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BCM Chess Book Reviews : April 2004

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How to Get The Edge Against The Gruenfeld by Konstantin Sakaev, Chess Stars, 166 pages, £14.50.

Russian grandmaster Sakaev tries to win adherents to the line 4 cxd5 Nxd5 5 e4 Nxc3 6 bxc3 Bg7 7 Bc4, made popular by such players as Bronstein, Geller and Spassky. The author has studied it with players such as Kramnik and Dolmatov and has found numerous new ideas and interesting analyses. He believes there is a crisis for Black in the lines 7...c5 8 Ne2 Nc6 9 Be3 cxd4 10 cxd4 Qa5 as well as 7...c5 8 Ne2 Nc6 9 Be3 0-0 10 0-0 Bd7 and that Black will go back to the main line 7...c5 8 Ne2 Nc6 9 Be3 0-0 10 0-0 Bg4 11 f3 Na5. This brand-new book has possible solutions for how to treat this position to get an advantage for White. It is a well-presented book and up to the high standards set by this particular publisher. JS



 

Budapest Fajarowicz by Lev Gutman, Batsford, 287 pages, £15.99.

This book sets out to be a complete reference book on an interesting side-line, also known as the Fajarowicz-Richter Gambit (1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 e5 3 dxe5 Ne4!?). It is undoubtedly packed with detail but in terms of presentation and typesetting, it is very unfriendly on the eye, with columns crammed with variations and sub-variations. Quite a number of game references are to games played over the internet, or between chess programs. The overall effect is one of an intimidating database dump punctuated by a mish-mash of quotes and very little by way of textual input from the author. You cannot help feeling that this sort of thing would be much better presented on a CD-ROM in this day and age. There is however a very impressive bibliography to demonstrate that the author has done a formidable amount of research. It is a shame that his hard work has not resulted in a better presented work. JS



 

King’s Indian Battle Plans by Andrew Martin, Thinkers Press, 380 pages, £17.99.

Readers of BCM will be familiar with Andrew Martin’s work on the King’s Indian as he has written some very interesting articles on the opening for us. This is a collection of 200+ King’s Indian games, annotated in Martin’s punchy, challenging and anecdotal style. Games are batched into variations, and in his annotations Martin focuses on the main idea of each game. The contents page gives a reasonable guide to what is where, though the book sadly lacks a game index. Presentation is generally good, however, and Martin’s style of writing makes it an easy and enjoyable read. JS

Starting Out: The Grünfeld by Jacob Aagaard, Everyman, 176 pages, £12.99.

Another in Everyman’s inexpensive series of introductory opening books, written in an accessible way, with lots of tips and warnings. One of the latter caught my eye: against the skull and crossbones warning logo, Aagaard has written “do not trust all that you read in opening books. Many writers quote incorrect analysis or give sloppy analysis themselves.” It takes a brave author to risk fate in that way, and I dare say it will encourage some reviewers to comb through the book all the more assiduously to find where he has done the same; but this reviewer found nothing untoward. There is lots of new theory, including some analysis of the mind-bending Grünfeld games Luke McShane played last year, perhaps at the expense of some older lines. So readers who use this book exclusively when starting out (that is, after all, its title) might find themselves surprised by an antique side-line. JS



     

Imagination in Chess by Paata Gaprindashvili, Batsford, 287 pages, £15.99.

Sub-titled ‘how to think creatively and avoid foolish mistakes’, the book contains more than 700 positions for analysis, interspersed by short introductions which discuss the mechanics of the thinking process and how the chess player decides on a given move. There are echoes of Kotov’s ideas here but Gaprindashvili does not go too deeply into his theme. The reviewer was inclined to discard the rather thin and platitudinous observations about how to think, and just use the book as a collection of (medium to very hard) puzzles for solving. Thankfully the main body of the book consists of a mass of positions to study, with their solutions in the back making up a good half of the book. As such, it is very good fare, and would be a useful manual for a teacher with intermediate to advanced pupils. JS

The Catalan by Alex Raetsky and Maxim Chetverik, Everyman, 192 pages, £14.99.

The two Russian authors (the first-named an IM, the second an FM) are avowed Catalan devotees, having already penned a book about it in German in 2001. They claim the present work is ‘complementary’ to the previous oeuvre, which the reviewer cannot judge, having no access to the German book. There is plenty of explanatory text to go with the analysis of the 95 games and this would be a very good first book on the opening. It tends towards an analysis of what has already been played, rather than making repertoire suggestions. JS







 

C.J.S. Purdy’s Fine Art of Chess Annotation and Other Thoughts Vol. 1 (2nd edition) by Cecil Purdy, Thinker’s Press, 152 pages, £12.99.

