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Understanding Your Chess
by James Rizzitano
In the late 1970’s and
throughout the 80’s a very talented player from the
Northeastern United States began to ascend through the chess
ranks. James Rizzitano showed great promise, eventually
earning an International Master title and then…he
disappeared for fourteen years to manage his software
business. Now he has returned with a new book,
Understanding Your Chess.
Gambit Publications Ltd., distributed in the
US by BHB International, Inc., 302 West North 2nd
Street, Seneca, SC 29678, or
www.gambitbooks.com,
has published Understanding Your Chess by James
Rizzitano, ISBN 1 904600 07 7 at $24.95 for the soft cover
edition.
First of all, this book
should have been titled Rizzitano’s Best Games of
Chess, but let’s face it – except for a few American players
who remember the young phenom, who would buy such a book?
Very few. So Rizzitano made a wise choice in giving the
book a more saleable title. Now the question is, does the
title accurately reflect what is contained in the book.
Rizzitano presents his games, not in chronological order but
in an attempt to lump similar themes in his games. He
begins by presenting games against some fairly big names –
Benko, Alburt, Miles, Larsen…but these are not always good
games. Some are too flawed to tack a “best” on – they are
there either for vanity or because the student can learn
something from them. Though each game is fairly well
annotated, at the end of the game Rizzitano gives three
“Game lessons,” practical advice derived from the game
itself. These lessons usually contain at least one
platitude, but sometimes the lessons do point out critical
points during the game, but these insights could just as
easily have been contained in the notes to the game.
Many of the games are
good games (Rizzitano was a fine player) and the notes are
healthy. But the games are twenty years old and obviously
the openings are too. There are, for some reason, a number
of positions from games played by Spassky, Tal, Capablanca,
Browne, Timman, and others, but exactly how some of those
games by the greats apply to the game under consideration is
a mystery to me.
So what does this book
mean to the reader? Once you get past the first chapter,
the reader can learn from these games. They generally are
interesting struggles against interesting players. The
notes are insightful. The openings are the openings of
twenty to fifteen years ago, but as the book is designed for
readers under 2300, this should not matter too much. So, if
it is entertaining chess, some instruction, and a flash from
the past that you enjoy, this is book worth looking into.
50 Golden Chess Games
by Tim Harding
Tim Harding has
produced some absolutely top-flight correspondence books:
Red Letters, 64 Great Chess Games, and now 50
Golden Chess Games, just to name a few. What makes a
chess book a good correspondence chess book? It should
reflect what correspondence chess is about, how it differs
from OTB play. It should contain games played by top flight
correspondence players, and the games should be important
contests. I have to give 50 Golden Chess Games top
marks in all categories.
Chess Mail,
http:www.chessmail.com/sales/golden50.html has published
50 Golden Chess Games by Tim Harding, ISBN 0-9538536-7-5
at around $25.00.
What makes correspondence chess different
from OTB? First, great accuracy in the opening, almost
always the latest theory of the opening is evident. At the
top level a TN is more to be expected than not. Second, the
middlegame tactics need to be very accurate, relatively free
from the blunders that occur OTB. And third, opening and
middlegame are sustained by analysis, analysis, analysis.
This is exactly what you will find, for the most part, in
50 Golden Chess Games. Why for the most part? There
are some games given for their historical interest, games
from the 1800’s, but 40% of the games are from the last ten
years and fully half of the games are from the last thirty.
And the names are there – Umansky, Berliner, Rause,
Sanakoev, Rittner, Timmerman, Elwert, Hamarat and many, many
more. This is the soul of correspondence chess. Buy this
book!
Winning Chess Brilliancies
by Yasser Seirawan
This is a republication of an earlier
edition. The idea has been seen before – notably by Irving
Chernev -- every move of every game is annotated. Twelve
games, “the best chess games of the last 25 years,” are the
meat of the book. This means the book is designed for the
novice player, rated, let us say, under 1600. To judge how
good, or how bad, the book is, three standards need to be
considered: the quality of the games selected, the analysis
of those games, and how that analysis is presented for the
novice player.
Everyman Chess, (formerly Cadogan Chess)
Everyman Publishers plc, distributed in North America by the
Globe Pequot Press, PO Box 480, 246 Goose Lane, Guilford, CT
06437-0480, has published Winning Chess Brilliancies
by Yasser Seirawan, ISBN 1 85744 347 0 at $19.95 for the
soft cover.
This was a good book the first time around.
I no longer have the original edition, but my memory doesn’t
tell me there is much of a change. The games are still
great fights, monumental struggles, rich in the art of
chess. You could hardly ask for a better selection of games
from the period 1972-1991. These are, indeed, brilliant
games. The analysis is not deep in variations, rather
Seirawan guides the reader with the ideas of what is going
on and uses concrete variations only when necessary. This
emphasis on understanding over calculation is beneficial to
students rated under 1600 who need to comprehend the ideas
behind the variations. Seirawan explains all this in a
slangy, breezy tone that would make a teenager feel
comfortable – a teenager of the eighties or nineties. Today
it makes the book-Seirawan sound a little like the aging
uncle who won’t settle down. At least he doesn’t sound
creepy. This is a very good book even if it is slightly
dated. If you have a teenager rated under 1600 you’d like
to buy a chess book for, you won’t go wrong buying this one
for him.
