Category Archives: Books

Book review: The Modern Chess Self-Tutor (Bronstein)

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[This review first appeared in Westward Ho!]

The Modern Chess Self-Tutor

  David Bronstein, tr. Ken Neat

  ISBN 1-85744-136-2 Cadogan, 1995

  I buy chess books for instruction, for reference and for entertainment. This book I judge falls most neatly into the last category.

  Readers will recognise the usual Bronstein style – unconventional, entertaining, chatty; if you enjoyed the 200 Open Games anthology this will also suit you. However, I doubt if the author had a very clear idea about who he was writing this book for, since the topics and examples range from the trite to the magnificent.

  The blurb on the back says that this book “is not a self-tutor in the conventional sense, where the basics of the opening, middlegame and endgame play are drily explained. Instead the author engages in a frank conversation with the reader…”

  It’s all very interesting but can appear loose and self-indulgent. For example, Bronstein takes a page (17) to muse about why, after 1. e4 e5, it is most common to play 2. Nf3, without really answering his own question to my satisfaction. There are even places where Bronstein just wanders off into anecdotes about, say, buying second-hand books with Spassky in South America (p.108).

  Obviously, most of the text is a bit more focussed than that – Bronstein is usually both eloquent and engaging – but although the Chapter headings are enticing (The Strengths And Weaknesses Of The Position, Coordination Of The Pieces, etc.) they are not given a lot of analytic bite. The many examples given are all nice, but occasionally fit the text poorly, in my view.

  For example, on page 51 Bronstein offers: “Everyone knows which piece so frightens the Black King – the White Queen’s Rook, awaiting its hour in the corner.” This is a pleasing aphorism. However, the next example given was:

t+l+tSj+
+x+-+xL-
-DxX-+x+
+-S-+-+-
-+pNp+-X
+pN-+-Pp
-+-R-PbK
Br+q+-+-

1…Rxa1! 2. Rxa1 Bxd4 3. Rxd4 Nxb3 4. Rxd6 Qxf2! since 5. Qxb3 allows a choice of either 5…Qxg3/6…Qxd6 or 5…hxg3+ mating.

  It’s a fine achievement from the youthful Bronstein but does it really clarify the point about attacking with Rooks? Recently I showed this game down at the club:

Whiteley – Agnos [A52] 1994

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 Ng4 4. Nf3 Bc5 5. e3 Nc6 6. Be2 O-O 7. O-O Ncxe5 8. Nxe5 Nxe5 9. Nc3 Re8 10. b3 a5 11. Bb2 Ra6

  “A hacker’s paradise” – CHESS magazine

12. Ne4 Ba7 13. Qd5 Rae6 The Rook pauses to support the Knight on the half-open e-file 14. Qxa5 Bb6 15. Qc3 Qh4 16. f4 Rh6

-+l+t+j+
+xXx+xXx
-L-+-+-T
+-+-S-+-
-+p+nP-D
+pQ-P-+-
pB-+b+pP
R-+-+rK-

We all knew that’s where it really wanted to go.

17. h3 d5 18. Ng5 Qg3 19. c5 Bxh3 20. Nxh3 Rxh3 21. Qe1 Qh2+ 22. Kf2 Bxc5 Resigns 0-1 23. Bd4 Qxf4+ 24. exf4 Bxd4# 1-0

  It’s a poorer-quality game but in my view better instructional material.

  In short, there is no sense that the book has been edited with sufficient vigour. You can probably get better instruction for your money from other books, whatever your standard, but if you fancy an interesting chat over some striking combinations with your favourite uncle, this is fine.

