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 Topic: Chess Book ReviewsThe new items published under this topic are as follows.
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 Each of the thirty games is a tutorial which allows you to study chess strategy, not in some general or wide-ranging sense, but in the context of a particular opening variation, a variation which you may well want to play: to try out the ideas for yourself, to test your own understanding.
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 There are eye-witness accounts of the play from chess enthusiasts and those less enamoured by the spectacle on show. Included also are a few letters to The Times, including one from a writer who bemoans the fact that Capablanca and Alekhine’s play is not as blessed with genius as Zukertort’s when in his heyday, at the London tournament of 1883.
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 This twelfth volume is devoted to a system that ‘has not acquired yet a universally acknowledged name’, as Khalifman correctly says in the preface, though in recent years it has come to be called - almost by default - the Classical Variation of the Sicilian Defence (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6).
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 The aim of Well’s book is to explore the relationship between football and chess, to draw out significant analogies. It is clear that both games involve attack and defence (in some sense) and that each one emphasises the importance of the centre (or the midfield) and the initiative (the capacity to make threats, ball possession).
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 The Black Lion is an interesting, thought-provoking opening book which will equip you with a little-known, under-regarded yet worthwhile defence against 1.e4. However, most of the time the Black Lion, so-called, looks like the Hanham Variation of the Philidor Defence.
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 Odessky is a genuinely engaging and entertaining writer and Steve Giddins’ smooth translation ably captures his mock-melancholic voice. As an introduction to the Nimzo-Larsen Attack, this book could hardly be bettered; yet the author also has many interesting things to say about positional play, chess strategy and simply playing good chess.
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 World-class games, annotated on the whole by one of the chess greats, important background documents … it is difficult to see how this book could be improved. As far as chess literature is concerned, it must be called a classic.
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 Overall, Alan Phillips’ book offers an absorbing backward look at another century and, recalling L.P. Hartley’s famous words, another country too.
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 The meat of the book is provided by the surveys of thirty-three (!) topical opening lines. Each survey follows more or less the same format: a discussion of the options available to each side, followed by a conclusion assessing the current state of theory (Can Black equalize? Does White have prospects of an advantage? Can the line be recommended?).
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 If you are looking for a sideline to catch a particular opponent off-guard, or simply want to replenish your opening repertoire, you would do well to turn to one or two of these volumes for inspiration.
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 Dangerous Weapons: Anti-Sicilians is certainly a thought-provoking work. In all of the chapters, there is in general a good balance between advocacy of a particular variation and an objective assessment of its merits, though the authors do sometimes rather hedge their bets.
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Karlsbad 1907 International Chess Tournament is, without a doubt, a classic of chess literature and this beautifully produced edition, bound in red cloth, is commensurate with its worth. Ideally, it should be read in a wood-paneled library, with a glass of port by your side and your faithful bulldog napping by the fire.
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 The structure of Chess Stars’ opening books – ‘Quick Repertoire’ for the essence of a line and ‘Step by Step’ for a considered analysis - has already been favourably remarked upon (in my review of The Petrosian System Against the QID). Here, in addition, there are 19 complete illustrative games.
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 This volume is an excellent place to start if you are thinking of taking up the Marshall Attack, though bearing in mind the author’s words of caution about not expecting ‘instant solutions’. Milos Pavlovic plays the Marshall himself, and he has contributed to its theory.
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 Imagine a period when the headline, ‘Great Discovery in Chess’, could appear in a daily newspaper, as it in fact appeared in the New York Sun for 2 June 1895. And the nature of this ‘great discovery’? Steinitz had just announced that he had discovered a perfect defence to the Evan’s Gambit. It was a different age.
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 Igor Khmelnitsky’s Chess Exam and Training Guide: Tactics is a brilliant diagnostic tool. If you love tactics and combinations, you will love the book. And as you work through the test positions, you will assess your tactical skill, learn a lot and be royally entertained.
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 Each part or section has the same format: ‘Main Ideas’ gives the gist – a general overview – of a particular variation or system, while ‘Move by Move’ is concerned with the analytical nitty-gritty. This strikes me as an effective, user-friendly way to set out the material, though some complete illustrative games would have been welcome.
