Upcoming Chess Books

[Amit R]

Yes its nostalgia and a certain fascination based on interesting character and entertainment value but I will tell you this. I used to use Bobby Fischer's My Memorable 60 Games as a training exercise for my best students. Why - in short so many great strategic lessons in his games and high tactical alertness and accuracy. If he initiated a combination it fit into the strategy of a position. AND his analysis was so accurate and clear. First I would assign a game without notes and the students had to identify candidate moves and provide analysis. Only then would they look at the game in My Memorable 60 Games and discuss analysis. This got them to understand the games in great depth and they stuck in their memory. Those that did the work added a minimum of 100 rating points, usually a lot more. As all of them were 1600 or above this was pure gold.

Thank you for these insights, Hans.

[Amit R]

Upcoming Chess Books

May 30, 2021

I grew up with Bobby Fischer playing internationally as an underdog. I followed his play at Portoroz 1958 in CHESS magazine as a WCC qualifier and then, again at Curacao in 1962.

It wasn’t the “crazy” Fischer but the combinative Fischer during these years and it was a great story.

I reported his simul at Hart House in 1964.

Jumping ahead, I was studying in England when Fischer played Taimanov in Vancouver in 1971 and followed the games via Leonard Barden’s columns in The Guardian.

The 6-0 score was totally unexpected. I was talking to Bernard Cafferty shortly thereafter and I asked if there was anything about it in the Soviet Press. Bernard said that they were “as quiet as the grave”.

Eventually, I followed the games of the match at Reykjavik with stories in the British papers and on television every day. Almost everyone I met had some opinion of the play.

This was an exciting era for chess and the culmination of a 14-year run.

I get that many modern players think that Fischer was a crazy anti-Semite and should be totally ignored. One friend says that he blames Fischer entirely for not having a WCC match with Karpov and that is disgraceful.

I won’t try to defend Fischer but I still admire his best games and especially the play in his youth. He was bold, imaginative and relentless.

Now Taimanov, who was criticized for his match preparation and for his devastating loss, spent twenty years thinking about the match and his play and wrote his book in 1992. I can’t wait to read what twenty years of brooding and analysis has told him.

It has been announced that Tibor Karolyi has in preparation a book entitled The Road to Reykjavik. This is expected in October. A further volume on Fischer-Spassky 1972 is devoted to that match.

Thank you, Wayne, for sharing this personal slice of history.

[Wayne Komer]

Upcoming Chess Books

June 6, 2021

Winning

By Nigel Short

Quality Chess (2021)
Hardcover
416 pages
In English

Publisher’s Blurb

Grandmaster Nigel Short realised that every tournament win has a unique narrative and challenge. In this exceptional chess book, Short discusses eight of his foremost tournament wins, describing the drama with insightful game annotations and entertaining anecdotes. For those wanting to win in chess, this book is the place to start.

The Author

English GM Nigel Short was one of the most successful chess players of the 1980s and 1990s and was still in the top 100 well into his 50s. The peak of his career came in 1993, when he challenged for the World Championship in a match against Garry Kasparov.

From the Introduction

This is my first book, and it has taken a global pandemic for me to write it.

Some of you may be puzzled by this statement. Dozens of tomes have been published about me, and in a few of them, I have even been listed as the author. While it is true that I have composed, with pleasure, many hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles, I must confess that all books with my name on the cover – and with profound apologies to those who bought them – were all ghost-written.

All, that is, except an old, theoretical treatise of unexceptional quality called simply: The French Defence.
The story of that monograph is quite interesting, as it negatively affected my attitude towards chess publishers for decades afterwards.

In the late 1980s, I was approached by the veteran New Zealand International Master, Bob Wade, to write a pamphlet on the French Defence, for a series on opening trends that he was producing with his chum, Hilary Thomas (best known, at the time, as an author of the collected games of Mikhail Tal).

As I was then one of the strongest players in the world, it was undoubtedly a coup for the publisher that I accepted; particularly as the pay was rather modest. I asked Bob how long he thought it would take. He answered, somewhat optimistically, as it would transpire: “About a weekend.”

To my great surprise, I was then handed paper printouts of over 2,000 games, asked to arrange the material and, if possible, add some deep and meaningful comments. If I had not been concerned about the deforestation of the Amazon prior to that moment, I certainly was thereafter.

More than a tad suspiciously, I began work on this project, and it was quickly confirmed that I had been totally duped. It was a Sisyphean task, barely distinguishable from slave labour. After a couple of weeks, and more, I was nowhere near finishing the job. Having been so grossly misled, I submitted an incomplete manuscript, albeit with a strange, irrational feeling of guilt, and informed Bob that was all he was going to get.

When The French Defence duly appeared in print, it was not a pamphlet of no more than 60 pages, as the contract specified, but a whole book! I generally got on pretty well with Bob, but this was the only time I was really annoyed with him. However, he had such a bumbling affable manner, I was never quite sure how much of the blame for this deception was his, or that of his business partner, and so I forgave him.

