(Review by Josh Specht: http://www.chessvideos.tv/article-B...)

Most chess books are opening manuals. Why? They sell. Tournament players--myself included--perpetually believe that they're one monograph on the Najdorf, Alekhine, or Ruy Lopez away from chess mastery. After all, memorizing a new variation is much easier and more fun than than annotating games, reviewing thematic pawn breaks, and grinding through repetitive tactics training. In this sense, opening books are win-win: authors don't have to deal with the difficult question of improvement and readers can scratch their chess itch without worrying about the fact that they've had roughly the same rating for three, five, or even ten plus years.

Worse yet, there's not much new to say in a chess improvement manual. It all boils down to hard work, and the vast majority of guides cover the same bases: study tactical and positional patterns, intensively analyze your own games, and study master games. While these points are by now a bit stale, they're also true. The question is how a book can help the reader enjoy often painful process. Rarely does a book as inventive as Jeremy Silman's Reassess Your Chess or Jonathan Tisdall's Improve Your Chess Now come along.

Andrew Soltis' Studying Chess Made Easy is one of those books. Soltis provides practical advice for implementing the standard theoretical approach to chess improvement outlined above. He doesn't just tell the reader to analyze master games and provide a few annotated examples, he explains how one should select a book of games to study; he stresses the importance of books that provide verbal annotations rather than endless lists of sub-variations. He even provides questions players should ask as they go through top-level games. Soltis doesn't just tell you to study tactics, he provides a list of useful tactics books and pieces of software. Even Soltis' discussion of opening study is useful. While I think that an improvement book should de-emphasize the importance of studying openings, lest we never escape the "I just need to memorize one more line of the Richter-Rauzer before I'm a master" mentality, Soltis' provides a pretty good practical guide to opening study. Again he stresses the importance of books that describe the themes and ideas of an opening rather than providing an avalanche of analysis. Also, if you hate endgames, read Soltis' endgame chapter. He agrees that most endgames go down like cough-syrup, but has some great advice on how to make them bearable.

As far as I can tell these were "Secrets of the Sicilian Dragon" by Gufeld and Schiller and "Application Of Chess Theory" by Efim Geller.

While I still have the Watson books on the go, with a post in the works, I also have Mastering the Nimzo Indian by Tony Kosten on the go. It seems ideal for a player of my level (just above crap). It is largely focused on the pawn structures that arise with various lines in the Nimzo, Nimzo middle game ideas and strategies for each side. I would love to read a book just like it for each opening.

Enjoyed Los Voraces, 2019 quite a bit - and I wonder who each of the chess characters is based on?

<Grushevsky> - Obviously Kasparov <Klushkov> - Sort of a mash-up of Ivanchuk, Gelfand, and Fischer, with a bizarre tactical style I can't compare with that of any GM except maybe Morozevich or Shirov. <Qi> - Kind of Anand, only not so likable <Bohigian> - Tall, stiff, and dignified like Smyslov <Gabor> - Obviously Korchnoi, only fatter <van Siclen> - I guess Jan Timman, only more of a drunk <Royce-Smith> - No idea <Krimsditch> - Seems to have Yasser Seirawan's hair circa 1979, but otherwise I don't know <Vilkovic, Karlsen, Bastrikova, Popov, Eichler, and Boriescu> - all of them seem to be pure creation, not related to any famous GMs at all <Boyd Blair> - Ray Keene

How do you assess Shirov's Fire on Board part 3, so called 'openings secrets"?

Is is better to buy all three 'Fire on Board', or will i have better stuff with his Chessbase DVD, or is it more or less the same material he deals with?

<How do you assess Shirov's Fire on Board part 3, so called 'openings secrets"? >

We don't have the book yet, but it looks very interesting. Here's what we found:

<Fire on Board Part III : Opening Secrets behind 1e4 e5 Games - Shirov Paperback, 300 pages

Alexei Shirov has dazzled and inspired a generation of chess fans with his unique brand of attacking chess. The Grandmaster, originally from Riga, Latvia, is widely regarded as one of the most aggressive and inventive chess players of the modern era, an argument backed up by his wealth of amazing games, rich in tactical fireworks and extraordinary moves.

In the first two books of his celebrated Fire on Board series, Shirov traced his progress at the top of the chess world and presented a delightful selection of his most unforgettable games. Now, for the first time, Shirov discloses the secrets of his high-level opening preparation in this computer-dominated era and the stories behind his most famous opening novelties. Some of these discoveries from his 'private laboratory' have seen the light in vital over-the-board encounters, while others have remained in his laboratory for many years because the openings in question have gone out of fashion. This book focuses on 1 e4e5 games. Fire on Board Part III also includes some previously unseen curiosities of Shirov's chess life, analysis and games.

<An *Official* Imperial *ASCTOM* Frogspawn Book Review> <BTW, Bill Hook -- Captain Hook of the British Virgin Islands in 7 or 8 Olympiads, has written a memoir, and it's excellent stuff. He describes New York encounters in the 50s with Marcel Duchamp, Stanley Kubrick, and Bobby Fischer. Lots of Hook's photos and paintings, which are very good, and just a handful of chess games (but including a 1951 win against Duchamp).

