramer. Later in this chapter, Wenzhe talks with great passion on some exciting lines of the Modern Benoni, where he and other Chinese players have contributed significantly to the development of theory. I liked this discussion, but fail to understand how this connects with the initial talk about positional elements. This is just one example of the overall patchy feeling persisting even within some individual chapters. In Chapter 5, we are introduced to some general “Opening Principles” of the Chinese school. The title of the sixth chapter, “The Theory of Training”, is really a misnomer as there is no presentation of any real theory. We are offered an interesting peek behind the scenes of the Chinese preparation for the 1991 Women’s World Championship match between Xie Jun and Maya Chiburdanidze. Among other things we see the typically daily schedule for Xie Jun, from getting up at 6:30 until crashing in at 22:15. As mentioned this offers little in terms of explaining the ideas behind her training regimen, and so will be of little use. Except for the interspersed games I found this chapter uninspiring. Chapter 7 (“The Strategy of Competition”) continues the story of Xie Jun, speaking of her successful title defense two years later against Nana Ioseliani. In another inconspicuous disposition, Wenzhe spends the last ten pages of this chapter dealing with some Chinese specialties in the Sicilian defense. Interesting enough in itself, but once again it escapes me why this subsection is placed here. It would have made much more sense to do an entire chapter on Xie Jun’s world championship matches, and then group some of the sections dealing with various openings together (maybe in the chapter on opening principles). In the penultimate Chapter 8 (“The Chinese Phenomenon”), we once again meet Xie Jun playing a match for the World title, facing Alisa Galliamova in 1999. Very conveniently, the author forgets to mention the circumstances leading to this match, namely the questionable forfeit of reigning world champion Zsuzsa Polgar, who had crushed Xie Jun in 1996. This leaves me guessing that mentioning the P-word (Polgar) is a faux-pas if Liu Wenzhe should ever invite you for tea. To be totally honest Z. Polgar is briefly mentioned in an earlier chapter, but only to point out how she failed to win her Candidates Final match against Ioseliani in 1993. Chapter 8 also contains more games and a presentation of Xu Yuhua, who is another shooting star of Chinese chess who twice in a row has won the women’s section of the prestigious FIDE World Cup. Finally, Chinese School rounds of in the last chapter (“The New Millennium”) by looking at some recent Chinese triumphs. An interesting comment made by Wenzhe in this chapter is that “systematically training players is more important than selecting them”. It is time to summarize good and bad things about Chinese School. The very best part of Chinese School is the thirty-some very well-annotated games. It is clear that Wenzhe has invested a long time in understanding these games, and he does a fine job of thoroughly explaining his conclusions. Moreover, he does so without resorting to jungles of sub-variations. One peculiar thing about Liu Wenzhe’s game comments is that he makes very frequent and specific references to his chess database. A typical comment would be: “The main line is 7.d4, which has 125 games in the database, whereas 7.Bb5 only has 33.” Chinese School does present many
worthwhile and interesting thoughts, although at the end of the day it fails
to convince me of the uniqueness of the Chinese approach. I am not disputing
that Chinese players have made tremendous progress, they obviously have.
Whether this is the result of a new “school”, or way of thinking about
chess, is not clear. The book states that: “Accurate planning and
sensitive intuition are the Chinese player’s strongpoint.” In other
words the Chinese players succeed through a cool-headed ability to make
correct decisions in complicated middlegames. Thus, it would seem that the
secrets of the Chinese School of Chess lie on the mental front rather than
being of technical nature. Furthermore, Wenzhe often mentions that the
Chinese gain from their background of playing XiangQi, which is the
traditional Chinese form of chess. As this is a recurring theme, the book
would have benefited from an explanation of the basic differences between
these two games. This would have helped those of us less familiar with rules
and strategy of XiangQi to better understand this point. Perhaps I am just
too deeply entrenched in Western culture to really get the finer points
(sigh). The book is recommended for players of all levels except total
beginners. Buy this book at the Amazon closest to you by clicking on the flag above.
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