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 For anyone thinking of starting a chess-related business, there is much of substance here; moreover, often a page will have side-notes or glosses on the main text. Digressions (a good thing, in my view: Laurence Sterne built his reputation, or at any rate his masterpiece, on them) are plentiful and rarely fail to amuse or instruct.
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 The authors provide a crisp and lively narrative which ripples outward from the book’s strict subject matter on occasion, for example, to consider the career and fate of Paul Morphy. There is a goodly selection of games, full tournament crosstables and some interesting statistics (e.g. Fine had the second highest winning percentage in the championship with 78%, despite never having won it; Fischer had the highest with 83.3%).
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 Overall, this is an excellent tournament book that I will continue to revisit and refer to in the future for two reasons. First, because it is a great source of opening information and ideas. Second, because the eventful games and insightful notes and analysis provide excellent material for analytical work.
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 One overriding message to glean and take home: chess is a concrete game. It is the details, even the quirks of a position, which determine whether a certain approach is appropriate and likely to prevail. Therefore, it is never wise to simply parrot or ape an aspect of a great champion’s play (not that the actual Kasparov has ever done this, mind).
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 Finally, the design of the book is attractive to the eye: the mix of black and blue type; the layout of the diagrams: four per page, with solutions on the page facing; the use of text boxes for pull quotes and take-home messages. Altogether, this creates a good impression, as does the book’s compactness.
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 There is an occasional dry wit, too, which is no bad thing (e.g. after a cool positional display by Adams, he remarks that ‘the Hedgehog wasn’t so much squashed as slowly marinated’). There are a plentiful number of diagrams and the text is clear and well-spaced, however, one would have liked to have seen an index of players or complete games. Other than that, The Sicilian Bb5 Revealed is a model of its kind.
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 The meat of the book is contained in chapter four, where Grivainis gives twenty six of his best games, arranged by theme (e.g. “Positional Wins”, “Defending Attacks Against the King”, “Middlegame Struggles”). In the main, Grivainis appears to be a solid positional player, but with a drop of poison. Like Lasker, he seems adept at tailoring his play to combat his opponent’s style. And he has a penchant for the Trompowski Attack.
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 The Second International Chess Tournament, Ostende 1906 is a fine work of scholarship and a magnificent monument to the age of classical chess. It is superbly produced in handsome red cloth, the type is clear and easy to read and there is a virtual absence of typos.
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 Your reviewer has griped a little but do be assured that, overall, Chess Gems is enjoyable and entertaining and instructive. Indeed, it is a veritable treasure chest, crammed full of glittering combinations and sparkling tactics. There are over a thousand combinations, featuring queen sacrifices, mating attacks, pawn breakthroughs and problem motifs a plenty.
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 The Williams Gambit is an adventurous line, well worth experimenting with. Certainly, it is fun to play this gambit in blitz and bullet games, where it poses unusual problems for Black and gives White good practical chances of victory.
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 Marat Makarov’s The Endgame is a treasure trove of instruction and ‘need to know’ information. Undoubtedly, a careful study of the many splendid positions in it will be sure to reap rewards in your own play.
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 While it would now be an exaggeration to call MCO by its erstwhile moniker 'The Chess Player's Bible', it remains the best one-volume work on the openings. Its ambition, to adequately map the whole terrain of modern opening theory, is a worthy one, and in a sense it comes down to a classic trade-off: what one loses in depth, one gains in comprehensiveness.
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John S. Hilbert's erudite and informative book will be of interest to admirers of Pillsbury's brash yet subtle chess, as well as to those curious to learn about the chess scene in America at the beginning of the twentieth century. Throughout, it sparkles with insights and facts about the chess personalities and institutions of those far-off, distant days. Can one conclude that this was a quieter, a more leisurely and civilized age?