The format of Winning is highly unusual. Indeed, I believe it is unique in the vast literature of chess. Rather than attempting to squeeze my entire career into a single volume, and failing miserably, or produce an entertaining, but grossly distorted, “best games” selection, in which I might con you into believing that I am a brilliant player; I have chosen instead to focus in detail on eight tournaments spanning several decades. Each a case study if you will.

The happy coincidence that I won all these events satisfies the author’s vanity, but at the same time I hope the inclusion of each partie, in order, will also serve a useful and instructive purpose. For it is only by examining all the games from a tournament that one gets a proper appreciation of how an event unfolded.

The selection is subjective and can by no means be described as the definitive list of my eight greatest tournament victories; although it also includes some of those. These are basically just some events that I am proud of in one way or another. As I have won over 70 tournaments, I could easily have chosen others. With the exception of the Anzali tournament (Chapter 8), which featured the rather rare Scheveningen System format, all the events contained herein were round-robins. This was a deliberate choice, as I am intending (if the book sells) that matches and open tournaments will be covered separately in future editions.

I hope, first and foremost, that the reader finds this book enjoyable. For a book that spends all of its life on the shelf is, frankly, worthless.

Contents

Foreword by Peter Svidler

Introduction

1 My Lucky Number 1 - Wijk aan Zee 1987
2 Don’t Stop me Now - Reykjavik 1987
3 We are the Champions – Amsterdam 1991
4 Happy – Tallinn/Parnu 1998
5 Bulls on Parade – Pamplona 1999-2000
6 An der Schönen, Blauen Donau
7 China Girl – Taiyuan 2003
8 A Hard Day’s Night – Anzali 2016

[Hans Jung]

This book will be a keeper with endless hours of enjoyment. Having not yet seen this how can I say that? Knowing Nigel - he is a wordsmith, an excellent story teller and raconteur and Ive attended his lectures and simuls so I know that he has excellent insights and knowledge to share.

[Wayne Komer]

Upcoming Chess Books

June 6, 2021

Genna Remembers

By Genna Sosonko

Thinkers Publishing (2021)
258 pages
In English
Both hardback and paperback

Publisher’s Teaser

(From Sosonko’s Introduction)

Half a century ago I left a country whose red color dominated a large portion of the world map. One way or another, the fate of almost every single person described in this book is forever linked with that now non-existent empire. Many of them ended up beyond its borders too. Cultures and traditions, and certainly not least of all a Soviet mentality, couldn’t have just left them without a trace. Having been transplanted into a different environment, they had to play the role of themselves, apart from certain corrections with regard to the tastes and customs of a new society. Nevertheless, every one of them, both those who left the Soviet Union and those who stayed behind, were forever linked by one common united phenomenon: they all belonged to the Soviet school of chess.

This school of chess was born in the 20’s, but only began to count its true years starting in 1945, when the representatives of the Soviet Union dominated an American squad in a team match. Led by Mikhail Botvinnik, Soviet Grandmasters conquered and ruled the world, save for a short Fischer period, over the course of that same half-century. In chess as well as ballet or music, the word ‘Soviet’ was actually a synonym for the highest quality interpretation of the discipline.

The Soviet Union provided unheard-of conditions for their players, the sort of which their colleagues in the West dared not even dream. Grandmasters and even Masters received a regular salary just for their professional qualifications, thereby raising the prestige of a chess player to what were unbelievable heights. It was a time when any finish in an international tournament, aside from first, was almost considered a failure when it came to Soviet players, and upon their return to Moscow they had to write an official explanation to the Chess Federation or the Sports Committee. The isolation of the country, separated from the rest of the world by an Iron Curtain, was another reason why talent and energy often manifested themselves in relatively neutral fields. Still, if with music, cinematography, philosophy or history, the Soviet people were raised on a strict diet that contained multiple restrictions, this did not apply to chess. Grandmasters and Masters, all varied in terms of their upbringing, education and mentality, were judged solely on their talent and mastery at the end of the day. Maybe that was why the Soviet school of chess was full of such improbable variety, not only in terms of the style of play of its representatives, but also their different personality types.

The system was built as a gigantic chess pyramid, at the base of which were school championships, which were closely followed by district ones. Later, there were city championships, regions, republics, and finally – the ultimate cherry on top – the national event itself. The Championships of the Soviet Union were in no way inferior to the strongest international tournaments, and collections of the games played there came out as separate publications in the West.

That huge brotherhood of chess contained its very own hierarchy within. Among the millions and multitudes of parishioners – fans of the game – there were the priests – Candidate Masters. Highly respected were the cardinals – Masters. As for Grandmasters, well…they were true gods. Every person in the USSR knew their names, and those names sounded with just as much adoration and admiration as those of the nation’s other darlings – the country’s best hockey players. In those days, the coming of the American genius only served to strengthen the interest and attention of society towards chess, never mind the fact that by that point it had already been fully saturated by it.

I was never indifferent to the past. Today, when there is that much more of it than the future, this feeling has become all the sharper. The faster the twentieth century sprints away from us and the thicker the grass of forgetting grows, together with the verified power of the most powerful engines, that world of chess will be gone soon enough as well. It was an intriguing and colorful world, and I saw it as my duty to not let it disappear into that empty abyss.

