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Understanding Chess Strategy Reviewed by
David Surratt Strategy is the most fundamental part of chess. Strategy means systematic action based on a correct understanding of the game, implementing a plan aimed at weakening and – in the end – destroying the opponent’s position. - Alexander Raetsky This is a review of the medium as much as it is of the content of Raetsky's work. It is this reviewer's first exposure to the so-called "multimedia" CD format, one that I think holds great promise for the future of chess study both on your PC as well as online. Does Understanding Chess Strategy live up to that promise? Let's take a look... To begin, you need to install the software that runs the Multimedia CDs, of which Understanding Chess Strategy is the 2nd distributed by Chess Central. Fortunately for the technologically challenged among us (including yours truly) that process is handled swiftly and efficiently by the install wizard included on each disk. Technical requirements include:
After installation, each time you wish to open the program you need to insert the CD in the CD-drive. Raetsky's "book" appears onscreen just as though it were propped up on the table in front of you, while a soft male voice with a distinct British accent reads the text out loud to you.
The icons along the bottom allow you to, respectively: exit the program; go to any "page" desired; bookmark a particular page, thereby allowing easier retrieval later on; add your own personal notes to a page, which can then be reviewed later; search for a given word; display a glossary of common chess terms; turn the sound on/off; print the text from the current page; or open the help files. You can also enlarge the appearance of the book, so large that scrolling becomes necessary. This is an excellent feature for those chessplayers with limited vision. The contents are organized into 20 chapters as follows:
These chapters, along with the preface, a test, and promotional pages for the first CD in this series (Chess Endings: Essential Knowledge by Yuri Averbakh) constitute the entire contents of 127 "pages". Each chapter consists of a page or so of text, along with example games. Chapter One, Open Files, uses 15 example positions/games to illustrate the points Raetsky wishes to make. The games are presented first in a sort of thumbnail form on the book's pages:
Click on a game board, and that game opens in a separate window:
As you can see, there's another row of icons (for navigation, analyzing the position with a chess engine, and so forth), a move list, and a text window providing the author's comments about the position. Once again there's that voice, noting the moves as they are made, but not the move commentary. Also, I found it odd that the volume level on the game moves is significantly below that of the main text. A note about analyzing positions: the CD includes the Arena freeware program by Martin Blume, and comes with the SOS engine pre-installed. While it appears that there is a capability to add another engine of your choice, that feature was not active when I looked at it, and I was unable to figure out how to install another engine. The move list is fully interactive: click on any move in the list, and the diagram shifts to that position. Variations create another board which overlays the previous one, and offers the reader a choice of moves for the current position.
The title bar of each subsequent window tells you where you branched from the window below it, allowing you to see easily where you want to return to once you've finished looking at the current line. Time to mention a feature I personally find really annoying - a screen saver gnome wearing a crown, with squeaky shoes. If this was my kid, I'd make him go barefoot. I simply can't stand the noise, and I dislike having the screensaver at all (my PC has one of it's own, thank you very much!). This obnoxious feature is activated not by absence of activity on your PC, but by a lack of activity in the program, which tends to discourage multi-tasking.
Space fillers like these two are seen throughout the book as well. OK, enough of the medium, on to the content. Most of Raetsky's instruction is delivered via illustrative positions (the opening phase of each game is omitted). The preliminary text is very sparse, as the following example from Chapter Six (Space) demonstrates:
"A
space advantage
means controlling a larger part of the chessboard. Space can be controlled
by pawns, but also by pieces. That's it. That's all there is in Chapter Six, except for the nine illustrative positions used and the sentence or two each receives by way of introduction. I have to confess, I am used to more in the way of explanation than that. Still, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, so let's see if the illustrative positions provide the missing explanations.
Anybody besides me wondering exactly how ...Nc5 puts a halt to White's attack? It very well may, but it certainly isn't obvious to me. In fact later in this line the move actually gets played, but White's attack crashes through anyway. This is not an isolated example, either. In a number of lines the reader is left to figure things out on their own, given only the sort of cryptic comment you see above. Now I'm all for the Socratic teaching method, but in this case it seems inappropriate. Raetsky wants to teach you positional principles, but leaves you wondering about the tactical end of things. To me that is a distraction from what I am trying to learn about, which in this example (again taken from Chapter Six) is space. Here's yet another example, from analysis of the same illustrative position:
I would have preferred a bit more explanation (read: give me a little analysis) of why 4.dxe6 makes 3...gxh6 "unadvisable". And why is b6 square the main objective? Just a little bit ago Raetsky was talking about a kingside attack, now the focal point is on the other side of the board?? I must be missing something here. My unease with the content doesn't end with the details though. The examples chosen seem like they were just thrown together, with no overlaying organization. I would expect that the themes would build on each other, developing the readers understanding one square at a time. But there doesn't seem to be a logical progression. Raetsky, instead, seems to want to teach us as if by knight moves, requiring the reader to make leaps of understanding. Then again, that's why studying positional themes is more difficult and requires more work than studying openings or tactics - precisely because of it's comparatively inexact nature. It's more art than craft, and so requires more of the practitioner. I would have liked some additional explanations though. I think most people - like me - learn more from the combination of explanation and illustration. Still, there is much of value here, and a thorough study of the positions will sharpen your understanding of positional themes. Raetsky covers a wide variety of positional themes, and illustrates each with an abundance of positions. I must also applaud the format, the medium, used to present Raetsky's material. Too often web page designers (yes, I'm guilty too) and software writers treat the computer screen as though it were just another way to present the written page, and what we wind up seeing on our monitors looks just like what we read in books and magazines. The medium of the PC offers so many more opportunities to present the material in creative and effective ways. I think we have only begun to scratch the surface of the possibilities, and Understanding Chess Strategy is clearly a large step in the right direction, and a harbinger of things to come. Buy this product now at
Chess Central.
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