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Rethinking the Chess Pieces Reviewed by NM Dan Heisman
Andy Soltis once wrote to me that he authors two types of chess books: the quick opening guides that help him make a living and all the other serious stuff. His Rethinking the Chess Pieces is definitely of the latter type. In fact, this book is so “serious” that it can only be recommended for the serious player – it is definitely one of those new books catering to high-rated players wishing to follow the edge of theory. The previous statement requires me to back up a bit. Historically, chess books, to make a gross simplification, have been written for three levels of audiences: beginners books for players with relatively little experience, intermediate books to explain various types of chess theory, and advanced books, including most game collections, which are often written for historical records. For example, Bobby Fischer’s My 60 Memorable Games is of the latter type, where Fischer (and co-writer GM Larry Evans) are not trying to explain to beginners what an Open Sicilian is – they are writing the best analysis they can to let future generations know what was happening in those Fischer games. Most middlegame books, however, fall into the other two categories. There are beginner middlegame books, for example to teach basic tactical motifs like pins and removal of the guard, and there are intermediate middlegame books to teach positional concepts and more advanced combinations, etc. Therefore, up until recently, we were mostly familiar with books of the latter type, like Pachman’s Modern Chess Strategy or Pawn Power in Chess by Kmoch. Interestingly, Nimzovich’s My System, published almost 80 years ago, was originally an advanced text because it was breaking new ground covered by the Hypermoderns. However, by today’s standards this book easily fits into the intermediate category, since Nimzovich’s ideas are all now well-known and (in praise) covered by subsequent authors. Much of this established order changed about five years ago when IM John Watson published Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy. This was an advanced book which attempted to cover a gap of 70 years or so, starting from when Nimzovich's ideas were new, up through the most recent “positional” discoveries. For example, in 1974 when I wrote in Elements of Positional Evaluation that doubled pawns are not elemental and that their net effects are not always detrimental but sometimes beneficial, I was denied publication by a GM who refused to recommend my book to his publisher because I did not understand the liability of doubled pawns very well. Yet when Watson expressed the identical idea for almost identical reasons 25 years later, it was hailed and praised, and these ideas (and many others) helped him win (deservedly) the "Book of the Year Award" from the British Chess Federation. To be fair, Watson’s book contained many other terrific, advanced ideas not covered in mine, but the bottom line is that Watson’s type of advanced text, fairly useless to players rated under 1800, had a good market. What has all this to do with Soltis’ book? Almost everything. Soltis’ book is made possible by the success of Watson’s, and also another piece of literature that won an award in 1999: the publication of IM Larry Kaufman’s article The Evaluation of Material Imbalances in Chess, published in the March 1999 Chess Life. In Rethinking, Soltis often pays homage to Larry’s (and others’ similar) work and, in a sense, Andy’s book is a sort of Praxis to Larry’s theory. Where Kaufman’s work had essentially no examples, Soltis’ is almost all examples. Examples of what, you may ask? Why the subject of Andy’s two sections: Piece Values and Material Imbalances. For the latter, the examples include how to evaluate imbalances and how to play well with them. Andy addresses almost every common material imbalance one usually encounters:
The most elementary part of the book, by far, is Piece Values. The first chapter, “Pawn Equals One, knights Equals Three…” is pretty good reading for about any adult, except possibly the most beginning chess player. The rest of the section is digestible for anyone rated over 1400, and good grist for those over 1600. But the second section, Material Imbalances, gets into pretty heavy stuff. Not that the examples are difficult; it is just that you have to be a pretty good player before you would obtain a certain material imbalance and then have the savvy (and need) to know, “OK, in this type of position if I can trade off one pair of rooks that greatly enhances the remainder of my forces vs. his, unless he can trade off a few pawns.” So let’s return to Chapter 1. Readers of my web columns (Novice Nook at Chess Cafe and The Thinking Cap at jeremysilman.com) know that I have long railed against measuring piece value in the amorphous “points” and instead greatly prefer “pawns” – especially since one pawn is worth one point anyway! Would you measure your room’s floor space in square hooblies if a hoobley equaled one meter? Why not just use square meters? Interestingly Soltis sidesteps this issue throughout the entire book by using neither points nor pawns! Instead he just calls these units – a clever choice. Since, by definition, whatever unit you choose is a unit, using “unit” can’t be “wrong”. Of course, I still like pawns since they are a concrete part of the game, but I guess I can’t rail against units as much as against the nonexistent “points”. There is one advantage to using “units” over “pawns” and that is when you are discussing the value of different pawns. For example, Larry Kaufman found that, on the average, a rook pawn is only worth 85% of the average pawn. If you say a rook’s pawn is only worth .85 pawns, that sounds strange (but is actually correct, since the unit “pawn” is actually the average value of a pawn), but .85 units seems less contradictory. All good players know that the pawns increase in relative value to the pieces as the endgame approaches, so that whereas it is almost always better to have a piece (bishop or knight) for three pawns in the opening, in the deep endgame three pawns are almost always better, and sometimes even one or two! So while Kaufman found the average value of the knight and bishop to be about 3.25 pawns (or in Soltis terms, units), this value is higher earlier in the game and less at the end, due to the “increasing” value of a pawn. Moreover Kaufman – and now Soltis – shows that this