The Author

Gennadi "Genna" Sosonko (Russian: Геннадий Борисович Сосонко, Gennady Borisovich Sosonko; born 18 May 1943) is a Soviet-born Dutch chess player and writer. He has been awarded the title Grandmaster (GM) by FIDE and is a twice Dutch champion.

Born in Troitsk, Russia, Sosonko won the Leningrad juniors' championship in 1958. He legally emigrated from the Soviet Union to the Netherlands via Israel in 1972.

Sosonko has authored six non-technical chess books centering heavily on his chess life in the Soviet Union and his relationships with and memories of both leading Soviet players and lesser-known characters in chess history.

(2001). Russian Silhouettes. New in Chess
(2003). The Reliable Past. New in Chess
(2006). Smart Chip from St. Petersburg: And Other Tales of a Bygone Chess Era. New in Chess.
(2013). The World Champions I Knew. New in Chess
(2017). The Rise and Fall of David Bronstein. Elk and Ruby Publishing House.
(2018). Evil-Doer: Half a Century with Viktor Korchnoi. Elk and Ruby Publishing House.

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 An Opening of Four Knights and Two Jackasses
Chapter 2 The Panov Attack
Chapter 3 A Border under Lock and Key
Chapter 4 Note
Chapter 5 The Plane Ticket
Chapter 6 Are Cranes Not Better in the Sky?
Chapter 7 The Duke
Chapter 8 Everybody’s Favorite Uncle
Chapter 9 Carus Amicus (The Life and Death of Sergey Nikolaev)
Chapter 10 The Diviner and Two Kings
Chapter 11 With Your Shield or On It
Chapter 12 Making It in Life
Chapter 13 ‘Black-Print’ and ‘Bisects’
Chapter 14 For Ages 55 & Over Only
Chapter 15 Magnus Carlsen & Others

[Wayne Komer]

Upcoming Chess Books

July 18, 2021

Sometimes it pays to look back at what has been published before.

NIC is offering the following as an ebook for downloading.

Hein Donner
The Biography

By Alexander Munninghoff

New in Chess (2020)
In English
272 pages

Publisher’s Blurb

Hein Donner (1927-1988) was a Dutch Grandmaster and one of the greatest writers on chess of all time. He was born into a prominent Calvinistic family of lawyers in The Hague. His father, who had been the Minister of Justice and later became President of the Dutch Supreme Court, detected a keen legal talent in his son. But Hein opted for a bohemian lifestyle as a chess professional and journalist. He scored several excellent tournament victories but never quite fulfilled the promise of his chess talent.

Hein Donner developed from a chess player-writer into a writer-chess player. His provocative writings and his colourful persona made him a national celebrity during the roaring sixties. His book ‘The King’, a fascinating and often hilarious anthology spanning 30 years of chess writing, is a world-wide bestseller and features on many people’s list of favourite chess books.

The author Harry Mulisch, his best friend, immortalized Hein Donner in his magnum opus The Discovery of Heaven. In 2001 the book was adapted for film, with Stephen Fry playing the part that was based on Donner. Included in Hein Donner is the interview in which Harry Mulisch tells about his friendship with Donner.

After suffering a stroke at the age of 56, Donner lived his final years in a nursing home. He continued writing however, typing with one finger, and won one of the Netherlands’ most prestigious literary awards. Alexander Münninghoff has written a captivating biography of a controversial man and the turbulent time and age he lived in.

The Author

Alexander Münninghoff is an award-winning author from the Netherlands. He wrote the acclaimed biography of the man that was dethroned by Hein Donner as Dutch champion: former World Chess Champion Max Euwe. His memoir ‘The Son and Heir’ with the complex story of the Münninghoff family in the 20th century, is an international bestseller.

Preface

Quite soon after agreeing to write a book on Hein Donner, the misgiving crept up on me that, while in principle any human life can be couched in a biography, perhaps here we might be dealing with an exceptio donneriana, if not a praeclusio donneriana. After all, hadn’t everything chess-related that could be of any importance already been written down with a master’s hand by the subject itself, in pieces that had been eminently collected in The King by his paladins Tim Krabbé and Max Pam? And hadn’t Donner already granted us a good look into his psyche in his several volumes, which had been crowned with literary laurels? A second inspection taught me that my fear was entirely justified. During his life, contrary to all other chess players not only in the Netherlands but everywhere in the world, Donner made himself so emphatically and pointedly visible, both in speech and in writing, that there is in fact nothing to add. Donner cut the ground from under the feet of any biographer so thoroughly that we might just as well speak of a furtive ‘last will’ saying: ‘Don’t you dare write even one letter about me, you nincompoop!’ Which is an understandable demand from somebody who spent a big part of his life gravely insulting countless people. Nevertheless, a biography had to be written, of course. Not a hagiography – that would ridicule Donner posthumously and undeservedly – and neither should it be a diatribe against him. Preferably it should be a rendition, as objective as possible, of the quite chaotic life of a very controversial man.

I would like to thank in the first place my dozens of conversation partners: Hein’s family members and friends, enemies and rivals, who, without any noticeable restraint, each from their own little corner and in their own way, shed their light on the Donner phenomenon.

