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Starting Out: Defensive Play
Reviewed by Rick Kennedy

When I was first learning chess (when Kings were still princes, and Rooks hardly more than caves) there was not a lot of book-length instruction available on defense in chess (at least in English).  Sure, you could always check into the writings of the Masters and see if the d-word had crept in anywhere.  If you knew that besides Basic Chess Endings (1941) and Practical Chess Openings (1948), Reuben Fine had written The Middle Game in Chess (1952) – you could find some pages in there on “The Art of Defense.”  Why, Vukovic, himself, even smuggled a chapter on “Defending the Castled King” into his smashing classic The Art of Attack in Chess (1965).  Lacking a cover-to-cover treatment, however, my favorite book “slice” was always Keres’ “How to Defend Difficult Positions” in Keres and Kotov’s The Art of the Middle Game (1964).

Nowadays the choices are somewhat greater (although I think I still have as many books on the Sicilian Wing Gambit, alone). Some titles that I have run into: The Art of Defense in Chess (1975) by Soltis; Defence and Counterattack (1983) by Florian; The Art of Defence in Chess (1988) by Polugayevsky and Damsky; Defence in Chess (1990) by McDonald; How to Defend in Chess (2000) by Crouch; How to be Lucky In Chess (2001) by LeMoir; and Secrets of Chess Defense (2003) by Marin. I should also mention two significant works by two important authors, each which has a chapter on defense: Attack and Defence in Modern Chess Tactics (1973) by Pachman, and Attack and Defence: How Creative Thought Develops in A Chess Player (1998) by Dvoretsky.

Into this not-so-crowded field comes Angus Dunnington and his Starting Out: Defensive Play, from Everyman Chess.  Dunnington is an International Master and prolific writer, producing about a book a year: How to Play the King’s Indian Attack (1993), Pawn Power (1994) The Chigorin Queen's Gambit (1996), Winning with the Catalan (1997), Easy Guide to the Reti Opening (1998), The Ultimate King's Indian Attack (1999), 101 Winning Chess Strategies (1999), Winning Unorthodox Openings (2000), Attacking with 1 d4 (2001), Mastering the Middlegame (2001), Can You Be A Positional Chess Genius? (2002), Understanding the Sacrifice (2002) ,Nimzo-Indian Rubinstein (2003), Chess Psychology (2003) Gambit Play (2003), and Blunders and How to Avoid Them (2004). He has apparently made the transition to professional poker player and his newest book is Gambling Online (2005).

The format of Defensive Play is similar to other Everyman Starting Out books: text presented with about two diagrams per page; good use of font size, white space and bolding (few, if any, typos); sprinkled with the occasional bolded icon & educational tid-bit: a light bulb for a Tip, a clipboard for a Note, a Skull and Crossbones for a Warning.

I can give a table of contents for Starting Out: Defensive Play, although Dunnington warns “The chapter headings and categories in which the games fall are of minimal importance.”

Dunnington steers away from older, already-used classic examples of successful defense, and avoids homages to great past defenders such as Steinitz, Lasker and Petrosian.  Instead, he selects 37 “practical examples almost at random from a database” (mostly game positions – there are six complete games – largely from 2002, although a half-dozen are from 1995-1997) and looks at them through the lens of defence.

My intention was to steer the reader in the right direction with a collection of examples of the kind of play we are likely to encounter throughout our chess career, the emphasis on the role of defence.  Nothing earth-shattering, rather a series of realistic but instructive games accompanied by what I hope is some good advice.

And that is what the author proceeds to do.  He selects positions.  He analyzes.  He annotates.  Here is an example that is representative of Dunnington’s attentions, although it is one of his shorter efforts.

Coping with tricky but ultimately faulty attacks is difficult enough, but dealing with sound tactics is another story altogether.

Grischuk  B. Gelfand
Wijk aan Zee 2002

White has an extra pawn but – with Black’s forces aimed at his kingside  – must have been a little concerned…

18...Nh3+!

And quite right, too.  From here on in White finds himself up against the ropes as his king comes under fire.