is even truer of a bishop than a knight. Kaufman found that a knight’s value averages 3.25, but increases one-eighth of a pawn/unit for each pawn over five on the board, and decreases one-eighth for each pawn under five (and vice-versa for a rook!). Andy also gives credit to Capablanca, stating “Jose Capablanca acknowledged the transitory nature of piece values when he wrote in A Primer of Chess that a knight becomes weaker as pieces are traded off but a rook becomes stronger.” Let’s consider more specifics from the book: When discussing others’ charts of piece value, Soltis states: “The various charts depict the ‘absolute’ value of the pieces, or their ‘static’ value, their ‘exchange’ value and that old standby, their ‘relative’ value [I call it “average” value – DH]. The terms change but the point in all of them is to draw a line between a piece’s theoretical value and its worth on the board now. Spielman wrote: ‘All chess units have, in the language of the stock exchange, two prices, the par value and the quoted rate. The par value represents the absolute, the price from day to day the relative value.’ Spielman recognized that the relative value of the pieces is in flux during the course of a game, just as value of a pawn structure changes. As pieces are traded off, a strong pawn center means less and less, as Bobby Fischer noted, and by the ending the hanging pawns, ‘turn out, as a rule, to be weak,’ as Boris Spassky put it.” In this manner Andy lets the less experienced reader know that there is more – much more as it turns out – than meets the eye with regard to the ever-changing “value” of a piece. This, of course, is the crux of the content in the book. His advice to the practical player? “If Tarrasch, the most didactic of the didacts (and most pedantic of the pedants) knew that you couldn’t hand down iron-clad rules, that should tell us something. The person who takes chess – and particularly his tournament results – seriously, should push the chart to the back of the left side of his brain. He has to rely on the other information when he makes practical decisions and answers questions such as:
And so on.” And, that, in a nutshell, is what the rest of the book is about. Soltis not only gives those answers, but plenty of good examples, most of recent vintage, to show how this knowledge is applied by modern Grandmasters. In the following example the word “chart” is used to refer to a chart of piece values (Note: the book uses Figurine Algebraic): “The further away from the endgame – where “endgame value” reigns – the more unreliable that charts are. And that poses a problem for the tournament player. Most of the material decisions he faces – whether to give up a bishop for a knight or to sacrifice or to swap rooks – occur well before the ending. Finally, a chart is almost useless when dealing with other, less common imbalances. There is little benefit in knowing, for example, that a rook is worth five or so pawns. Or that a queen is worth a bishop and six pawns. Heading into such a rare imbalance based on the chart is a recipe for disaster. Grischuk-Shirov
The chart tells us White has the edge and that is backed up by 1 Rg1! g6 2 Qd8+ since his heavy pieces, working together, create mating chances, e.g. 2…Kf7 3 Qg5 Qd4+ 4 Kc1 Qf6 5 Qh6! and 6 Qh7+ or Rd1-d7. 1 Qd2?? A case where trading queens when ahead in material fails miserably. 1…Qxd2+! 2 Kxd2 g5 White’s only hope is that he can win a queenside pawn before Black’s pawns become dangerous. It’s fairly easy to see that is impossible. 3 Ke2 If White stops …g4 with 3 Rh1, the rook no longer performs much like a rook, and it should be no surprise that Black is winning after 3…e5 4.Ke3 Ke6. 3…g4 4. R c1 h3 5 Kf2 f4 6 Rc7 g3+ 7 Kf3 h2 8 Rh7 e5
White has gotten the most our of his rook and king and he is still theoretically ahead in material. Yet he is lost because of 9…e4+ and 10…g2 after 10 Kxe4 or 10 Kxf4. The end was 9 Rh6+ Kg5 10 Rh8 e4+ 11 Kg2 Kf5 12 Rf8+ Ke5 13 Rh8 Kd4 14 Rh4 Ke3 (zugzwang) 15 b4 b5 16 a3 a6 17 Rh8 f3+ 18 Kxg3 f2 19 Kg2 Ke2 White resigns” It is easy to describe Andy’s writing style: straightforward. He is wise without being clever (no, his “clever” choice of units does not represent a “clever” style!), matter-of-fact and less humorous, down-to-earth but not passionate, and clear and not subtle. Partly for those reasons, he lacks the fervent following of a Watson or Silman, who can clearly rally the troops with ardor, enthusiasm, and empathy. He has no political axes to grind – at least not in print. This book is rather typical of Soltis’ dry style - well, except for the Tarrasch humor. Of special note is the fact that the book has no ending. On page 223 Andy gives the final example and that is it – no summary of the last chapter or conclusion to the book – That’s All Folks! Rethinking the Chess Pieces has a one-page Table of Contents consisting of the two sections and ten chapters, and that is it – no index, game reference tables, etc. – the rest is all text, including hundreds of diagrams with example play. But make no mistake about it – Soltis is one of the greatest American chess writers of all time – now measured in terms of length (over 30 years), number of works (makes Reinfeld look like a piker), and quality. Outside of those quick-and-dirty opening tomes, Soltis sparkles with expertise in a wide range from openings, history, defense, tournaments – you name it. His Chess to Enjoy column in Chess Life has long been one of my favorites, and he has been the columnist for the New York Post for decades. So whether it is as a book author, magazine writer, or newspaper columnist, Soltis rates high. By that criteria he could be considered the number one chess writer in the history of the US! You may not agree, but just the fact that Soltis can even be considered the top chess writer is enough to ensure that any time Andy writes a serious book, we all have to take note and see what he has to say.
And therefore
I always approach a Soltis book with anticipation and respect. With
Rethinking the Chess Pieces the Grandmaster has created not only a
meaningful and advanced work on chess theory, but has filled an important gap
in chess literature. Watson has recently stated that we are living in
the golden age of chess books, and Rethinking certainly fits right in
there. I would recommend it for advanced players, and perhaps
intermediate players who would find this topic as interesting as I do!
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