Of the official institutions, I’d like to thank the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (= International Institute for Social History) in Amsterdam for giving me inspection of the Provo archives, and the municipal archives of The Hague, who granted me access to the archive of the chess club Discendo Discimus.

Maarten de Zeeuw, who, as it turned out, had already spent a lot of time collecting Donner material with the intention to write his own book on the man sometime, especially surprised me by his stoic compliance. The amount of data he had already collected was impressive, and I have shamelessly made use of it.

I have often tried to imagine how I would feel if somebody else ran off with my subject, even using my material for his own glory. At such moments I felt a deep anger well up inside of me. Therefore, it is only fitting that I express my warm gratitude for the selfless collaboration to which Maarten de Zeeuw has managed to force himself, in spite of everything. The entire chess-technical part of this book was done by him, and in the biographical part he has saved me more than once from errors, painful omissions and mistakes.

I will gladly add that for his analytical work he was able to use the help of Harald van Dijk, grandmaster Lembit Oll and Evert-Jan Straat in several places.

For the chess player who takes this book in his hand, the result will be downright surprising: it turns out that several ‘evergreens’ have been wrongly evaluated for years, and, thanks to De Zeeuw’s detective work, the thought-provoking ‘Krabbé collection’ has been extended with sixteen games.

Alexander Münninghoff The Hague, 1994

[Wayne Komer]

Upcoming Chess Books

August 4, 2021

This is the first of two books I will be presenting that come from the publisher elk and ruby. It has been in existence since 2017 and has published 42 chess books to date. These usually are Russian-themed.

See: https://www.elkandruby.com

Eight Good Men: The 2021-2021 Candidates Tournament (2021)
By Dorian Rogozenco

Elk and Ruby (2021)
Paperback, 339 pages
In English

Publisher’s Blurb

The 2020-2021 FIDE Candidates Tournament held in Ekaterinburg, starring super-grandmasters Ian Nepomniachtchi, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri, Fabiano Caruana, Ding Liren, Alexander Grischuk, Kirill Alekseenko and Wang Hao, delivered an awesome display of fighting chess.

Grandmaster and FIDE Senior Trainer Dorian Rogozenco, coach of the German national team from 2014-2020, provides a comprehensive move by move analysis of all 56 games together with an assembled Dream Team of 13 super-class GM guest commentators including Garry Kasparov and Boris Gelfand. The commentary covers opening strategy and novelties, middlegame battles and instructive endgames, psychology and practical observations, together comprising a swathe of learning material valuable to players from club level to titled masters. The book is illustrated with a selection of official FIDE photographer Lennart Ootes’s best shots from both halves of the event.

The Author

Dorian Rogozenco is a German-Romanian Grandmaster originally from Chisinau, Moldova, born in 1973. He graduated from the Sports Faculty of the State Pedagogical University in Chisinau in 1994 and gained the Grandmaster title in 1996. He was coached by Vyacheslav Chebanenko.
Dorian has played in four Chess Olympiads. He was Moldovan Champion in 1994 and a winner of the following major tournaments as well as many others: Moscow GM 1992, Lvov 1995 (co-winner), Chemnitz 1997, Bucharest GM 1998, and International Hamburg Championship 2004. He has winner's medals from the national team championships of the Czech Republic (2019) and Romania (2008, 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2020). Dorian achieved a career-high Elo rating of 2577 in 1999. He qualified for the FIDE World Championship knockout stage in 2001 in Moscow and was a member of Ruslan Ponomariov's coaching team preparing for the planned world championship reunification cycle in 2003. He became a FIDE Trainer in 2011 and a FIDE Senior Trainer in 2019. He was national trainer of Germany in 2014-2020.

Dorian is the author of two books: Anti-Sicilians - a Guide for Black in 2003 and The Sveshnikov Reloaded in 2005, as well as the author or co-author of many chess DVDs. He was also Chief Editor of the Romanian chess magazine Gambit in 2003-2013.

Dorian has lived in Hamburg, Germany, since 2007.

Table of Contents

Index of Games
About the Author
Introduction
Players Overview

Round 1 – Code Black
Round 2 – Code White
Round 3 – Ding Strikes Back!
Round 4 – You Can’t Handle the Clock!
Round 5 – Nepo Shows us the Money
Round 6 – Nepo has the Mojo
Round 7 – MVL Halts the Juggernaut

Part I Photos

Round 8 – The Wrong Fortress
Round 9 – Anish Grabs His Chances
Round 10 – The Easy Win
Round 11 – Kasparov’s Choice
Round 12 – Code Red
Round 13 – First Among Equals
Round 14 – The Comeback Kid

Part II Photos

[Wayne Komer]

Upcoming Chess Books

August 4, 2021

This is the second of two recently published chess books by elk and ruby.