19 gxh3 Qg5+ 20 Kf1

20 Ng4 Nxf2! is awful for White.

20…Bxe5

Black has enough fire-power to maintain the momentum so he eliminates a potentially useful defender.

21 dxe5 Bc6 !?

Ftacnik writes that Black’s latest ‘crowns’ the original …Nh3+, and that White ‘has to play with extreme caution’ here. Now White can try to tidy up the kingside with 22 f4 Qh6 23 Bxe4 fxe4 24 Kg1 (24 Ne3? Qxf4+ 25 Kg1 Qf2+ 26 Kh1 Qxb2) but after 24…Rcd8 25 Qg4 Rxd5 26 Bc1 Rd3 Black is still having more fun. The natural 22 Ne3 Rcd8 23 Qc2 might be okay, although after the plausible 23…Rxd3 24 Qxd3 Qf4 25 Nd1 Nd2+ 26 Kg1Nf3+ 27 Kf1 Black has the option of turning down the draw with 27…Qxh2 28 Ke2 Qxh3.

TIP: When under attack, unless you believe you will see more than your opponent it is preferable to keep his options to a minimum.

22 Bc1! Qh4 23 Bxe4 fxe4 24 Be3

This has been a good defensive transfer of the bishop because f2 clearly needed protecting sooner or later.  Posting the bishop on e3 has another use, too in that it blockades Black’s e-pawn. This is evident in 24.Ra2 e3! 25.Rxe3 Qc4+, which isn’t such bad news for White but the opposite coloured bishops mean Black would continue as the aggressor.  Then there is 24.Nf4 Rxf4 25.Bxf4 Qxh3+ 26.Kg1 e3.  Thanks to Be3 Black’s remaining minor piece is denied direct access to the attack, leaving the queen to do the work.

24…Qxh3+

24…Rcd8? 25 Qg4 lets White off the hook.

25 Kg1 Bxd5 26 Qxd5

25…Rcd8? 26 Nf4 Qh4 27 Ng2 and White is a clear piece up.

WARNING: Keep an eye on your opponent’s quiet pieces – check for (and prevent) ways of them coming to life.

Allowing your opponent to dictate the game is not a good policy, but giving an attacker the opportunity to turn down a draw that you would be content with in favour of a further but faulty winning attempt is often rewarded. In this case Black might be tempted into following up his hitherto hyper-aggressive play with 26…Rc6?, but then White has the unlikely but decisive 27 Bf4!, when capture is impossible in view of the back rank mate, leaving the g-file closed after the subsequent Bg3 etc.

NOTE: the latter stages of a sacrificial attack might involve making concessions that can be exploited with a surprising resource.

Gelfand is not one to miss cheeky features such as Bf4, and instead settles for the perpetual.

26…Qg4+ 27 Kf1 Qh3+ 28 Kg1 Qg4+ 29 Kf1 ½ - ½

My quibbles with Starting Out: Defensive Play include the almost standard complaint these days of the lack of a bibliography.  Also, while the book averages about 5 diagrams per game/position, sometimes their placement is annoyingly either before or after (occasionally overleaf) the appropriate place in relation to the moves and annotations in the text.  This may be an understandable product of tight editing, and is less of an issue for someone following along on a chessboard, but it occasionally irks.

A larger concern is that potential buyers may misunderstand the “Starting Out” in the title, believing it to be a book for beginners, although the back cover text does suggest that the target for the book is “the improving player.”  New and developing players might do better to first try LeMoir’s delightful How to be Lucky In Chess or Soltis’ enjoyable The Art of Defense in Chess, although the latter is in the old-fashioned descriptive notation. (Improving chess-playing hero-worshippers – of Lasker and Petrosian – should acquire Crouch’s How to Defend in Chess, tout de suite.)

Stronger club players will benefit from Dunnington’s book – any insight into the dark arts of defense is to be pursued by serious players – but it is not clear that it should be chosen before older works such as Polugayevsky and Damsky’s  beefier The Art of Defence in Chess.
 

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