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Magazine Chess Book Reviews : October 2009Return to the Magazine Review Index
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This is a large book in the tradition of Reti’s Masters of the Chessboard and Euwe’s Meet The Masters, and covers in considerable detail the biography and selected games (72 in number) of 16 prominent players from Kramnik, Ivanchuk and Topalov down to Karyakin and Magnus Carlsen. The fine impression of the book is enhanced by many colour photos and a few black and white ones. An excellent production. Review by Bernard Cafferty.
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A career summary with 757 games of the New Yorker who was the strongest player in the USA after the decline of Marshall. Around 1933-34 Alekhine and other authorities considered him a candidate for world title honours, but after the rise of Reshevsky and Fine, he was to play second fiddle to them as the cares of family life took over and by 1938 he was a special agent for the Prudential Assurance Company. An interesting snippet of chess history is provided by the fact that Kashdan was to suggest a 30-second bonus for players in their last five minutes on the clocks, a suggestion made several decades before it came into being. Review by Bernard Cafferty.
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Another large tome, at a reasonable price, from Quality Chess, with the erudite and conscientious Romanian grandmaster basing his recommended English opening repertoire on his own practical preferences. This volume covers 1 c4 e5 and the as-yet unpublished second volume will cover all Black’s other first-move replies. The book has a helpful foreword by publishers John Shaw and Jacob Aagaard which should help potential readers to avoid being too intimidated by the size of the book and the multiplicity of variations. They encourage to concentrate on the ‘bolded moves’ – the main lines – rather than getting bogged down in variations. The author provides plenty of readable textual material as well. It looks like a very good book. JS.
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The theory periodical has the usual batch of interesting opening surveys, including Motylev on the Anti-Moscow Slav with 6 Bg5, Palliser on the Trompowsky with 2...c5 and Langeweg (haven’t seen his name in a while) on the Reti with 2...Bg4. The forum section features some challenging (and, in some cases, positively pugnacious) letters from readers of earlier editions. Glenn Flear reviews a batch of new books and reflects on the tendency of publishers to give their books ever more macho and aggressive-sounding names (“Dangerous...”, “Fighting...”, “Kill...”). It is a very good read as always. JS.
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This latest, in the seemingly never-ending flow of opening books, is on the Rauzer Attack (1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 Nc6 6 Bg5). The book starts with various sidelines before moving on to its main line, after 6...e6 7 Qd2 Be7 8 0–0–0 0–0. The third part of the book looks at the line with 7...a6 instead of 7...Be7. As always with this series, there is a good balance of variations and textual explanations. JS.
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This book is a sort of overview of chess understanding, by taking us through the play of great players of each era of the game chronologically. The Danish grandmaster first looks at the ‘Romantics’ – Philidor and Morphy, before moving on to the ‘Scientific Era’ (principally Steinitz but also jumping forward to Capablanca, Alekhine and Botvinnik), then Hypermodern chess (of course, Nimzowitsch, the ‘New Dynamism’ (of Keres and Tal), before arriving at the ‘universality’ of the modern era. It can be treated equally well as a collection of annotated games by an entertaining and thoughtful writer who has some interesting and challenging things to say about such issues as pattern recognition. Recommended. JS.
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The author gets straight to the point in his clear introduction and concludes with good news and bad news: that “the Budapest Gambit is sound and can be played at the highest level” and secondly “the opening is difficult to play”. By this he means that you can’t get away with developing a feel for its nuances – it requires precision. It is a very well presented books and will surely interest players who are eager to get to grips with the enemy. The book is comprehensive, with just a shortish chapter on the offbeat Fajarowicz Gambit (3 dxe5 Ne4) which the author admits with refreshing candour that he doesn’t really understand. JS.
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Aficionados of the Budapest must be delighted that they have a choice of two works on their favourite opening this month. IM Andy Martin has come up with some great material here. An initiative-grabbing counter-gambit is right up his street and he’s on top form. JS.
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Inexperienced players should not imagine, by false analogy with other openings with ‘exchange’ in their name, that the Exchange Variation of the QGD is a way for White to take the sting out of the game. It is a challenging and complex line which aims to gain White a long-term initiative. This DVD-ROM runs for four hours. JS.
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This disk has five hours of video material on the line 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 a6 4 Ba4 Nf6 5 0–0 b5 6 Bb3 Bb7 which was developed some 40-50 years ago by players who dwelt in the Archangelsk area of the former Soviet Union. Since then, the disk presenter and his oft-times collaborator Alexander Belyavsky have put in further work on it. JS.