Nail It Like Nepo!
Ian Nepomniachtchi’s 30 Best Wins
By Zenon Franco

Elk and Ruby (2021)
Paperback, 236 pages
In English

Publisher’s Blurb

Ian Nepomniachtchi’s road from Grandmaster to becoming Magnus Carlsen’s world championship challenger in 2021 was a long one. GM in 2007 and Russian champion for the first time in 2010, Ian only hit the elite in recent years. His victory in Ekaterinburg occurred at his very first candidates tournament. In this book Grandmaster Zenon Franco analyzes Nepo’s chess through his 30 best wins and several fragments, considering his style, his strengths, as well as his weaknesses and how he has overcome them. Like Magnus, we see fighting, practical chess with a player not afraid to push his g and h pawns in front of his king, and a more aggressive than positional style. Above all, Franco compares Nepo to Lasker, Korchnoi and Magnus Carlsen himself. In instructional move by move format, we see Ian’s best wins against Carlsen, Anand, Kramnik, Giri, Aronian, Vachier-Lagrave, Svidler, Gelfand, Karjakin, and other elite players of the last decade.

The Author

Grandmaster and FIDE Senior Trainer Zenon Franco was born in Asuncion, Paraguay, in 1956. After living in Buenos Aires he moved to Spain, where he has lived for over 30 years. Zenon is the author of 29 chess books published in six languages and has been a regular chess columnist of the Paraguayan Hoy and ABC newspapers for the last 17 years. He also writes regularly for several chess magazines in Argentina, Italy and Spain. In 2017, he received the 2016 Isaac Boleslavsky book of the year award from the FIDE Trainers Commission.

Zenon was Pan-American Champion in 1981 (San Pedro de Jujuy, Argentina). He has participated in 11 Olympiads, from Haifa, Israel, in 1976, to Batumi, Georgia, in 2018. Zenon won the individual Gold Medal for the best result on first board at the Olympiads of Lucerne, Switzerland, 1982, and Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, 1990. He also represented Spain at the 1998 Olympiad in Elista, Russia. Zenon’s highest ever place in the Elo list was 66th in January 1982. As a coach, Zenon was director of the Escuela Kasparov Marcote de Galicia from 1995 to 1999. His most successful pupils include Grandmaster Francisco Vallejo Pons and IM David Martinez Martin, Spanish editor of Chess24.com.

In 2016, Zenon was granted an award by the Paraguayan parliament “in recognition for his invaluable and meritorious contribution to Paraguayan sport”: for his chess career and for his help in the development of chess in Paraguay.

The Games

Game 1: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Alexey Dreev, Aeroflot Open, Moscow 2008.
Game 2: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Hrant Melkumyan, EICC, Rijeka 2010.
Game 3: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Baadur Jobava, EICC, Rijeka 2010.
Game 4: Denis Khismatullin – Ian Nepomniachtchi, Russian Championship,
Moscow 2010.
Game 5: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Peter Svidler, Russian Championship,
Moscow 2010.
Game 6: Magnus Carlsen – Ian Nepomniachtchi, Wijk aan Zee 2011.
Game 7: Vladimir Kramnik – Ian Nepomniachtchi, Tal Memorial, Moscow
2011.
Game 8: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Yuriy Kryvoruchko, World Team
Championship, Antalya 2013.
Game 9: Peter Leko – Ian Nepomniachtchi, Danzhou 2016.
Game 10: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Evgeny Tomashevsky, Tal Memorial,
Moscow 2016.
Game 11: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Tal Memorial,
Moscow 2016.
Game 12: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Boris Gelfand, Zurich 2017.
Game 13: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Anton Korobov, World Team
Championship, Khanty-Mansiysk 2017.
Game 14: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Viktor Laznicka, European Team
Championship, Hersonissos 2017.
Game 15: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Viswanathan Anand, London 2017.
Game 16: Magnus Carlsen – Ian Nepomniachtchi, London 2017.
Game 17: Boris Gelfand – Ian Nepomniachtchi, Karpov, Poikovsky 2018.
Game 18: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Vladimir Kramnik, Dortmund 2018.
Game 19: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Georg Meier, Dortmund 2018.
Game 20: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Etienne Bacrot, Olympiad, Batumi 2018.
Game 21: Anish Giri – Ian Nepomniachtchi, Wijk aan Zee 2019.
Game 22: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Vidit Gujrathi, Wijk aan Zee 2019.
Game 23: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Yu Yangyi, World Team Championship,
Astana 2019.
Game 24: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Levon Aronian, Moscow 2019.
Game 25: Viswanathan Anand – Ian Nepomniachtchi, Zagreb 2019.
Game 26: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Liviu Dieter Nisipeanu, Dortmund 2019.
Game 27: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Jerusalem 2019.
Game 28: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Maxim Matlakov, Russian Championship,
Moscow 2020.
Game 29: Mikhail Antipov – Ian Nepomniachtchi, Russian Championship,
Moscow 2020.
Game 30: Ian Nepomniachtchi – Sergey Karjakin, Russian Championship,
Moscow 2020.