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 Zuke 'Em: The Colle-Zukertort Revolutionised is a book with many virtues: it is lucid and rigorous and interactive and authoritative and engaging. Its lucidity is most apparent in the way the author organises his material; most chapters begin with a 'Familiarization' section - a gentle introduction to its main themes - after which the teddy bears are taken away and we get down to brass tacks
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 Of My 60 Memorable Games one can say that it will live and be read as long as chess is played. As a product of the human mind, it should be placed alongside Euclid’s Elements and the sonnets of Shakespeare. It is an engaging, analytical, above all veridical work of genius.
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 The virtues and value of the English Opening can hardly be questioned, and nor can its pedigree. How to Play the English Opening is best regarded as a manual on how to treat the middle games, and even endings, that arise; rather than as an openings manual per se. Looked at from this point of view, it is successful.
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 Botvinnik's Secret Games is a welcome addition to chess literature. Our present understanding of modern chess strategy would be unthinkable without the games and writings of Mikhail Botvinnik, and anyone who wants to fully appreciate his contribution to chess will want to study the games in this book.
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 Samuel Reshevsky: A Compendium of 1768 Games With Diagrams, Crosstables, Some Annotations, and Indexes by Stephen W. Gordon is a commendable record and tribute to a chess prodigy who fulfilled virtually all his promise, who devoted his whole life to the game of chess, never losing his love for it, and who continued to play until almost his very last breath.
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 To pronounce a judgement: The Chigorin Defence offers a comprehensive, solidly researched survey of this most aggressive and dynamic defence to the Queen’s Gambit. The organisation and presentation of the material is excellent, and there is much detailed original analysis.
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 To come to a reckoning: My One Hundred Best Games is a splendid collection and a good summation of Alexey Dreev’s chess achievements to date. The games are unfailingly interesting, often aesthetically pleasing and as a showcase of modern chess they can hardly be bettered.
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 As a writer and an annotator Alekhine is instructive and provocative; sometimes though he assumes too much on the part of the reader. It is perhaps significant that, unlike his predecessors as world chess champion, he never wrote a systematic account of his views on chess, or a book for the beginner keen to improve his game.
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 Summing up, De la Bourdonnais versus McDonnell, 1834 is both a wonderful tribute to the two outstanding chess players of the early nineteenth century and a worthy record of a match series whose importance has been too much neglected and too little recognized.
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 Overall, this is an excellently researched book which presents a welcome (and a considerable: 208 games!) selection of Capablanca’s minor masterpieces.There is an index of endgames, along with the usual indices of players and openings: a helpful feature.
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 To make a reckoning: How Good Is Your Chess? is an enjoyable and challenging collection of chess puzzles. The solutions are generally accurate and Evans’ comments are often instructive. Working through the book and making at stab at solving the positions will undoubtedly help you improve as a chess player.
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 Chess Informant 99 is pretty much chockful of great chess, of information, instruction and entertainment. It pleasantly allows you to keep up to date with what the best contemporary players are doing and to feed your fix for current developments in opening theory as well. If you are at all serious about chess, you will want to own a copy.
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 Bob Wade: Tribute to a Chess Master is, first and foremost, a games collection. It collects together just under 250 of Bob Wade’s games, played between 1945 and 2006. There are 27 or 28 (see below) annotated games, with about a third annotated by Wade himself (and included among this number is a hard-fought draw with Bobby Fischer).
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 We are given plenty of Gelfand’s games and contributions to opening theory, and his beloved 8.Rb1 in the Exchange Variation of the Grunfeld Defence appears more than once. We also get 18 of his combinations and 27 endings. Overall, there are many instances of Gelfand’s dynamic, complex, combative style of chess.
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 While this volume is essentially a games collection and a chronological narrative of Rubinstein’s chess career (and is focussed on the events, the tournaments and matches, he played in), there are also fascinating glimpses of what chess life was like in Poland (and especially Lodz) during this period.
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 Secrets of Opening Surprises, Volume 6 is, without a doubt, an excellent resource for replenishing and renewing your opening repertoire. If you succumb to temptation, the opening ideas contained in this book will set intriguing and testing challenges for your opponent – and for yourself too! As well as offering a little illicit excitement along the way …
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 This is very much a superior opening book. It is intellectually stimulating, a rare virtue, and it presents a thorough survey of 1.Nc3, demonstrating that it gives realistic prospects of a White advantage. A comprehensive list of research materials used by the author - including books, periodicals, databases and internet sources (web pages and newsgroups) – rounds off the book nicely.
