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BCM Chess Book Reviews : February 2004

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Bobby Fischer Goes to War by David Edmonds and John Eidinow, Faber & Faber, 293 pages hardcover, £14.99.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable read – the best I have come across on the subject of the famous (or should that be infamous?) 1972 World Championship match in Reykjavik between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. There is a shortage of interesting books about what goes on behind the scenes at World Championship qualifying matches and, for that matter, tournaments in general. This is disappointing as more information would perhaps give a greater insight into how results were achieved. Though the book comes more than 30 years after the event, what makes it of particular interest is the input from protagonists on the Soviet Union side. Whilst the authors can still only speculate on the psychology of the participants at differing stages of the run-up to and during the match, they seem to have obtained greater access to information from the Soviet perspective. I have no hesitation in recommending this book to those who have an interest in reading about chess events rather than just playing through games that occur at those events. The book is in a similar category to Bobby Fischer vs the Rest of the World by Brad Darrach – another great book on this event published in the 1970s, and The Inner Game by Dominic Lawson, covering Nigel Short’s great achievement in qualifying for, and playing in, the final of the 1993 World Championship in London. Highly recommended! Review by Andrew P Smith.

 

Opening For White According to Anand 1 e4 Vol.2 by Alexander Khalifman, Chess Stars, 435 pages, £17.99.

The latest opening repertoire in this well-compiled and reliable series concentrates on the Ruy Lopez with 3...a6. There are plenty of textual passages to complement the analysis of variations and this constitutes a valuable source book on one of the game’s most famous and significant openings. JS

Informator 88, Sahovski Informator, 381 pages, £21.00.

The latest issue covers the period June-September and contains 490 annotated games and 461 part-games. Events covered include Enghien les Bains, Dortmund and the Russian Championship. Annotators include Kasparov, Anand, Bareev, Shirov, Adams, Svidler, Leko, Judit Polgar and Ponomariov. JS

New in Chess Yearbook 69, Ed. Sosonko, New in Chess, 233 pages, £16.95.

The usual high-quality opening theory surveys, including the English Opening according to Morozevich, with the young Russian star’s chess philosophy being discussed by Sosonko and then looked at in detail by Langeweg and Morozevich. There is no better way to keep track of opening fashions. Glenn Flear rounds it off with some in-depth reviews of recent books. JS








     

The Chess Artist: Genius, Obsession and the World’s Oldest Game by JC Hallman, St Martin’s Press, 334 pages hardcover, £19.99.

The accompanying booksheet from the publisher uses the word ‘obsession’ or its derivatives no less than eight times in a handful of paragraphs. This is a strong clue before opening the cover that it has been written by a non-player, and that the attitude of the author to chess players is going to turn out to be rather blinkered or patronising. In fact it is not as bad as feared. It is a travelogue, with the author playing the role of non-playing sidekick to his chess-playing friend Glenn Umstead as they make a trip to Kalmykia (where they meet the FIDE President) and have other adventures in the USA, where there are close encounters with incarcerated matricide Claude Bloodgood (who died in 2001 – this all happened a few years ago) and a collection of slightly less psychotic chess players, some well-known, some not. The author has obviously done his homework on the game as attested by the impressive bibliography, and his powers of narrative and description are up to the task. He also goes some places where the rest of us would fear to go. But the book still doesn’t add up to a satisfying whole. It’s way too long and rambling, and you become tired of all the new people flitting in and out of its pages. You could recommend it to a non-chess-playing friend if they wanted to get a feel for the less positive aspects of the game, but please don’t do so if there is any chance that they might one day become chess sponsors. JS

Danish Dynamite by Karsten Müller and Martin Voigt, Russell Enterprises, 231 pages, £14.99.

This book looks at four “explosive” gambits: the Danish, Göring, Scotch and Urusov which have in common the move d2-d4 played as a pawn sacrifice. This sort of thing is more likely to appeal to club hackers rather than contemporary grandmasters, but these openings are also popular with respectable correspondence players – and they wouldn’t play them if ready-made refutations were available in books. The name of the German grandmaster on the cover is a clear indication of quality (as are the contributions from Messrs Harding and Winter) and the authors have cast their net wide in gathering all the relevant material. JS

Chess: 60 Years on with Caissa and Friends by Alan Phillips, Caissa Editions, 185 pages, £13.99.