[Michael Yip]

The Short book is great! There are so many high quality books now and now enough hrs in a day or years in a lifetime to read. I try to go through a few games each morning. Also excellent are
-The Chess Endgame Exercise book-Nunn
-Rakhmanov's Secrets of Opening Preparation-Rakhmanov
-600 Modern Chess Puzzles-Kravtsiv,M

[Wayne Komer]

Upcoming Chess Books

August 19, 2021

Oops! I Resigned Again
By Ian Rogers

Russell Enterprises (2021)
Paperback, 160 pages
In English

Publisher’s Blurb

UH-OH! THAT DOESN’T LOOK RIGHT!?
Who would be silly enough to resign a tournament game they were not losing? As Oops! I Resigned Again! shows, almost anyone – including some of the world’s best players!

Learn the stories behind the most embarrassing moment any chessplayer can suffer, while trying to outmatch the poor, unfortunate player who resigned. Indeed, this is the only chess puzzle book where you cannot do worse than the player in the game! Pit your wits against legends such as Kramnik, Nunn, Tarrasch and Timman, knowing that they failed the test and that you can, perhaps, do better.

Australian Grandmaster Ian Rogers has assembled 100 extraordinary positions in themed sets of 5 puzzles designed to both baffle and delight the solver, in a format which makes it easy to sneak a look at the answer!

With a foreword written by US Olympian Sam Shankland – baring his soul about his own silly resignation at a top level tournament – Oops! I Resigned Again! is a rare treat for chessplayers of all strengths, who after finishing the book will fervently hope never to have to say... Oops!

The Author

Australian grandmaster Ian Rogers is a journalist, author and commentator. He was Australia’s top-ranked player from 1984 until his retirement in 2007. He played 14 Olympiads for Australia and won more than 130 classical tournaments on four continents, including twice winning the Commonwealth Championship title. He resigned unnecessarily only once! This is his first book for Russell Enterprises.
_________

шахматная пьеса с антрактом на ковид

Shakhmatnaya pyesa s antraktom na covid
Turnir pretendentov Yekaterinburg 2020-21
By Vladimir Tukmakov

Biblioteka Federatsil shakhmat Rossii (2021)
Hardcover, 240 pages
In Russian

Publisher’s Blurb

(A chess play with an intermission due to covid) Candidates Tournament. Yekaterinburg 2020-2021). Candidates tournament, played in Yekaterinburg, Russia, first half in 2020, second half in 2021. Eight players played each other in a double round robin tournament. Ian Nepomniachtchi won with 8.5 points from 14 games and became the challenger to Magnus Carlsen in the World Championship match. He was followed by Vachier-Lagrave 8, Giri and Caruana 7.5, Ding Liren and Grischuk 7, Alekseenko 5.5 and Wang Hao 5. The author annotates in detail all 56 games and also describes the events that were related to the tournament

The Author

Vladimir Tukmakov is a respected coach (Karpov, Korchnoi, Giri, So, Azerbaijan, Netherlands, etc.), he himself was formerly one of world's top players.
_________

Readers may have Part I of the tournament in Tukmakov’s A Feast of Chess in Time of Plague, Thinkers Publishing (2020), 160 pages.

There is also the book Eight Good Men: The 2020-2021 Candidates Tournament (2021) by Dorian Rogozenco, Elk and Ruby (2021), 339 pages. See the listing in ChessTalk

https://forum.chesstalk.com/forum/ch...ge7#post214535

Post #97

[Michael Yip]

Winning-Short is a fantastic book! It is not necessary to be a 1.e4 player to appreciate the commentary

[Wayne Komer]

Upcoming Chess Books

August 22, 2021

Miguel Najdorf, El Viejo. Life, Games and Stories
By Zenon Franco

Thinkers Publishing (2021)
Paperback 720 pages
In English

Publisher’s Blurb

(Introduction by Zenon Franco)

Writing about Miguel Najdorf is one of my greatest pleasures as a chess journalist and writer. Having known him is a privilege of which I quickly became aware, along with Sergio Giardelli, who had more dealings with him than I did. A few years ago we agreed that both of us could say “I knew Mozart”, not the real Mozart, of course, but referring to someone who reached the highest point of the discipline he embraced. Najdorf did so with the utmost passion.

I never felt able to call him “el Viejo” (literally “The old man”), as everyone, himself included, called him; I think it sounded disrespectful to me because of my Guarani roots, although obviously no disrespect was implied.

The first time I heard of him was through the magazine “Ajedrez”, and later through the occasional annotations of my mentor Bernardo Wexler, who had a high regard for Don Miguel’s chess strength.

I remember that in the 1970 Siegen Olympiad, where Najdorf played on the top board, and once again had to face the best players in the world, Wexler said, “If Najdorf wants it so, nobody can beat him, but he will want to win, and then he might lose; but if he plays for a draw, nobody can beat him”.

At that time I was unaware of the strength of the masters. The first time I went to the Club Argentino de Ajedrez (Argentine Chess Club) I watched several masters playing blitz games (or “ping-pong” games, as they used to say over there) and for me they were all very good, of similar strength. When I asked him who was the best, Wexler did not hesitate: “Najdorf, Najdorf.”

On another occasion Wexler mentioned one of Najdorf’s characteristic traits: his extreme competitiveness. He recalled that when he was eighteen he had once shared first place with Najdorf himself. Wexler was then only a second-category player and he was on cloud nine. Najdorf wanted to play a tie-break, which Wexler declined to do, explaining that he was very excited, quite unable to play, but Najdorf insisted over and over again, said he would give him the entire first prize if he played, etc.