This is a second edition of a work first published in 1992 and is the first volume of collected Purdy articles from Chess World (1946-67). It contains 100 games annotated by Purdy, neatly divided into three sections. 25 games are from world championship encounters, from 1948 to 1965, 25 are from other heavyweight competitions (with several Fischer games included), and 50 are from domestic Australian and New Zealand competitions. There is no doubt that Purdy was a true one-off when it came to annotating chess games. He had an ability to fillet out the truth of a position and then explain it in plain English. JS

Basic Chess Endings (2003 Revision) by Reuben Fine, McKay, 585 pages, £16.99.

Fine’s monumental endgame manual scarcely needs an introduction as it will be on the bookshelves of most keen players. This is a recent revision by Grandmaster Pal Benkö, with a foreword by Averbakh. The 2003 revision has been a matter of correcting mistakes, converting to algebraic notation and using more modern examples of endgames in a few cases where endgame theory has moved on. Fine’s 15 rules for the endgame have been increased to 20 by Benkö. Still a classic work, and now it has been enhanced with input from another very distinguished endgame expert. There are now other excellent works on the endgame but even after many decades this one still stands comparison with them. JS

BCM Bound Volume for 2003, British Chess Magazine, 672 pages hardcover, £31.95.

The definitive record of the year’s chess, bound in red cloth and fully indexed, hundreds of annotated games, articles, problems, reviews, studies, 50+ pages of colour photographs... and it looks a treat on your bookshelf. The book is fully indexed for games, articles, obituaries, reviews and openings. JS (illustration is for demo purposes only - front cover is plain red cover)







 

The Year Book of Chess 1907, ed. EA Michell, Moravian Chess, 256 pages hardcover, £17.99.

This book was the forerunner of the modern BCF Yearbooks but with much more tournament coverage and less directory material. There is coverage of chess played in 1906, including the third BCF Congress (at Shrewsbury), the Scottish Championship at Glasgow, as well as major international events such as Ostend (won by Schlechter) and Nuremberg (won by Marshall). There is an obituary of Pillsbury by Hoffer. Inside the back cover are various advertisements, but please note that these are also reprints: we can no longer offer a BCM sub for eight shillings. JS

Quarterly for Chess History, Winter 8/2002, ed. Vlastimil Fiala, Moravian Chess, 572 pages hardcover, £21.99.

The latest in the series of these massive source-books has a substantial article on Reshevsky’s first tour of the USA in 1921. It is a shame the pictures of Reshevsky (including shots of him with film stars Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks) have not been better reproduced. There is a piece on an unknown London tournament of 1851 (not the famous one) by Ken Whyld, whose obituary also appears. In it there is reference to ‘H. J. R. Murey’, which seems to be an unfortunate amalgamation of the names of the famous chess historian and an Israeli grandmaster. There are tournament reports on Vienna 1882 and Lasa Berlin 1889. Other articles are on Sonia Graf in Warsaw, biographical features on Hromadka, Howard Dolde and Oscar Chajes. JS

One Hundred and One of My Best Games by FD Yates, Moravian Chess, 181 pages hardcover, £17.99.

This work was completed by William Winter after Yates’s untimely death and published in 1934. Winter provides an introduction and there are appreciations of the great English master by Lasker, Marshall, Sir George Thomas and others. 30 of the games are annotated by Yates, with Winter supplying notes to the rest. Confusingly, there are 109 in all, but Yates had already chosen his title and Winter decided against changing it. Yates was clearly a talented annotator as well as a player, and Winter also impresses with his notes. The old Printing Craft layout is easy on the eye; one or two modern chess publishers could do with revisiting the old books to see how books should be presented. JS

ChessBase Magazine 98, ChessBase CD-ROM, £17.50.

The latest issue contains 2,410 games of which 536 contain expert commentary. In addition there are 4,182 correspondence chess games, and the usual sections on tactics, strategy, endgames, and theory plus a video interview with Yasser Seirawan conducted immediately after the Kasparov versus X3D Fritz match in New York last November. Peter Wells presents the third part of his series on material imbalances, dealing with rook v two minor pieces. In the printed magazine that accompanies the disk, Joel Lautier discusses the future of man versus machine matches, while Peter Schreiner profiles the new computer world champion, Shredder 8. JS

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