Book Review: Modern Chess Miniatures – Neil MacDonald

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Modern Chess Miniatures by Neil
MacDonald

ISBN 1 85744-166-4 Cadogan ?[[sterling]]9.99.
150pp inc. openings index

This is a most enjoyable little book. Miniatures are the most
tempting of chess fare, tasty without being too rich, and
MacDonald’s collection includes a splendid variety. I imagine, in
this database age, it’s quite easy to collect and scan through
umpteen miniatures, the added value coming only in the selection
and commentary. Here MacDonald shines: he is keen to enthuse about
what he likes and to explain what he understands. The games are
arranged by themes, like play with rooks and typical mistakes. We
are thus offered both entertainment and instruction, which (despite
the evidence of our grades) many club players seek in a new book.

  There is more: Neil MacDonald is clearly a busy and
interested young man, and throughout the book shares with the
reader his anxiety about things that bother him, and his views on
issues that engage him. So we have MacDonald’s views on game
annotations as moral fables, his discovery of Rubinstein, why “!!”
moves don’t always win, and a disputation with Plaskett on chess as
a sport.

  I suppose inevitably there are flaws: the inclusion of
two games from the 1890 Steinitz-Gunsberg match in a book called
‘Modern’, the abundance of Kings in the diagram on p.106 (not the
only typo.), and the use of one too many chestnuts without checking
the details. For example, the authenticity of the Gibaud-Lazard
game (“Paris, 1924”: 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nd2 e5 3.dxe5 Ng4 4.h3 Ne3
0-1) is at least open to question. Also, one of Steinitz’
losses to Gunsberg is called a “blunder” in the book, when,
according to the account in The Middle Game by
Euwe and Kramer, Steinitz was actually the victim of gamesmanship.
Perhaps I’m doing here what MacDonald did, in relying on a
secondary source I think authoritative. But other reviewers have
had their own little lists of nitpicks, and it doesn’t reassure the
reader.

  I found more difficult to accept absence of a player
index and the inclusion of so many part-games (e.g. giving a
diagram and only moves 22-29). The book is attractively laid-out
but to have so many without an opening in a book on miniatures is a
definite loss, particularly when the complete games are set out
with one move to a line, and so the space could have been made
available.

  The two Gunsberg match games are in a section headed
“a counterblast in favour of greed“. All four games in
this section are quick White wins in gambit lines, which go some
way to weigh against everything he has just said about siezing
material! I actually forgave him this: I remember reading
Bronstein’s 200 Open Games, in which he described
the Italian Game as being “for players with fantasy,
imagination, a thirst for adventure and a love of the
unknown“, then trotted out four games in the Giuoco
Pianissimo, boring enough, as my grandmother would have said, to
give your arse the toothache. You forgive this in Bronstein,
because he is a pleasure to read, and to indulge him his views is
no chore. And in the end, I decided, MacDonald’s opinions are also
worth it.

  A game that MacDonald might include in favour of his
‘counterblast’ in a second edition: Ackerman-King, Bern 1992.
1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 dxc3 Greedy? 4.Nxc3
Nc6 5.Nf3 d6 6.Bc4 a6 7.0-0 Nf6 8.Qe2 Bg4! 9.Rd1 e6 10.Bf4 Qb8!
11.h3 Bxf3 12.Qxf3 Be7 13.Rac1 0-0 14.Bb3 Rc8 15.Qe3 b5 16.Bg5
Na5 White is tempted to an over-aggressive line in order
to justify the Pawn sacrifice. 17.f4?! h6! 18.Bh4 Ng4!
19.hxg4 Bxh4 20.g5 hxg5 21.f5 Nxb3 22.axb3 g4 23.fxe6 fxe6 24.Qf4
Bf6! 25.Qxg4 [25.Qxd6 Qxd6 26.Rxd6 b4]
25…Re8 26.e5 Bxe5 27.Ne4 Qb6+ 28.Kh1 Qe3 29.Rc7 Qh6+ 30.Kg1 d5
0-1

 

Dave Regis, 12-May-97

Book Review: Danger in Chess by Amazia Avni

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Amatzia Avni (121pp, Cadogan Chess, 1994) [[sterling]]9.99

ISBN 

[This review first appeared in KingPin]

  This is a great little book, from an Israeli psychologist and chess-player, on a subject that must be on every chess-player’s list of New Year Resolutions: I will not overlook pieces en prise, I will not miss a mate in two... Avni takes a brisk look around at blunders and other ‘failures in the sensing of danger’, that is, sins of omission as well as commission.

  Forgive me if you’ve seen this particular sin of omission before, but it was a perfect recent illustration of Avni’s themes:

Now Black played 13… a4 missing 13… Bxa3 winning a pawn. If 14. bxa3 Black wins the exchange by 14…Qc3+; and if 14. Rxa3 Black recovers the piece by 14…Qxc1+.

  These two ideas are very simple, and if we are alerted to the possibility of a tactical blow here, I imagine most of us can look for and find it. But without suspecting danger, the two strongest players in the world missed it!

  As well as welcoming its subject matter (not another Solve all your opening problems forever title from Batsogan Digest), I also welcomed its approach, its use of examples and exercises, and his recommendations which attempt to remedy the ills it diagnoses.

  Avni has a determinedly common-sense approach to his topic and avoids psychological jargon (for example, Krogius’ book talks about “failures of selective attention“, not a form of words I found easy to get on with). He has collected together dozens of examples of chess blunder and oversights and has assigned them to three main classes according to the suspected cause of error: the opponent (e.g. when the opponent plays incomprehensibly), the position (e.g. when the situation looks familiar) and more general failures of thinking (e.g. neglecting defence while attacking). He also talks interestingly of integrating cues from different sources. This catalogue may sound like Abrahams’ ‘varieties of error’, but Avni is much more clear and robust, less anecdotal, than Abrahams’ tour.

  Each category of error, and each point he makes throughout, is illustrated with two or three examples from actual games, each with a diagram. This makes much of the book possible to read without a board. Moreover, Avni does not intend to allow you to read passively, but continually presses you to apply yourself to problems and exercises.

  Avni has done his homework very well: he has clearly trawled the chess press for good examples but has also read widely among the various books and papers that have been published on chess psychology. The book is packed with titbits from journals and books, as well as Avni’s own chatty but pointed observations. From his collation I was interested in de Groot’s notion of discrepancy, which was new to me: de Groot wondered ‘when does a chessplayer look for an improvement to his intended move?’ and concluded that it is when the result of analysis is at odds with the player’s expectations – “the discrepancy being a signal that something is probably amiss” [1] (author’s italics).

  [I don’t know how far this explains the K-K incident: was there no discrepancy for the players? Or, for a GM Caro-Kann player, was a3 just the sort of move that White shouldn’t be allowed to get away with? Nonetheless, this idea of discrepancy has given me food for thought in looking at my games.]

  The book concludes with a series of about a dozen recommendations for players and coaches which I found very helpful. It is so easy to recognise a chess disaster, so hard to prevent the next one. For example, to Avni and his colleagues we owe the discovery that strong, experienced chess players score higher for paranoia on the MMPI[2] than do weaker players and non-players. His recommendation: adopt a paranoid approach (at least at the chessboard). An example of how this might be done: rather than comfort yourself with the thought that you cannot possibly lose, think instead how could I possibly lose this game? Search for a possible catastrophe.

  This advice is, as ever, illustrated with examples: the one which made me wince was from Nigel Short, whose paranoia must have been running particularly low against Belyavsky at Linares in 1992:

57 Nd5 f6+, 58 Ke6?? Bc8 mate…

  A couple of stray thoughts:

  1. His evidence for his suggestion that (amongst other habits) we should cultivate paranoia this is essentially negative: he gives further examples of failures of suspicion which led to instant losses by strong players. Perhaps, since disease is so often the route by which we can gain insight into normal functioning of the body, this is quite right, but I am dogged by the suspicion that these are actually examples of unusual and unsuccessful chess thinking, and we know little of the usual kind. I know of a few examples of normal or more successful chess thinking: I remember some old articles by Simon Webb in the Chess magazine of the late 1970s under the title ‘How do chessplayers think?‘ which tried to capture (live) some chess thinking, the fascinating (if retrospective) comments that were the appeal of the BBC Master Game series, and a couple of odd comments by annotators (like Fischer’s “…Trifunovich seemed too quiet all of a sudden” [3] ). Perhaps readers know more. But my judgement is that, even in chess, which seems to me an ideal arena for research, we know little about how we go about chess decisions, what makes a difference between weak and strong players, and how to improve. This, really, is what makes a book like Avni’s so interesting.