He insisted so much that he persuaded Wexler to play and Najdorf won the tie-break. Not until many years later did Wexler manage to get over it. If we are completely honest, this aspect of Najdorf’s personality made him unpopular, but this is only one aspect of his personality.

In his book Chess Duels Seirawan speaks affectionately and admiringly about Garry Kasparov, explaining that there are “two Garrys, the Good and the Bad”, and that “if there is one person in the whole world I would want to represent chess and to speak to a sponsor, it is the Good Garry. He is witty, charming, erudite...”, while “the Bad Garry can be surly, angry and rude, making the most committed sponsor put his checkbook away and run for the nearest exit.”

This description of Kasparov reminds me a little of Najdorf, not exactly, but in Don Miguel there were also two personalities. One was Najdorf the competitor; as Oscar Panno commented, “when he was competing, the others were not rivals or adversaries, they were enemies, and he treated them as such.”

On the other hand, in his personality away from the board, in other words most of the time, Najdorf was pleasant, amusing, enthusiastic, interested in everything, with his strengths and weaknesses, like everyone else, but, as I was able to confirm on many occasions, basically a very good-hearted person.

Liliana Najdorf, one of his daughters and author of the book “Najdorf × Najdorf”, described him like this: “to say he was larger than life strikes me as an understatement. I look for synonyms that will help me to define him and in those words I find him: passionate, disproportionate, ostentatious, gigantic, extraordinary, overwhelming, marvellous. Wise”.

I had the great good fortune to get to know him, first through magazines and books, later by watching him play and later still by playing against him and being his frequent sparring partner in the marathon blitz sessions which were always a part of his life.

How could anyone not remember Najdorf’s sayings, repeated again and again, as entertaining as the first time he said them: “I had a ve-e-ery wise aunt, who used to say, better a pawn up than a pawn down”, laughing. “There are two ways of winning at chess, when you play well and your opponent plays badly, or when you play badly and your opponent plays worse”. “First the idea, then the move!”, etc., etc.

We shall summarise nothing less than seventy years of Don Miguel’s chess-playing life , and we shall take a brief look back at the history of chess in Argentina, sometimes seen through Don Miguel’s eyes, thanks to his own writings. All of this, and his games, will be discussed in the book.

Najdorf was the most important Argentinean chessplayer and he was an exceptional person; I feel privileged to have known him and to have spent time with him.

(Although the book has a certain biographical element, it does not claim to be an in-depth biography of Najdorf. To know more about Don Miguel’s private life it would be appropriate to read “Najdorf x Najdorf”, written by his daughter Liliana Najdorf and available in Spanish and English. it is a good idea to read both versions, for they are not identical.)

The Author

Grandmaster and FIDE Senior Trainer Zenon Franco was born in Asuncion, Paraguay, in 1956. After living in Buenos Aires he moved to Spain, where he has lived for over 30 years. Zenon is the author of 29 chess books published in six languages and has been a regular chess columnist of the Paraguayan Hoy and ABC newspapers for the last 17 years. He also writes regularly for several chess magazines in Argentina, Italy and Spain.

In 2017, he received the 2016 Isaac Boleslavsky book of the year award from the FIDE Trainers Commission. Zenon was Pan-American Champion in 1981 (San Pedro de Jujuy, Argentina). He has participated in 11 Olympiads, from Haifa, Israel, in 1976, to Batumi, Georgia, in 2018. Zenon won the individual Gold Medal for the best result on first board at the Olympiads of Lucerne, Switzerland, 1982, and Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, 1990. He also represented Spain at the 1998 Olympiad in Elista, Russia. Zenon's highest ever place in the Elo list was 66th in January 1982.

As a coach, Zenon was director of the Escuela Kasparov Marcote de Galicia from 1995 to 1999. His most successful pupils include Grandmaster Francisco Vallejo Pons and IM David Martinez Martin, Spanish editor of Chess24.com. In 2016, Zenon was granted an award by the Paraguayan parliament in recognition for his invaluable and meritorious contribution to Paraguayan sport: for his chess career and for his help in the development of chess in Paraguay.

[Emil Smilovici]

Fifty Shades Of Ray: Chess in the year of the Coronavirus Pandemic

Author: Raymond Keene OBE

Two reviews at amazon.ca - one of five stars , the other (more substantial) one star

Publisher blurb:
Inspired by both Daniel Defoe's 'A Journal of the Plague Year' (1722) and 'The King', an anthology of the witty and provocative chess columns of the Dutch Grandmaster, Jan Hein Donner, Ray Keene here collects his thoughts and writings on the year 2020 - both in chess and the wider world. His reflections include the impact of Covid-19 on the popularity of chess, the remarkable influence of the Netflix series 'The Queen's Gambit', the growing army of teenage Grandmasters, the online pivot of chess competition and the emergence of chess entrepreneurs, such as World Champion Magnus Carlsen and Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura.. Like Donner, Ray uses chess as a metaphor for observations on art, culture and civilisation.