Or her.
Survival Guide for Chess Parents
by Tanya Jones
Tanya Jones is a chess mom. She is the
mother of the former British prodigy Gawain Jones. And like
a loving mother, she has placed a number of Gawain’s games
in the book at various intervals. The book is, after all, a
chess book and Gawain certainly plays chess. At nine he
beat an IM, but the addition of Gawain’s games is mostly
either fluff or proof that she is, indeed, a chess parent.
The games are annotated, I suspect by Gawain as there are
some pronoun slips in the notes. The milieu of Tanya’s
experience with chess tournaments for juniors is mainly
England so the flavor of the advice given is English
Nevertheless, the experience can be easily generalized. The
experiences this parent has are the experiences of many
chess moms and dads. Her advice seems right on target, and
the book is very readable.
Everyman Chess, Everyman Publishers plc,
distributed in North America by the Globe Pequot Press, PO
Box 480, 246 Goose Lane, Guilford, CT 06437-0480, has
published Survival Guide for Chess Parents by Tanya
Jones, ISBN 1 85744 340 3 at $18.95 for the soft cover.
What makes Survival Guide for Chess
Parents a valuable book is the advice given by Jones.
She has had the opportunity to raise a prodigy and thus
gained more exposure to the traps and foibles of being a
chess parent. Her advice makes sense to me, but I have
never been a chess dad. Nevertheless, it all seems to fit
together. I especially like the slangy, sharp tone of
Jones’ language. Unlike the Seirawan book reviewed above,
Jones’ language has an edge to it. She is sharp-tongued,
witty, and modern. A sample (Remember, this is
tongue-in-cheek; she is not recommending you behave in this
way): “You could, of course, try carrying out a complete
demolition job on your child’s character before each
tournament, reminding her that she is a mere worm in the
compost heap of creation and that she would be lucky to
defeat a small and academically challenged stick insect,
never mind a hall full of over-educated eleven year olds.
On the other hand, if you prefer not to incur a lifetime of
self-loathing and therapy bills, then you may have to accept
that this is a lesson she must learn for herself, and make
sure you are there to pick up the pieces.”
Sharp-witted, practical advice is the heft of
this book. I especially liked the advice to chess parents:
Learn the moves, learn the game, and while your child is
playing in his tournament, enter one of the parents’
events.
This is a good guide for chess parents. If
you have a young’un and are faced with taking him or her to
tournaments, buy this book.
Modern Chess Analysis
by Robin Smith
Amazing. Astounding. Excellent.
Extraordinary. Marvelous. Rewarding. Staggering.
Stunning. Surprising. That’s what my thesaurus says about
Modern Chess Analysis. Oh, yes, and I almost forgot
– wicked, dangerous, difficult and troublesome.
This is a book dedicated to the subject of
using computers for analyzing chess games, especially
correspondence games. Robin Smith is a cc Grandmaster (or
will be after the October meeting in Mumbai). It will open
your eyes to the use and abuse of computers; what they can
and can’t accomplish. There are many misconceptions about
computer analysis and Smith explores them in detail in this
book.
Gambit Publications Ltd., distributed in the
US by BHB International, Inc., 302 West North 2nd
Street, Seneca, SC 29678, has published Modern Chess
Analysis by Robin Smith, ISBN 1 904600 08 5 at $24.95
for the soft cover edition.
Robin Smith has changed my thinking about top
level correspondence play. In the US domestic play forbids
the use of computers, but at the international level,
computer use is not forbidden. Thus knowing how to use
computer analysis (and when not to use it) becomes an
important part of the modern correspondence master’s
technique. Smith discusses in six chapters 1) the relative
strength of computers versus humans including the exchange
sacrifice, piece imbalances, weak Pawn structures and
positional evaluation 2) Computer-aided analysis methods
including engine tournaments, correspondence modes,
blunderchecking, transpositions, and forced moves and the
horizon effect (“box canyons”). 3) Opening analysis with
emphasis on database statistics and Bookup 4) Middlegame
analysis with emphasis on deep tactics, outposts, weak
squares, King hunts, quiet maneuvering 5) endgame analysis
with endgame database statistics, tablebase endings, the
computers weaknesses regarding fortresses and perpetual
check, and passed Pawns. He puts it all together in a
chapter entitled, well…6) Putting it all together. He
discusses the history and future of computer chess. This is
the only weak chapter in a book that is beyond a shadow the
best book written yet on the use of computers to analyze
chess positions.
If you plan on playing international
correspondence chess at the higher class or above, buy this
book!
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