No comments about Japanese Chess: The Game of Shogi.

No comments about Lasker's Greatest Chess Games, 1889-1914.

5 comments about Secrets Of The Sicilian Dragon (Chess books).

1. The Sicilian in general (and the Dragon in particular), is known as a sharp tactical opening. So along comes a book which attempts to teach you the general ideas that seem to occur again and again. Instead of endless waves of mind-numbing brilliant tactical moves, the authors present a list of ten concepts that Black should keep in mind throughout the game. I still remember how my eyes lit up during an OTB game when I realized I could sacrifice the exchange on c3 (idea #3).

   The authors are clearly pro-Dragon, but they do make the effort to present the themes that White should pursue. There is a second list of nine themes for White, one of which (attacking the King along the h-file) has changed the way I approach going after the castled King.

   Be sure to note that this book, in keeping with its "idea" approach, does not attempt to analyze lots of lines. It presents the concepts and expects you to try them out over the board.




2. The Dragon is a excellent counterattacking opening for Black to include in his/her repertoire. However, by focusing EXCLUSIVELY on thematic elements of the Dragon and not including any theory, this book will leave Black players at a disadvantage against opponents who know their opening theory. I strongly recommend Winning with the Sicilian Dragon 2 by Chris Ward because it includes a nice mix of thematic elements along with the theory that is necessary to know when one is playing the Dragon. All in all, a good general overview, but a waste of money.



3. I bought this book because of one of my constant opponents played the Dragon exclusively (only recently he began to increase his repetoire with Najdorf and other Sicilian.) Overall he got a plus score on me. I also read some games of Fischer beating the Dragon (I feel good), then Sierawan poked fun of the Dragon (feel better), and Karpov killed Korchnoi's Dragon (feel the best). Then Kasparov is successful with the Dragon. Now I have mixed feelings about the Dragon (together with bad experience in the Dragon, I lost many games with either color!!!). I hoped to find a book to improve my score, And this book is not a long term work. It could provide a list of plans to use when you play white or black, but not deep analysis, only good for quick fix when playing speed chess. Buy book from GM writers is better choice, they have their record to back it up. 7.50 USD is OK for this book.



4. Too many players go through the opening simply by memorizing several moves without understanding why those moves are meaningful.
   This is an excellent book for understanding the ideas behind one of the most complex and entertaining opening lines available to today's tournament player: you'll not find lengthy (and boring) variations to study and repeat from memory in your games but you'll learn which are the plans that come with the Dragon variation. This is surely the best first step any player should take when learning this (or any other) opening line. Once you know how the opening works, then you'll be able to move to an advanced Dragon book filled up with lines and use it for further study and reference (and then you'll be able to see those lines in a new light and really understand them!).



5. i recieved this book for christmas and read it all day and i am now already using the dragon on the internet as black all the time. This book is excellent it explains everything you need to know to be able to win with the dragon. Another grreat eric schiller book. I highly reccommend it to anybody.

1 comments about A Legend on the Road: Bobby Fischer's 1964 Simultaneous Exhibition Tour.

1. This book is about Bobby Fischer's 1964 cross country trip in 1964, playing simuls against large crowds. Lots of newspaper clippings from the various cities, and personal stories from some of the contestants. I think Bobby won 94% of his games, averaging only about six seconds a move, while his opposition had much more time to study their position. Still, it is appearing that the only ones to draw or beat him were the top players from their respective States, and even the majority of those players went down.
   
   It is such a fun book though - because it has the annotated games from many underdogs who won their games. The "Davids" who slew Goliath - and never let their friends forget about it. Realize that by 1964, Fischer had already won the U.S. Championship many times before going on this fund raising exhibition tour.
   
   Finally, this is a good book because it shows some unusual lines - tricks that could acutually come up one day in one's chess career. It helps you see different approaches - than the extablished main lines - that resulted in in defeat, and victory.
   
   Mark in San Diego

No comments about Alexander Alekhine: Master of Attack (Masters (Everyman Chess)).

No comments about French Defence Advance Variation: Volume One (Progress in Chess).

2 comments about Rudolph Spielmann Master of Invention (Everyman Chess).

1. Born in 1883, Spielmann was among the top world-class chess players in the early part of the 1900s. Although he never held the top position for long nor achieved the legendary status of Lasker, Alekhine, or Capablanca, in most matches he held his own with them, losing by narrow margins. Spielmann made a mark historically and is studied by competitive and ambitious chess players of each generation for his sacrifices or combinations which in his own words were not always "necessarily sound but [leave] your opponent dazed and confused." This tactic can be seen in half of Spielmann's recorded games; whereas by comparison it was employed by other chess masters in only every fifth or sixth game. McDonald--chess coach as well as player on the international circuit--analyzes in detail many of Spielmann's games against top opponents focusing on his use of particular pieces in the kinds of sacrifices and combinations that distinguished his characteristic, formidable style of play.



2. There appears to be a movement gaining ground nowadays in the chess publishing world, that all books published on the game must be _instructional_ books: actually directed, whatever their putative topics, toward the more mundane goal of improving the readers' practical level of play and gaining him more ELO points. Biography, history, the philosophical aspects of the game, compositional artistry, general enjoyment --in short, everything peripheral to the game that an earlier and more literate era would have referred to as "chess culture" can be bowdlerized, scrambled, or jettisoned outright by an author and his database in the pursuit of elusive ELO gain.
   
