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BCM Chess Book Reviews : March 2002Return to the BCM Review Index
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The far-fetched title and front cover
design (chess pieces intermingled with carrots and other vegetables on
a chessboard) serve only to demonstrate the increasing difficulty that
chess publishers have in dreaming up something fresh or interesting that
describes the contents of their books. The Ukrainian-born, Austrian-resident,
grandmaster and coach presents thec reader with eight lessons on different
aspects of chess strategy and thinking. He deals with such diverse topics
as when (and when not) to analyse, middlegame tactics, the winning potential
of opposite-coloured bishops, transition to the ending, zugzwang and attacking
the king in the endgame. Beim provides plenty of exercise material to
test the reader’s comprehension. It’s a good read for the improving
club/expert player but gastronomes will be disappointed.
Three lines of the Queen’s Gambit Declined
are covered herein: the Chigorin (2...Nc6), the Albin Counter Gambit (2...e5)
and the Baltic Defence (2...Bf5). The latter is probably the least-known
of the three, but its sting is well exemplified by a 17-move defeat for
the author which he describes as “possibly my most humiliating ever
encounter”. All three defences have the attraction of being very
different in strategy from more orthodox lines of the QGD, and can be
used to make life difficult for White players who prefer a quieter, more
positional struggle. Each one has its champions amongst grandmasters,
the most famous being Alexander Morozevich who is the greatest exponent
of the Chigorin. Chris Ward covers his subject thoroughly and with his
usual breezy good humour.
This is the second, expanded, version of a book
first published in 1994. The original edition was a landmark in that,
as part of a trilogy of books on the endgame, the author was making use
of perfect knowledge as generated by computer databases for five-man endgames.
Since that time, six-man databases have come on to the scene, sending
more shockwaves through human-generated chess theory. Don’t expect
him to help you with how to exploit his analysis of (for example) the
rook and knight versus two knights endgame (243 moves in the longest variation,
including 96 ‘only moves’) at FIDE’s 30 seconds a move
time control. I did enjoy his dry wit: after move 242 Nd5 he appends the
comment “with a quick mate”. By any standards this is a remarkable
work by the scholarly Dr Nunn, which will bring joy to the 21st century’s
most endangered species: the endgame connoisseur.
This repertoire
book, written by Danish players Aagaard and Lund, concentrates on the
Tarrasch Defence to the Queen’s Gambit. 70% of the book is devoted
to it, so it may also attract interest from aficionados of this popular
line. 14 pages are then expended on White’s move two alternatives
such as 2 Nf3 and 2 Bg5 as well as transpositions into Catalan lines if
White plays an early g3. The final two chapters are a surprise, bearing
in mind the title of the book. They deal with White first moves other
than 1 e4 and 1 d4. 1 Nf3 gets 17 pages whilst 1 g4, 1 b4, 1 b3, 1 c4
get a quick nine-page run-through. The authors are honest enough to admit
that it was “a bit fresh” of them to try to summarise the English
Opening in three and a half pages. But, judging the book by the bulk of
the contents, there is a good deal of worthwhile study material here.
There is a very serious typo in the game Summerscale-Gershon: the game
moves 7...Ne5 8 Nxe4 Nxc4 9 Qa4+ Bd7 10 Qxc4 Qe7 have been completely
omitted from the score (we looked them up on a database).
A companion
volume to the book reviewed above, the repertoire centres on the Sicilian
Defence, to which White of course has many counters, and more specifically
the Sicilian Four Knights (1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3
e6, etc). Ample consideration is given to other variations such as 2 c3,
as well as the Rossolimo (3 Bb5), Grand Prix Attack, Closed Sicilian,
etc. There were a few typos and ‘East-Europeanisms’ in evidence,
as well as a fulsome statement of gratitude in the introduction to someone
called ‘Jacob’ though it is not clear who this was. Overall
it comes across as a useful and well-organised work.
Another volume of the collected works
of the great writer and world correspondence chess champion of the early
1950s. Volume one is now out of print though the publishers are planning
a reprint in 2003. One could almost claim that Cecil Purdy was to Australian
chess what Don Bradman was to its cricket. Despite their vintage, his
annotations have a clarity and depth that still work as well as ever in
the 21st century, though his book recommendations (some of which are reproduced
here) look decidedly dated. This volume contains 120 annotated games taken
from the periodical Chess World, ranging from world over-the-board
championships to domestic Australasian encounters, plus 13 articles from
his prodigious journalistic output. Fascinating stuff and highly recommended.