Publisher : Hardinge Simpole Limited (April 20 2021) ; 302 pages

[Wayne Komer]

Upcoming Chess Books

August 26, 2021

Winning the World Open
By Joel Benjamin & Harold Scott

New in Chess (2021)
Paperback, 288 pages
In English

Publisher’s Blurb

Joel Benjamin and Harold Scott have delved into the tournament’s history, examined hundreds of games and conducted interviews with players that won the tournament on multiple occasions. Why have some players been so consistent in their performances and always battled for the top prizes? The authors found that many different paths were taken on the road to victory, but that the multiple winners definitely had one common factor: their fighting spirit! This book presents the history of the World Open in an entertaining tale of successes and scandals. A fantastic collection of the very best and most crucial games that were played over the years.

This book is as entertaining as it is instructive. The 50-year history of the World Open is an entertaining tale of success and scandals from Philadelphia, home of the tournament, written by 3-time US Champion Joel Benjamin and NYC chess trainer Harold Scott. The authors show that tournament strategy is more than accumulated game strategy. An accessible, entertaining and instructive book for a wide range of chess players.

The Authors

Benjamin was the U.S. Chess Champion in 1987 (sharing the title with Nick de Firmian), in 1997, and in 2000. He co-authored Unorthodox Openings along with Eric Schiller, for Batsford publishers in 1987, is a frequent contributor to Chess Life magazine and other chess periodicals, and is a regular commentator on the Internet Chess Club, usually presenting its Game of the Week webcast. His book American Grandmaster: Four Decades of Chess Adventures was a biographical work about his chess career. His latest book is Liquidation on the Chess Board: Mastering the Transition into the Pawn Ending. He is also a frequent contributor to Chess Life Online articles on the USCF website.

Harold Scott is a FIDE Instructor, a chess columnist, and a chess teacher and coach in the New York City area.

Debyut Elshada-3 ili univerzalnyy repertuar dlya bystrykh shakhmat i blitza
By Igor Nemtsev

Russian Chess House (2021)
Hardcover, 192 pages
In Russian

Publisher's Blurb

(The Elshad Opening-3 or the universal repertoire for rapid and blitz). Elshad's opening is characterized by the set-up a) for White: c3, d3, usually followed by Qa4, Nd2, also h3, g4, etc. b) for Black: 1.d4 c6 2.c4 d6 followed by Nd7, h6, g5. Two books have already been published on The Elshad System - the first one for Black- and the second one for White repertoire. This third book is a free continuation of the previous volumes. It contains opening novelties and hundreds of new games. There are games in which grandmasters such as Sergei Shipov and Vladimir Kramnik were defeated in this opening, or the winning game played by Jan Nepomniachtchi. One chapter is devoted to advice on how to play against Elshad's opening. The opening is named after the Russian chess player Elshad Mamedov.

The Author

FIDE Master Igor Nemtsev is a veteran chess trainer in Russia. He confounds opponents with the Elshad as White or Black on a variety of Internet chess sites.

The Elshad for White and The Elshad System are both available for download at amazon.ca. They are in English, if you are looking for a new opening!

[Wayne Komer]

Upcoming Chess Books

September 2, 2021

The Sinquefield Chess Generation
Young Guns at Work
By Alex Colovic

Thinkers Publishing (2021)
Paperback, 280 pages
In English

Publisher’s Blurb

The idea was to write about the best players in the USA born at the turn of the century. These players grew and blossomed thanks to the continuous and generous support by the world’s biggest chess patron, Rex Sinquefield and the Saint Louis Chess Club. Their success changed the scenery of American chess, set new standards and propelled the country as the promised land for new talents.

In the book, the author discusses the style of young American players, most of whom are about 20 at the time of publication: Andrew Tang, Jeffrey Xiong, Samuel Sevian, Akshat Chandra, Awonder Liang, John M. Burke.

Colovic: Most of the players in this book turned 20 in 2020. I intended to analyze their styles while they were still juniors; therefore the latest games I consulted were from early 2020. I was absorbed by Botvinnik’s analysis, but nobody writes like that today. In the words of Toni Morrison, “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet then you must write it.” That is how this book came into existence.

The Author

Alex Colovic was born in Skopje in 1976. He has a BA in English Language and Literature and became grandmaster in 2013. A chess professional for more than twenty years, participated in more than two hundred international tournaments around the world, won dozens of them and holds seventeen Macedonian team championship titles. He scored the best result on the Macedonian team (7/10) at the 42^nd Chess Olympiad in Baku in 2015, vice-champion of the 4NCL with Cheddleton for three years in a row (2015, 2016 and 2017) and scored a top result on board four the Cheddleton at the European Club Cup in 2015 with 5.5/7. In 2017, in debut as coach and captain, won the Italian Women’s Team Championship (‘Il Scudetto’) with the team Caissa Italia Pentole Agnelli.

In 2017, as head coach of the Macedonian women’s national team (starting rank 30 out of 32), scored the best result in the country’s history by finishing 20^th= in the European Team Championship in Crete. In 2019 he was elected President of the Association of Chess Professionals.