I think some of the witless types who flit thru CG without learning anything were sneering at Hook for being a patzer, and losing to Fischer in the 1970 olympiad. But even at 82 he's still going strong.

<Hooked on Chess: a Memoir, by Bill Hook> -- best chess book without those "cryptic squiggles and matrices", ie diagrams. Best of all, he writes as interestingly about characters like Kai-Kai the chess-playing wrestler than the many superstars he's met.

ASCTOM: Anarcho Syndicalist Communal Tribe with Ornamental Monarchs, ie *at least* two Queens.>

Speaking of getting places, I have some more (favorable) comments on Soltis's 'Studying Chess Made Easy'. Despite the naff title, it does what it says: at all points he stresses that the process of chess pattern absorption - aka learning or studying - should be fun. In fact, it works much better if it's fun: your neurons light up and want another hit of rook endings (or whatever the chessic drug of choice happens to be).

As opposed to dutifully studying boring old rook endings because you're meant to.

He's also introduced a new chess term to my vocabulary. Don't laugh -- I think the last writer to do this was Nimzowitsch in 1977, unless you count Tony Miles's description of trebled pawns as the 'IPC - Irish pawn centre'.

The Soltis word is 'priyome', from Russian. He talks about patterns and the process whereby we absorb them, much like learning a language. A priyome is a known tactical or strategic response to a recognizable pattern or situation, maybe as simple as knowing how the Greek Gift sac works, or as subtle as knowing which pieces to exchange for a better ending. It's the process that lets GMs do *less* calculation, or increase the usefulness of whatever calculation they do. Pattern storage.

"If the pawn structure features an enemy hole, the priyome is to occupy it with a piece, rather than a pawn."

Thanks a lot!>

Since I only have FOB 1 and 2, I'm no big help here.

I've found, btw, that the same applies to chess books. They - or the good ones - can be usefully returned to again and again. I'm currently on my 3rd work-through of Keene's Petrosian book from a couple of years ago.

Soltis also recommends game collections with good annotations -- not just engine evals and mysterious alternate lines, but text that explains in words what the players were thinking, why it worked or didn't.

Tal's best game collection gets a mention, as does the Burgess/Nunn/Emms Mammoth Book of Chess Games, for the quality of games and notes. I'd also include Gelfand's collection of best games - not as obviously exciting as Shirov or Tal, but a fine writer and annotator.

Also good is Neil McDonald's 'The Giants of Strategy', which focuses on the planning and maneuvers in games by Capablanca, Nimzowitsch, Petrosian, Karpov and Kramnik. Superb games, fine notes, clear explanations - and Kramnik clearly belongs in this exalted company.

Great posts.

A related idea: there ought to be a chess program that allows one to play against the computer from the point of resignation (or even a point just prior to resignation) in a wide variety of GM games. Maybe not useful for someone at our level, but for me that would be awesome.

Example:

Black to win from here:

click for larger view

Fischer/Spassky Wch match game 3.

So it's really very easy to do. If, for example, you see a game in the <chessgames> database and want to play on in the final position against Fritz. Below the game diagram on CG you'll find an option <PGN: download/ view>. Click on 'view' to get the game data in PGN form, exportable to other standard programs. 'Select all' and 'copy'.

Then go to your engine - I do this with Fritz regularly - and select 'paste game' from the 'edit' menu. You now have the game loaded and ready to play. The board diagram should have a double-arrow symbol beneath it (something like ->>) which means 'jump to final move'.

Then you play. If it's the losing side's turn to move, and you'd rather be the winning side, hit the space bar (or the 'move now' command) to force the engine to play ...

My apologies for spelling out such basic stuff at length, but it might help somebody, somewhere. Which seems in line with the CBF philosophy.

These days, anyone who uses only computers or only books is depriving themself of a key chess resource. Along with databases and discussion boards/forums - and those curious entities known as *other people* - they all have their uses.

One last plug for the Soltis book. As well as recommending good books by other authors (an unusual thing for a chess writer), he also lists games that are (a) useful to play through from start to finish, (b) enjoyable and worth analyzing as deep as you can, minus engine, (c) instructive endgames where you can learn a lot by playing on against a computer in the final position.

It’s not just that the chess world has become computerized, adding chess engines to the arsenal. Chess has *moved* into cyberspace, lock, stock and two smoking isolani. This in turn has had a profound effect on chess books and the way people use them.

I’m going to try to illustrate the depth of this change with a handful of old-fart anecdotes. If you’re a fellow old fart, what follows may strike a chord. If you’re a bright young thing, you won’t have a clue what I’m on about (“Sure, I get the book thing - but it could use a better scroll function and some kind of, uh, *bookmarking* …”)

The group in between constitutes my target audience. Median age 25, typical rating 13-1600, likely to play online and with little experience of chess clubs or OTB tournaments.

This is my world (apart from having twice the median age and wishing I had twice the 1300 rating). Pretty much the only chess I play now is in OTB tournaments, mostly 6-round weekend swisses. I tend to collapse and lose in round six (W.1, D.1, L.12 in my last 14 weekenders). My next plan is to enter a 5-round event and win it.

