1. Al Horowitz <From Morphy to Fischer - a History of the World Chess Championship>

http://www.amazon.com/Morphy-Fische...

This volume includes behind the scenes historical details about how every world championship match was arranged- and played. Quite a shocking story in many respects.

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2. Gligoric and Wade <The World Chess Championship>

http://www.amazon.com/World-Chess-C...

Covers the years from 1948 to 1969- really in depth history of the personalities of the players, and how those personalities translated over the board in unique "chess styles." This book is a must have IMO.

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3. Kotov and Yudovich <The Soviet School of Chess>

http://www.amazon.com/Soviet-School...

This is an invaluable document, detailing the history of the "Soviet Chess School," how it worked, and what impact it had on the evolution of style in chess.

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4. Mikhail Tal <Tal-Botvinnik 1960>

http://www.amazon.com/Tal-Botvinnik...

Fascinating first hand account by Mikhail Tal about how he and his trainer Alexander Koblents analyzed the games, style, and especially opening repertoire of Botvinnik in order to beat him.

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5. Nikolai Krogius <Psychology in Chess>

http://www.amazon.com/Psychology-Ch...

The first chapter of this book provides an intriguing theory about how the personalities of various champions influenced their over the board style.

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6. Max Euwe <Meet the Masters>

http://www.amazon.com/Meet-Masters-...

Invaluable insight into the personality and chess styles of Alekhine, Capablanca, Flohr, Botvinnik, Reshevsky, Fine, Keres, and Euwe.

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I watched a movie tonight. You may know it.

"Are you talking to me?"

It was Taxi Driver. A great movie.

I keep my "chess knowledge" in .pgn files with, of course, variations and annotations of each line of the openings I play: is handy when, e.g. speaking of the Botvinnik system, you want to differentiate between the 12...Qa5 variation of the 9...Nd5 one: both different to the rest of the theory of the Botvinnik, but...

The moment we arrive to the mainline, with so many different ways to transpose between 0-0, Bg2, Rb1, Re1, ...b4, ...Bh6, ...0-0-0 etc, I find totally NO WAY of succesfully storing the variants (this, I know, could be done with a .ctg opening book, but then I wouldnīt be able to write annotations and draw diagrams) since the .pgn reader canīt recognize transpositions up to that level I end up with an unpractical labyrinth of repeated variations and, when Iīm looking for an specific position I canīt access it right away, because if it can arise after the moves x,z and y, but also after w, q and r, I really donīt have a clue (other than my memory and the embarrasingly slow "search position" function) getting to it. Is not only a "Botvinnik system" affair, in the Najdorf is probably worse...

1) Pick three of your favorite games in that line, representing each of the main branches, and memorize those three games. Then put all of the other reference games as notes or variations to those three stem games. When you have five games in one subvariation, make that main line #4, and so on. That will help you organize your current games in some logical format.

2) Consider writing an article on each of those major variations in the Botvinnik Semi-Slav system. You will learn a ton in the process, and you could always update it later, ideally with your own games.

Also, you could go the rest of your life without meeting these lines in serious play, unless you are playing at IM/GM level.

At first glance, it might seem just another gritty crime drama, with nyc as a backdrop. That's been done plenty of times. i'm reminded of "The Seven Ups", a good film with Rory Scheider, and "The French Connection," with Gene Hackman as good as a bad ass as DeNiro was as a crazy guy. You have to see "Taxi Driver" a couple of times to see and appreciate how warped the DeNiro character is, how it carries the movie.