  2. A technique that Avni uses more than once is to give you similar positions and ask you to puzzle out which one has the catch. This is very different to the usual type of calculative exercise that I have seen (as in the Winning Combinative Play or Find the Winning Continuation columns of magazines). Knowing there is a problem which has a solution, I can sit and puzzle out the answers to most of these up to, say, five moves deep[4]. And yet, like many club players, my games are pocked with oversights two moves deep. Even some of the games I survive can be busted in short order by my modest computer. Now, if books on tactics had half their positions with only tempting but bogus tries, or a third of positions which were promising but which had no tactical solution yet available, this would be a much sterner and more realistic test. Does any publisher wish to take this on?

  I had only a couple of minor quibbles, but the conscientious reviewer feels obliged to note them:

  1. There are of course many different things to consider when choosing a move, and unless you find yourself with time to spare in each game (not true for me, I’m afraid) you may have to do something else less often or more quickly if you are to become more self-critical or more chessically paranoid. At the moment I fear that after reading Avni I will only make judgements more accurately while calculating less deeply, unless I can find a way to analyse faster. Avni does not try to address this issue, but rather treats the topic of developing a sense danger as a separate add-on to whatever you do normally.

  2. I did wonder if the number of pages per pound is good value. As chess publishing has become more computerised, with great benefits in speed and accuracy, I had hoped that some savings might trickle down to the purchaser. I think that chess books have been getting worse value rather than better, but perhaps this is merely my chessplayer’s paranoia!

  3. There were some recommendations I expected to see and didn’t! They are: write your move down first and check it (which I owe to Simon Webb), and when analysing, always look one move further for at your opponent’s possibilities at the ‘end’ of a combination (Dvoretsky).

[See also An important note about Blumenfeld’s rule — DR]

[1] Thought and Choice in Chess, 1965.

[2] One jargon term Avni slips in without explanation: the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory.

[3] My Sixty Memorable Games. Faber. (p.203).

[4] I can even survive some of the examples from the section on ‘Traps’ in Livshits’ Test your Chess IQ: Grandmaster Challenge (Cadogan, 1993), an otherwise excellent book, because firstly, the fact that they are in a section on “traps” turns the paranoia dial up to 11, and secondly, he offers give-away comments like “White was hoping for 1…Bxf4, on which he had prepared a counter-blow. What was it?“.

Book review: Winning with the Nimzo-Indian (Keene)

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Book review: Winning with the
Nimzo-Indian by Raymond Keene. Batsford. 1991, 79+xv.

  I think I’ve bought my last book by Keene. The title that
has prompted this decision is the subject of this review. It
exemplified perfectly Phil Crocker’s criticism of chess publishing
in Kingpin No.22, to which Batsford, for some
reason, felt the need to respond in No.23. As I remember, Phil’s
main gripes were:

  (a) shallowness: books are full of glib,
vague or uncommittal commentary (e.g. “with compensation“,
no need to mention if it is adequate!) – only general and strategic
comments, none cashed out in terms of variations

  (b) padding: complete games are included
for no good reason at the expense of extra commentary or additional
detail. I do get annoyed by large sections of games being quoted in
‘double-column’ format without notes viz.

1. d4 Nf6

2. c4 e6

3. Nc3 Bb4

  This uses three lines when only one is required. If you
look at older Batsford books there are many part games and games in
block text, squeezing the most chess and instruction on the page.
No longer.