   There is not much chess culture in "Rudolph Spielmann Master of Invention". People expecting a biographical games collection of Spielmann, like the 3-volume Spence collection of Spielmann 30 years ago, or a biography-plus-games collection of the sort that has become very trendy in recent years (Pope on Pillsbury, Hilbert on Napier for example, or even Ehn on Spielmann in German)will be sorely disappointed.
   
   McDonald's research and narrative gifts do not seem to extend to history, nor to biographical narrative. The volume includes a patchy and incomplete biographical "essay" with much of the usual suspect anecdotal material, lucid analysis of a small group of games McDonald considers to be Spielmann's best (here the author, as an undeniably gifted instructor and coach, does his finest work, though even these games are ripped loose from most of their biographical and historical moorings), and various chapters with some games, many game fragments frustratingly bereft of their openings, and numerous single problem-like positions organized on instructional thematic grounds so that the student can assimilate what McDonald feels to be the essential elements of Spielmann's play and incorporate these features into his own games.
   
   Now it is perfectly possible to write a very good biographical games collection with almost no delving into history, biography, or similar, at all. Andy Soltis proves this in his excellent (if apologetically titled for the instructional audience) "Why Lasker Matters". But what McDonald has given us is a hodge-podge of a book that really should not have seen the light of day at all in its current form. The reader wishing to be instructed can find any number of books to instruct him in whatever aspects of his game that need polishing, and these dedicated manuals will do the job better than twisting a historical figure into a pretzel for the purpose. On the other hand, the reader wanting a good (or even a coherent) biographical collection of Spielmann will have to keep waiting, because this title definitely is not it.
   
   Only the small chapter of Spielmann's "best games" presented for their own sake earns this book two stars. Without it the marking would have been still lower.

No comments about Tal The Magnificent.

No comments about Bird Variation in the Ruy Lopez.

5 comments about Invitation to Chess.

1. this book helped me go from a person not caring about chess to now being a very big part of my off duty time i take my magnetic set with me to all my appointments or anywhere i might have a waiting period,i get valuable time on my set and i also refer to the games in the book and try to learn from the great games illustrated in the book ,now i am trying to teach my family and friends how to play ,i am 30 yrs old if i had learned when i was younger i would be who knows,playing deep blue in a series :) ,i dream big . i also beat my friend i have been only playing for 1 year and he has been for 8years or more ,but he told me that i will never beat him in chess ,i love when someone tells me i am never going to do something i stayed with what i learned in the book and he underestimated my abilities and the day i beat him i will never forget the surprised look he had on his face. since then i have won matches 3 to be exact and counting i hope i can get more training from on line because i will be better than him or at least get to the point where we are splitting games, he has alot of chess books and he knows i am closing the gap real fast and i like the fact that he opened me up to this wonderful game.



2. this book helped me go from a person not caring about chess to now being a very big part of my off duty time i take my magnetic set with me to all my appointments or anywhere i might have a waiting period,i get valuable time on my set and i also refer to the games in the book and try to learn from the great games illustrated in the book ,now i am trying to teach my family and friends how to play ,i am 30 yrs old if i had learned when i was younger i would be who knows,playing deep blue in a series :) ,i dream big . i also beat my friend i have been only playing for 1 year and he has been for 8years or more ,but he told me that i will never beat him in chess ,i love when someone tells me i am never going to do something i stayed with what i learned in the book and he underestimated my abilities and the day i beat him i will never forget the surprised look he had on his face. since then i have won matches 3 to be exact and counting i hope i can get more training from on line because i will be better than him or at least get to the point where we are splitting games, he has alot of chess books and he knows i am closing the gap real fast and i like the fact that he opened me up to this wonderful game.



3. When I first learned the rules of the game, I found this book to be of great value, if only for the simple advice of "always ask yourself why your opponent played a certain move. What does he attack?" and "before your make your move, ask yourself what your opponent's best reply would be." You can find more comprehensive books, but this is my choice for a useful, friendly, quick guide to better chess. I'd buy this for a younger player or newcomer in a heartbeat. Why intimidate someone with a huge tome when you can painlessly improve with this volume?



4. Though this book is getting a bit old, a better beginners book has yet to be written. Getting into the habit of asking yourself "what does he threaten?" is crucial to the beginning player. They really should update it to algebraic.



5. I used "An Invitation to Chess" when I taught a grade school course in chess fundamentals. Of all the chess books I have seen geared purely toward the beginner, I found this to be the clearest, best organized, and, just as the subtitle claims, it is "A Picture Guide to The Royal Game."

   Lots of pictures help explain the moves and motions of a piece in the context of a larger strategy. Chernev and Harkness used photos of the board as well as standard board drawings. They require modernized, as the photos are a bit blurry, and the drawings have an old newspaper keyline look. The copy is succinct, but not dry. As a reader, I found it less clinical than many of the chess books with dozens of lines per opening.

   This is a long way from anything Lasker or Fischer wrote, but the audience intended here is looking to play the game effectively, unworried about becoming a grandmaster. At least, not yet.

   The content list breaks things down to subsections like "How the King Moves and Captures," and "How the Pawn Captures 'en passant.''" They provide a special section cautioning the new player of common mistakes, like "Premature Attacks," and "Pawn Grabbing with the Queen." This is invaluable because young players routinely shoot for point control over game control.

   I fully recommend "An Invitation to Chess" by Irving Chernev and Kenneth Harkness. Use this to teach your children, or use it to study up when they start to beat you.

   Anthony Trendl