1 e4 d5 2 exd5 Qxd5 3 Nc3 Qd6!? is
an unusual line about which most other authors have been somewhat dismissive.
But it will interest club players looking for something new with which
to surprise their opponents. Author Melts, a correspondence IM, makes
a pretty good case for his subject, with instructive comparisons with
similar configurations that can arise from other openings. On the down
side, he does tend to fill up pages with bare game scores which are cited
as ‘further examples for study’. But it is definitely worthy
of study.
As is nearly
always the case with books about the Pirc, lines of the Modern are considered
too in this useful new tome from Hungary, which is written in acceptable
English and features the latest word on this popular Black defence. That
said, the reader is left to figure out the transpositions for himself,
though the index at the back lends assistance. Most ‘end of variations’
assessments are brief or Informator style, but chapters begin and
end with informative textual material. A good and up-to-date reference
manual on the Pirc, with some sensible guidance from the author.
The main problem
with this CD-ROM was... how to get it out of the plastic box. The plastic
gripping device holding it in place was all too efficient and it took
a minute or two’s fiddling to extract it. Despite the name of Khalifman’s
school being identified as author on the cover, on the disk the text author
is revealed to be Aleksei Lugovoi, with game annotations by big names
such as Mikhail Gurevich, Chernin and Azmaiparashvili. There are 116 heavily
annotated games. After a homily on learning the opening through understanding
rather than memorisation, the CD text moves on to consider each main variation
in turn. There are three databases, one each for ECO codes B06, B07 and
B08/09, making 79,000 games in all, of which a small number also have
annotations. A good number of these have training questions, though it
might have been helpful to have put these in a separate database as with
other ChessBase opening CD-ROMs. Another useful product from the ChessBase
stable.
This book contains a collection
of games from the 1st European Championship held in Munich in 1942. The
tournament was affected by World War Two – only players from Germany
and neutral, German-allied or German-occupied countries could take part.
It was won by Alekhine (who had become a naturalized French citizen in
1925) ahead of Keres, Bogoljubov, Foltys and Richter. The author managed
to get hold of all the games from the main tournament; only one game is
incomplete. Annotations were compiled from all available sources. Many
games were annotated by Alekhine. The book also contains most games from
the qualifying tournament which took place at the same time. The introduction
(in German and English) tells us how the idea of a European Championship
was put into practice, and contains an interesting contemporary article
about attack and defence in chess. The book is a very interesting and
thorough piece of work; only the print quality could be slightly better.
Review by Hans-Peter Hansen.
This is a valuable book outlining the
careers of two Russian masters whose playing years spanned the late 1930s.
Both died tragically young; Ryumin of tuberculosis, Belavenyets killed
in the Second World War. Both however showed in their brief careers how
good they might have been. Ryumin was a brilliant, almost reckless, attacking
player, whilst Belavenyets won his games using a strong theoretical background
as a basis for sustained positional pressure. Woodger has collected 35
annotated best games of each master which are well worth playing through.
This little book illustrates that the Russian breakthrough led by Botvinnik
in the 1940s should have been no surprise – the minor masters were
also very strong. Thoroughly recommended. Review by Ray Edwards.
The disk contains
a database of more than 13,000 games, 300 with annotations, plus 18 text
files by German-resident IM Alexander Bangiev. The author provides some
excellent guidance on the Philidor Defence’s pawn structure, as well
as advice on typical middlegame plans for both White and Black. He provides
links to a number of leading players (including Adams, Petrosian and Kosten)
who have employed the Philidor from time to time.
The large database consists of 20,779 games of
which about 1,200 are annotated. There are19 text files explaining the
different variationsof the QGA, a separate database of 30 training positions
and a tree of variations. The author is an untitled chess theoretician
from Novosibirsk. His explanatory material is of good quality and well
structured but the hypertext files are not linked together logically so
you have to exit to the database list in order to load the next one. It
is curious that ChessBase have not made more of an effort to impose a
standard layout for their opening theory CD-ROMs.