  (c) question-begging: books allow
important questions about particular variations to be ignored, and
only light notes are added to games

  (d) lack of originality/ no value added:
analysis and comments by others are quoted freely, games are cited
without their significance being explained.

  These were humorously put in the article, but clearly
felt keenly – my guess being that PC has more than once spent the
best part of [[sterling]]15 on various selections from the Batsford
list. Let us look closely at Keene’s book and see how it fares on
these points.

  The book, of course, does not claim to be complete. The
author says it is a ‘companion volume’ to another title,
How To Play The Nimzo-Indian that he co-authored
with Shaun Taulbut in 1978, although the relationship between the
two (one introductory/one advanced? one historical/one recent?) is
nowhere explained. None of the games in the earlier volume are
given in this book, and there are no cross-references, nor even an
index.

  I’ll take one chapter for particular commentary – say,
the one on the closed Samisch variation. I shall try to give enough
detail to be fair to the coverage offered. I shall also give my
reactions. This chapter should show Keene at his best – after all,
he has made a special study of it for a previous publication cited
in the bibliography, An Opening Repertoire For
White [1]. Also, it is
a ‘fashionable’ variation (Karpov, p.71) with, I would have
thought, some considerable contemporary material available.

  The chapter contains half a page of general description
with four complete games as its backbone, and seven additional
games are mentioned in the notes. Eleven games in 11 pages is
pretty light in my judgement, but quality and insight may
compensate for this. Of the four games – Keene-Vella 1985,
Polgar-Remlinger 1986, Johner-Capablanca 1929, and Yusupov-Karpov
1989 – the notes for two are ‘based on’ notes by others (Tartakower
and Karpov). It may take a GM to find and reproduce the latter
games, but my view is that any club player with a library and a
photocopier (or a database) could do as much. So perhaps point (d),
lack of originality, may be conceded. The
half-page of description is nearly all general, and the basic
variations and piece placements are not described here or later. A
suspicion of shallowness may arise here, but let
us look at the meat of the chapter – the quality of the two games
which appear first and which bear Keene’s own annotations.

  During Keene-Vella, after 1. d4 Nf6 2.
c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 c5 5. Bd3 Nc6 6. a3 Bxc3 7. bxc3 Vella
continued 7…d6. Keene cites here a Plaskett game which continued
instead 7…e5 8. Ne2 e4!?. In fact Keene quotes the whole of
Psakhis-Plaskett 1985, which thus becomes the first game in the
chapter, without a single real comment. (The !? mark is
actually Keene’s, and two further moves during the game are
annotated ?! and !, but no support is offered for these
judgements.)

  I think this is disgraceful, and exemplifies
question-begging – point (c) above. What is the
reader to make of Plaskett’s line? Are there any precedents[2], and if so how does this game relate to them ? Does
Keene regard the line as important? …interesting? …frivolous?
Even a ‘first impression’ statement from our GM author would help.
Is the line risky? …dubious? …playable? What are the plans for
either side in this variation? How do these relate to the general
Nimzo-Indian themes? Why is Keene-Vella the main game with
Psakhis-Plaskett as the note, instead of the other way round? How
can we see the general ideas given earlier shown or modified in
this game? I am no wiser for seeing this game than if I had
stumbled over it in a magazine.

  The Vella game is given some commentary, which I
paraphrase below. 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e3 c5 5.
Bd3 Nc6 6. a3 Bxc3 7. bxc3 d6 8. Ne2 e5 9. Ng3. “A
theoretical novelty” says Keene, but the main line is not
suggested. He adds that the move offers “a pawn for open
lines“, which is a shallow comment in the
‘with compensation’ class – point(a).
9…g6 (“to prevent Nf5…”) 10.
d5 Ne7 11. e4 h6 (“prophylaxis… against Bg5“)
12. a4 Qc7 (“stronger is …a5 followed by
…Kd7-c7“) 13. a5 Kf8 (“? Black’s king
is exposed – here he should strive for …O-O-O“). Keene wins
with a nice K-side attack, and later comments that the doubled
c-pawns offered a solid centre from which to launch the attack.
Really the only lesson spelt out for players of either colour is
that the Black King is safer on the Q-side. Now, I could accept
this as a worthwhile lesson, except that in all four main games
quoted Black’s King is lodged on the K-side. Why did white’s K-side
attack work in these two games and fail in the other two, which
Black won? Just what is the reader expected to learn from this
game?