Most of my opponents are in the 1600-2200 range, but there are startling exceptions. Dangerous Brazilians with oddly low ratings. Or grandmasters.

In my local tournament in '08, the Cork ‘Masters’ Open, I found myself paired with GM Alex Baburin in round 1. The game was going out live on the web. I had the temerity or stupidity to try out a new opening, using the Nimzo-Indian in a serious game for the first time in my life. I had been preparing the 4.Qc2 c5 line that week for use against a different opponent in a club game: during my research I played over several games where Baburin played 4.Qc2. I decided to try it…

And he played 4.e3 instead. I was thrown back on vague general knowledge, in a main line of one of the most popular, most analyzed, and sharpest of all openings.

He played a gambit line which I’d never seen before: 4.e3 b6 5.Bd3 Bb7 6.Nge2 … which isn’t really a gambit (they’re not Baburin’s style) as White can regain the pawn with, eg, 6...Bxg2 7.Rg1 Bf3 (at this point, if you don’t disable its voice box, Fritz smugly says “pinning you!” … so disable it already).

So I did the psychologically inevitable. Faced with a sharp-ish temporary pawn offer from a GM, which would result in open files and unsafe Kings, I chickened out. Mentally, I bracketed the g-pawn offer with Shirov-style speculative gambits - he often throws a g-pawn on the flames for nothing more substantial than an open file. So I castled ‘into safety’ instead.

And when he next hit my Bishop with a3 - quite thematic - I felt unhappy about …Bxc3 with the other Knight poised to recapture. I retreated to e7: 6.Nge2 0-0 7.a3 Be7 8.e4.

This is still theory, in the nominal sense that the position has occurred before. Not that I knew that. I could see that White had got some free developing moves and built a huge centre (a no-no in the Nimzo from Black’s POV, unless he or she is (a) very courageous and primed for ‘heroic defence’ in the manner of Korchnoi, or (b) Aron Nimzowitsch). Meanwhile I’ve been busy sticking out bits of my chessic anatomy and retreating them when prodded.

Afterwards, I checked two ‘repertoire’ books on the Nimzo, neither of which mentioned this line at all. By talking to Baburin and nosing around the databases, I found out that Black should probably take the g-pawn (6...Bxg2 7.Rg1 Bf3 is fine for Black, to the point where White often declines the routine recapture Rxg7. And …Bxc3+ is necessary after a3. In such positions you can’t keep retreating.

I found one game, played in Texas in the 1950s, where Black managed to draw this ‘retreat’ line after 8.e4 d5!? (J Cross vs G Eastman, 1951). Needless to say, I didn’t play 8...d5.

"The old fart was smart" -- Captain Beefheat

"Not this time." -- Captain Dom

So where was I? I'd just failed to strike with 8...d5!? I never got within striking distance of anything again.

I vaguely thought I could play the position as a kind of Queen’s Fianchetto Defence, as though it had come from Owen’s (1...b6) or the English Defence (1.d4 e6 2.c4 b6). I have some familiarity with these structures.

But I grossly underestimated the differences between those openings and the position reached in the game: after missing 8...d5, Black just gets terminal cramp with no hope of counterplay.

A few moves later, I missed an embarrassing tactic. White’s pawns stormed the centre, sacrificing one of their number to trap my hapless Bish on e7. I resigned.

My sole consolation was that a computer glitch stopped the game webcast. Way back in 1976, I drew with GM Tony Miles as black - a simul, admittedly - with the dodgy queen fianchetto line 1.d4 e6 2.e4 d5 3.Nd2 b6. A move I wouldn’t play now against a 1400 player, never mind a GM. But it’s a tad embarrassing to lose in 15 moves while attempting to play a ‘solid’ opening.

Which is quite enough for now. The decline of the old fart is evident. I will return with a story illustrating how different everything was in 1976.

Like, for example, right after the Miles draw I played in an under-1400 ‘minor’ tournament - I was still unrated. And I scored 6.5/7, drawing one and winning the rest. But I only came 2nd in the event, as a guy scored 7/7 and we never got to play.

There were so many players (in just one of three sections) that it would’ve taken 8 (!) rounds to sort us out: as well as the winner and me, there were six people on 6/7 who probably felt that score deserved a better reward, or at least a crack at the winner or runner-up.

The top section was won by Miles. It also had the 11-year-old prodigy Nigel Short, who scored a creditable 3.5/7. Nearly half my score, in other words. *Grin*.

In the same event a year later, I came 2nd (again) in the middle 'intermediate' section, by now rated about 1800. And a year after that I made 50% in the top section, equalling the record of the aforementioned 11-year-old. Who had moved on to bigger things, as a 13-year-old does.

The role of books in this? Marginal, apart from the lesson that you should never use a ‘repertoire’ book to prepare a new opening against a Grandmaster. And a little knowledge is a dangerous thing: thinking you know what your opponent ‘always’ plays is like asking to be bitten, hard.

Basta.