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 After 2.Qe7+ Kh5 White has 3.Rg5+! hxg5 (3 …Kh4 4.Rf5+ wins the queen) 4.Qh7 checkmate. Blokh’s solution here could have been fuller and more elaborate, but its terseness can also be seen as a good thing: you are not being spoon-fed. To repeat: the reader will need to do a lot of work himself to get the most out of this book.
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 Playing over top-quality games such as these, and studying the accompanying notes, provides the best possible grounding for finding out what modern chess is about, whether in the area of attack, defense or positional play. One can see what the best contemporary players are doing, acquire a good appreciation of their various styles and keep up to date with current opening theory as well.
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 Although the games are, naturally, the meat of the book, Woodger also finds space to include an immense amount of other interesting information: tables of all Fine’s tournament and match results; a brief biography; an annotated bibliography of all of Fine’s writings on chess; myriad appreciations of his play from the great and the good; a précis of a paper on blindfold chess (i.e. chess played without sight of the board and pieces) that Fine published in an academic journal in 1965; and much else besides.
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 There are many diagrams of chess positions, and many photographs and line drawings of famous and little-known players, and these add to the value of the book. For anyone with an interest in chess history, this volume is a wonderful treasure trove. It is perfect for browsing, whether one happens to be in one’s library or on one’s lavatory.
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 What is so extraordinary about Russians Versus Fischer, though, is the way in which it uses a myriad of till-now confidential documents from the archives of the USSR Chess Federation and the Soviet Sports Committee, many of them dating from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, to tell the story of Fischer’s rise from a Soviet perspective; i.e. from the viewpoint of those who had most to lose from it.
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 Purdy was a prolific writer, and his writing was of such a consistently high quality, that the selection of instructional articles for inclusion in the book must have presented quite a problem. At any rate, we get a generous sampling of the good man’s wares. These articles are at the book’s heart and cover a wide range of topics: the endgame, planning and positional play, the centre, the use of pawn sacrifices for the initiative, piece-play, advice on how to reduce oversights and avoid traps, and much else besides.
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 Overall, World Champion Michail Tal is a good, comprehensive survey of Tal’s life and art. During his early career, Tal earned the epithet of the “Magician of Riga” and his magic, a facility to weave beautiful complex patterns, is evident in almost every game included on the CD. These games show above all else that in chess, as in art or literature, the product of failure or “unsoundness” can be interesting and beautiful
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 Will The Seven Deadly Chess Sins - a book that doesn’t directly concern itself with tactics or strategy, opening variations or theoretical endings - make you a better chess player? My answer would be yes. It cannot help but give you a greater awareness of your own thinking when at the chessboard, and this must surely deepen and improve performance.
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 Smart Chip from St.Petersburg and other tales of a bygone chess era is an immensely fascinating collection of Genna Sosonko’s chess journalism. Many of the pieces in this book, as in his earlier Russian Silhouettes (also reviewed at this site), will especially appeal to chess players with an interest in the history of the Soviet period.
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 This ambivalence regarding its readership is unfortunate, because How to Beat Your Dad at Chess (the title, alas, is uninformative about the book’s content) is an elementary introduction to tactics – and especially checkmating patterns - that would be very useful for beginning or intermediate chess players, and in particular juniors.
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 Yet surely the chief reason, the darkest cloud obscuring Lasker’s greatness, is to be found in the myths concerning his play. It has been said that he would deliberately play “bad” moves to unbalance the position in a game, that he used “psychology” and played the man rather than the board; also, that he won because he was just lucky! (And he was consistently lucky, over a period of about half a century.)
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 In Russian Silhouettes (and later in The Reliable Past: New in Chess, 2003) he describes a game, a sphere of human creativity, that amid nightmarish and fantastic oppression attracted the genius, the dreamer, the damaged and otherworldly, and the angry too. He gives us a cool appreciation and judicious appreciation of what chess meant for these men; and never has the royal game seemed more strange, deadly and beautiful.
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