  I would suggest that Phil’s point (c),
about only light notes being given, is further exemplified here.
What seem to me to be other key issues (when should White close the
centre with d5? are Black’s pawn moves g6/h6 OK with the King on
the Q-side? was the a4-a5 manoeuvre important, given the K on f8?)
are given no attention.

  The rest of the game after move 13 is given with two
notes and two diagrams. It is not said in these two notes whether
the attack was typical or not, nor whether Black made the most of
the opportunities for counterplay, nor what alternative attacking
or defending plans each side had available, if any. I believe all
the latter part of this game (with the two diagrams) could have
been omitted with no loss of understanding, and if it is to be
included could certainly be set in a more condensed form than the
‘double column’ style.

  We are then given Polgar-Remlinger.
After 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. a3 Bxc3 5. bxc3
d6 we are told that in three recent games Lombardy played
5…c5, Korchnoi tried 5…b6 (which transposes
into the next chapter, although the reader is not so warned) and
“also possible“, as in Polgar-Stigar, is 5…O-O.
The Korchnoi game is quoted to move 10 with the assessment
‘”good for Black’” and all 24 moves of a game
Polgar-Stigar are given, which White won. Again, not a word of
advice.

  There are many questions begged here.
Why is the Polgar-Stigar game given in its entirety at all (see
padding, (b) above) – was it particularly
thematic, or is it interesting for other reasons? Is it worth
playing over, and if so, why? Which of the four fifth moves is
best, or do they all tend to transpose? What is the point of giving
these alternatives if their importance, their different motivations
and their worth is nowhere assessed? Why on earth was the
transposition not spotted?

  The main Polgar game ran 6. e3 e5 7. Bd3 c5 8.
Ne2 b6 9. O-O Nc6 10. e4 O-O 11. d5 Na5 12. Ng3. Now Black
played 12…Ne8 which is marked ?! – another game
is quoted with Ljubojevic using 12…Ba6 which still gave
White “a fine position“, so we still don’t know what Black
should have played. Polgar replied 13. Ra2 and
Keene adds 13. f4 is “also possible“. There are
in fact over 20 legal moves ‘also possible’. Black succumbed to a
K-side attack, and though after move 29 it is only “a matter of
technique” we are treated to the other 20 moves of this game
in double-column format, yet no aspect of the technique is
explained. Just padding again, I fear.

  In short, all these games have been merely collected
rather than annotated – there is no value added and little
interpretation given.

  Collecting and even organising recent (or ancient) games
is easy for club players. What we can’t do is sift the games, and
discover what is going on in them. It’s the difference between
dictation and teaching, this illumination of the collected
information. This is also the hard bit, requiring scholarship and
effort, and on the basis of these two games in this chapter Keene
has done none of the work required. The chapter, frankly, is a mere
compilation with a bit of window-dressing. The chess public, and
Batsford’s, are poorly served by this sort of thing. When, for
about the same price, you can have Nunn’s depth of insight and
detailed commentary, it is hard to know why mugs like me keep
shelling out for Keene’s potboilers.

 

[1] Again, none of the games from this book are
offered here, which, given the lack of cross-reference and the fact
that the earlier one is out of print, is a positive disadvantage.
(Indeed all the 5 books mentioned in the bibliography were Keene’s,
perhaps overlooking books by Taimanov and Gligoric, which are
doubtless inferior or out of date…)

[2] It took me just 5 minutes to find a
Spassky-Tal game quoted in three other books and an InterNet games
archive.