Walter Browne's 100 Best Chess Games: My Life and Career by Walter Browne

<Book Description:

Walter Browne is a living legend of chess. A hurricane of a player with a daredevil approach of the game, he was and is famous for ending up in hair-raising time-trouble. During the peak of his career, in the 1970’s and 80’s, he won the US championship six times as well as of countless national and international tournaments.

In this memoir Walter Browne recounts his formative years, how he befriended and played Bobby Fischer in New York City, how he travelled the world and made his name. He annotates his best games from over four decades, great attacking games full of sacrifices and fireworks, in a clear style that is accessible for amateur players.>

http://www.amazon.com/Walter-Browne...

http://www.chess.co.uk/twic/chessne...

Previous Winners:

buddy2:

"If you enjoy chess books, buy 'em. You could do a lot worse with your money. If you're married, your wife will tell you you're wasting your money (actually she thinks you're wasting her money). Point out the hundred pairs of shoes in her closet, or pocketbooks or makeup. I've got about 200 i've collected over the years, most of which i haven't read through."

"When you have trouble with your wife about buying chess books, keep them stashed in some secret place, like the garage and only pull a few out at a time. When she says, "What's this, another chess book?" Tell her, "I've had this for years, just never got around to reading it." Since wives can't tell one book from another, you can use this excuse for decades, while accumulating your stash in the attic or basement or under the bed."

Mahout:

"Whenever my wife has complained about me having a lot of chess books I just answered that it's not a lot of chess books just a "small" chess library."

FabianFnas:

"Chess books is some kind of pornography for chessplayers who doesn't do it in real. They only wish…"

Buy or not buy?

I'm looking for an overview of players, trends, and playing styles from early 1800s through today. An explanation of how openings evolved, when they first appeared, how they were received, and what they lead to.

It is really interesting. It obviously doesn't cover everything in the last few hundred years, but I do think you would enjoy it a lot.

Here's a review:

<New In Chess: The First 25 Years Edited by Steve Giddins
New In Chess, 2009
ISBN: 9789056912963

An impressive sample of writings from New in Chess, without question the world's best chess magazine.

The selection covers the magazine's first quarter century (1984-2009) and it includes interviews with many of the most prominent players of the period: Kasparov, Karpov, Kramnik, Anand, Toplalov and Morozevich among them. There are interviews too with some of the greats of the game: Bronstein and Botvinnik, Spassky and Fischer (on the occasion of his comeback match in 1992). The interviews are invariably conducted by the perceptive Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam. Of the other articles, two of my favourites were Sosonko's memoir of Mikhail Tal, "My Misha", (collected also in his Russian Silhouettes) and Timman's memoir of Tony Miles. Sosonko's obituary of Miles is not included here, but it can be found in his The Reliable Past.

Perhaps there might have been more annotated games, since these have always been a staple of the magazine, but what there is here is of the highest quality: Nunn's annotations to his best game, the win versus Beliavsky at Wijk aan Zee 1985; Kasparov-Topalov Wijk aan Zee 1999, maybe the best game of chess ever played, annotated by Dokhoian, Kasparov's second; and the Ivanchuk-Shirov game where the astounding move 21.Qg7!! was played, the queen moving to a vacant square to sacrifice herself. A highly unusual kind of move.

Timman's article on Magnus Carlsen's endgame technique is the best 'purely chess' article, among the tournament reports (one by Miles) and the historical articles about chess personalities. As one would expect from Timman, his article is insightful, incisive and instructive.

All in all, this is an excellent showcase of New in Chess magazine and an entertaining volume in its own right.

About the reviewer: P.P.O. Kane lives and works in Manchester, England. He welcomes responses to his reviews and you can reach him at ludic@europe.com>

New In Chess: The First 25 Years Edited by Steve Giddins New In Chess, 2009
ISBN: 9789056912963>

A History of Modern Chess by H. J. R. Murray: $450.

That's funny. "Hey, Honey, I bought a book ...."

cheapest i could find :(

A History of Chess by Murray: $112 plus $6 shipping

So, I was anxious to purchase Grandmaster Chess Strategy: What Amateurs Can Learn from Ulf Andersson's Positional Masterpieces. This is a NIC book authored by Jurgen Kaufeld and Guido Kern, published earlier this year, 223 pages.

The preface by Peter Leko stakes the claim for the book's almost unique duel concept of using the vehicle of a single player's games and style to explore positional themes. Quoting Leko, "By asking questions such as 'What is typical about this player?' and 'Why is he so successful?' you will work out what characterizes his chess style. By imitating this in your own games you will have practical successes to celebrate." Well, we can dream at least!

The chapters are by positional motif and have from four or five full game examples (Playing Against Two Weaknesses, The Bishop Pair, Prophylaxis) to ten for a terrific chapter/mini-course on Rook Endings. In between are especially yummy chapters on motifs especial to GM Andersson's praxis - An Original Exchange of Bishop for Knight - Fighting Against the Hedgehog - The Positional Queen Sacrifice - The Catalan Endgame. Fifteen chapters in all. 80 games, most of them fully annotated. Each chapter has a short but useful Introduction of the theme often with interesting historical backgrounder and tidbits.

The games themselves are well-annotated without the extremely deep engine-like analysis of variations that has become so popular. The focus is on following the main theme (and sometimes one or two sub-themes) of that game. I would rate them half-way between a Chernev annotation and a Nunn annotation.

Diagrams (8-10 per game) are of two types: Standard 'You are here' figures and back-grounded 'Quiz' figures just ahead of a key move or move series with a question to the reader such as 'How can Black inflict a weakness on White?'

I thought the book successfully accomplished its duel theme: I learned much about GM Andersson's style and even more about the various positional themes. My favoritie chapters were An Original Exchange of Bishop for Knight (7) and Rook Endings (13). The book is probably most valuable to players ELO 1600-2000.

If your thing is romantic attacking chess this might not be your tome. But if you enjoy positional chess at its finest, I give Grandmaster Chess Strategy a solid four stars out of five. I am a tough grader, having given five stars to only two books this decade.

What is Ulf Andersson's style? At his best, when motivated - and lack of same is probably what kept him from the super elite - a nice blend of Botvinnik, Petrosian and Karpov. There is no question he saw certain positions 'differently' and while the book doesn't make such a concept explicit, it is there if you look.

Alas, as a chess book collector for 45 years I loath the trend of almost all new books offered in paperback although I understand the monetary reasons for same. They don't sit flat and if - as I intend to this book - you read them multiple times - they age poorly. This book particularly has a weak spine that I've experienced in other NIC volumes. Another read and it is clear the not-so-perfect binding will fail. Not as bad as the old RHM paperbacks of the 1970s which basically disintegrated in front of your eyes, but nevertheless discouraging. My 1874 Bilguer will still be giving good service when this book is long gone. Other production values are OK although the diagrams are smallish, less then a full column (two per page) wide.

Also quite a lot of material in: 1) Myers’ Opening Bulletins, 2) Rand Springer magazine and 3) Kaissiber magazine. Five of the little ‘Trends’ booklets on the ‘Modern’ Defence.

No particular order: