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Income tax refunds are in the mail. What chess books are worth buying with that extra cash? Which books will receive the least criticism in the family circle?
Perhaps to partially answer those questions, I have been looking through these very solid, recently published volumes:
The World Champions I Knew Genna Sosonko
Soviet Middlegame Technique Peter Romanovsky
Vassily Ivanchuk 100 Selected Games Nikolay Kalinichenko
With the Sosonko book, you might ask how someone born in 1943 could know Alekhine, who died in 1946 or Capablanca, in 1942? The answer is that he immersed himself in the émigré world of Russian Paris in the ‘20s and ‘30s until he was intimate with the facts of Alekhine’s life after his flight from Soviet Russia. He met with Capablanca’s widow, Olga, who was Russian by birth, and talked with her until he felt a connection with the life of the Cuban chess genius.
The other world champions he discusses are Euwe, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal and Petrosian.
Kasparov, in his introduction, writes that “the computer boon and the dominance of the sporting factor unfortunately shield the new generations from even quite recent (chess) history. This priceless experiment should not be forgotten” – hence the value of this book.
Keeping with this theme, how does a former world champion think of computers? This quote from Vasily Smyslov:
April 30, 2004 – I’ve created a miniature, a pawn endgame, do you have a pencil? Write it down..It’s this, it’s trivial, but I’m toiling over my 100th study now, nothing’s jumping out for me. I want it to be more complicated and more elegant..It was done and I gave it to the computer to check it..The calculating devils found a hole in one spot.
I’m working on a book – my 60 best games. I was looking at my game with Savon recently. And I found so many mistakes with the computer, just one mistake after another. And I considered that game one of my best.. Yes, the computer can outdo anyone now.
Very readable and just the size to put in a coat pocket and pull out to read when the family is otherwise occupied on an outing.
++++++++++
Peter Romanovsky published the famous guide to the middlegame in 1929, when he was Soviet Champion. He later decided to update and improve his work. As he finished it in 1942, he was trapped in the notorious siege of Leningrad and his manuscript lost. He finally recreated his improved book in 1960.
It is a big book – 416 pages with two big diagrams per page, which draws heavily on chess before 1950. It is so clear and so well presented that the reader will wish that he had this book when he was a teenager. It should be placed on the same shelf with the classics My System (Nimzovitsch), Questions of Modern Chess Theory (Lipnitsky) and The Russian Endgame Handbook (Rabinovich).
++++++
For his book, correspondence grandmaster and chess author Nikolay Kalmichenko selected over 100 of Ivanchuk’s best and most instructive games from 1985 to 2012.
It begins with a portrait, which contains this quote:
From what Ivanchuk said in 2011, we can conclude that the most difficult time for him is the period before an important competition, or even an important game. When a certain result is expected form him, he starts to expect if of himself. Consequently, the tension grows and his ability to generate ideas and prepare goes down as his organism begins to protest at the pressure from all sides!
But Ivanchuk would not be Ivanchuk, if he did not find a way of combatting these nerves (like playing blitz games between tournament rounds).
A beautifully produced book with beautiful games but I find it lacks the personal touch. It is a little cold and analytical. There are no anecdotes and no annotations by Ivanchuk himself that I can find on first reading. We will have to wait until Vassily himself gets around to writing up his best games.
From a really excellent interview in 2011:
Are you planning on writing a book about your chess career? For now your first and only book is a collection of games from the super-tournament in Linares in 1991…
Then there was “Vassily Ivanchuk’s Chess Novelties”. That’s not entirely my book, but it wasn’t written without my participation. There’s actually more material about me there than in the book on Linares. But that’s just a tentative draft. In future I’m planning on attempting something more serious and fundamental, with a detailed analysis of games.
Of course, that requires a lot of time. I think you need to write such analysis without the help of a computer, leaving yourself the right to make mistakes. Now anyone can turn on a computer, but readers are interested in knowing the thoughts of the grandmaster himself, his feelings and how he hesitated during the games.
http://www.chessintranslation.com/20...orld-champion/
Perhaps to partially answer those questions, I have been looking through these very solid, recently published volumes:
The World Champions I Knew Genna Sosonko
Soviet Middlegame Technique Peter Romanovsky
Vassily Ivanchuk 100 Selected Games Nikolay Kalinichenko
With the Sosonko book, you might ask how someone born in 1943 could know Alekhine, who died in 1946 or Capablanca, in 1942? The answer is that he immersed himself in the émigré world of Russian Paris in the ‘20s and ‘30s until he was intimate with the facts of Alekhine’s life after his flight from Soviet Russia. He met with Capablanca’s widow, Olga, who was Russian by birth, and talked with her until he felt a connection with the life of the Cuban chess genius.
The other world champions he discusses are Euwe, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal and Petrosian.
Kasparov, in his introduction, writes that “the computer boon and the dominance of the sporting factor unfortunately shield the new generations from even quite recent (chess) history. This priceless experiment should not be forgotten” – hence the value of this book.
Keeping with this theme, how does a former world champion think of computers? This quote from Vasily Smyslov:
April 30, 2004 – I’ve created a miniature, a pawn endgame, do you have a pencil? Write it down..It’s this, it’s trivial, but I’m toiling over my 100th study now, nothing’s jumping out for me. I want it to be more complicated and more elegant..It was done and I gave it to the computer to check it..The calculating devils found a hole in one spot.
I’m working on a book – my 60 best games. I was looking at my game with Savon recently. And I found so many mistakes with the computer, just one mistake after another. And I considered that game one of my best.. Yes, the computer can outdo anyone now.
Very readable and just the size to put in a coat pocket and pull out to read when the family is otherwise occupied on an outing.
++++++++++
Peter Romanovsky published the famous guide to the middlegame in 1929, when he was Soviet Champion. He later decided to update and improve his work. As he finished it in 1942, he was trapped in the notorious siege of Leningrad and his manuscript lost. He finally recreated his improved book in 1960.
It is a big book – 416 pages with two big diagrams per page, which draws heavily on chess before 1950. It is so clear and so well presented that the reader will wish that he had this book when he was a teenager. It should be placed on the same shelf with the classics My System (Nimzovitsch), Questions of Modern Chess Theory (Lipnitsky) and The Russian Endgame Handbook (Rabinovich).
++++++
For his book, correspondence grandmaster and chess author Nikolay Kalmichenko selected over 100 of Ivanchuk’s best and most instructive games from 1985 to 2012.
It begins with a portrait, which contains this quote:
From what Ivanchuk said in 2011, we can conclude that the most difficult time for him is the period before an important competition, or even an important game. When a certain result is expected form him, he starts to expect if of himself. Consequently, the tension grows and his ability to generate ideas and prepare goes down as his organism begins to protest at the pressure from all sides!
But Ivanchuk would not be Ivanchuk, if he did not find a way of combatting these nerves (like playing blitz games between tournament rounds).
A beautifully produced book with beautiful games but I find it lacks the personal touch. It is a little cold and analytical. There are no anecdotes and no annotations by Ivanchuk himself that I can find on first reading. We will have to wait until Vassily himself gets around to writing up his best games.
From a really excellent interview in 2011:
Are you planning on writing a book about your chess career? For now your first and only book is a collection of games from the super-tournament in Linares in 1991…
Then there was “Vassily Ivanchuk’s Chess Novelties”. That’s not entirely my book, but it wasn’t written without my participation. There’s actually more material about me there than in the book on Linares. But that’s just a tentative draft. In future I’m planning on attempting something more serious and fundamental, with a detailed analysis of games.
Of course, that requires a lot of time. I think you need to write such analysis without the help of a computer, leaving yourself the right to make mistakes. Now anyone can turn on a computer, but readers are interested in knowing the thoughts of the grandmaster himself, his feelings and how he hesitated during the games.
http://www.chessintranslation.com/20...orld-champion/
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