Alan Phillips was one of England’s leading chess players in the 1950s and 60s. He has assembled an anthology of 200 games split between his own best games, and those of British amateurs and friends (Alexander, Penrose, Frank Parr, David Hooper and J A Fuller). The games are lightly annotated with an emphasis on tactics rather than strategy, which reflects the playing style of the writer. Phillips’ lively comments give a vivid picture of chess in the UK before the “English Chess Explosion” when chess was largely an amateur game. Many of the players were distinguished achievers in other fields – Milner-Barry, Alexander, Fairhurst, and the author himself, who has retired after a successful career in teaching. Amateur though the players may have been, they enjoyed playing and had a lifelong love of the game. This is a wonderful, nostalgic read for senior players such as myself, much enhanced by 21 pages of excellent photographs. Recommended also to some of the younger generation who seem not to be aware that chess was played before the two Ks and that it can even be played without the aid of a computer and Fritz. Review by Ray Edwards

Three Days with Bobby Fischer & Other Essays by Lev Alburt and Al Lawrence, CIRC, 288 pages, £16.99.

This book is based on a series of online monthly articles published at Chesscafe.com (where it is still downloadable, though the printed versions have been edited and brought up to date). The ‘three days with Bobby Fischer’ chapter adds up to 12 pages and tells a gossipy tale of an encounter in Pasadena in 1981 between Fischer and a German entrepreneur called Arnfried Pagel who met Fischer, got on well with him and talked about hiring him for his Dutch League chess team. There are 21 such breezy tales in all, mainly US-oriented and anecdotal, but also with some games entertainingly analysed. There are also some colour photos, but also gratuitous pages of adverts for the authors’ books and chess teaching services. JS

French Defence 3 Nc3 Bb4 by Lev Psakhis, Batsford, 255 pages, £15.99.

This is the third in Psakhis’ recent series of Batsford handbooks on the French. Psakhis is, of course, the ideal man to be writing the book. On the one hand he is an old-school Soviet grandmaster, an experienced French player, on the other, not so young and ambitious that he is tempted to hide the juicy material for his own forthcoming chessboard battles (a common fault of the younger opening authors). Batsford’s presentation is rather basic but it is excellent theoretical material and exceedingly good value. JS

Learn Chess Tactics by John Nunn, Gambit, 160 pages, £12.99.

This large-format book is aimed primarily at near-beginners who would like to know something about forks, pins, skewers, deflections, back-rank mates, etc. John Nunn writing a beginner’s book may seem like a professor teaching kindergarten, but his clarity of exposition and deft choice of examples make this a cut above other books of this genre. JS

Columbia Chess Chronicle Vol. 5 (1889-1890), Moravian Chess, 168 pages h/c, £24.99.

Good coverage of US, and some worldwide, chess in this reprinted periodical. Gunsberg and Chigorin did battle in Havana, and the games are given extensive coverage. JS

Chess Studies by George Walker, Moravia Chess, 171 pages hardcover, £18.50.

A reprint of Walker’s 1844 book which consists of bare game scores of 1,000 games (in antique notation) played in the 50 years prior to that date. Some of the games are at odds, and others are anonymous, but there are scores of some of the legendary matches of that era. JS

The Chess Player’s Magazine (Vol. 1, 1863), Moravian Chess, 194 pages h/c, £24.99.

This is a reprint of a well-presented chess periodical, which was basically another revival of the old Chess Player’s Chronicle under the editorship of Hoffer. Falkbeer writes at some length about the state of the game in Germany, and there is an appreciation of Paul Morphy. JS

The Chess Player’s Chronicle and Journal of Indoor and Outdoor Amusements, (Vol. 5, 1881), Moravian Chess, 626 pages hardcover, £29.99.

A very large tome of a book. Once again, the Chess Player’s Chronicle reverted to its original name after the retirement of Hoffer. As the title makes plain, there is not just chess between its covers. There are cricket scores, articles about billiards and other sports and games, but the vast majority of the writing is about chess. Very lively and informative it is too, with prodigious numbers of readers’ letters about every conceivable aspect of the game. Club history researchers will be delighted to find detailed scores of many club matches. JS

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