Chess Reviews 45

Practical Endgame Play - Mastering the Basics
The essential guide to endgame fundamentals
By GM Efstratios Grivas
Everyman Chess

The book starts with an interesting Foreword by IM Georgios Makropoulos (Fide Deputy President and President of the Greek Chess Federation), which tells how the work came into being.

This is followed by an Introduction by Sotiris Logothetis, in which of J.R. Capablanca’s advice - study endgames - is reiterated.

The book you are holding aims to arm you as well as possible for this stage of the game.

Chapter one contains two pages highlighting ‘The Golden Rules of the Endgame’ (originally recorded by endgame specialists Rueben Fine and Pal Benko) arm and prepare the reader for the study material to come.

These include:

The King is a strong piece. Use it!

Passed pawns should be advanced as quickly as possible

Perpetual check looms in all Queen endings

Then it’s on to the meat of the book and the main contents of the 320 pages.

The material is presented in five section, namely:

Pawn Endings
Rook Endings
Minor Piece Endings
Rook and Minor Piece Endings
Queen Endings

There is, typically, one endgame position per page. Each example starts with a small prose assessment of the state of play followed by the remaining moves, fully annotated.
I found the assessments to be particularly noteworthy.

For example, chapter 29 looks at Rook v Minor Pieces endings and these are often neglected in books. It can be difficult to summarise the basic themes as the material imbalance can make things quite murky.

GM Grivas does a good job in highlighting several pertinent points:

According to the basic material evaluation scale, two minor pieces are equal to a rook and a pawn. However, in this type of ending the respective pawn structures, the initiative ands the collaboration between the pieces are of primary importance. When the pawns on the side with the rook are weak or fixed, then the minor pieces can easily attack them and thus hold the upper hand. Otherwise, the rook is able to hold the balance and if the side with the rook possesses a passed pawn, the advantage usually passes to this side. Finally, we should note that a bare ending without pawns is, of course, drawn.

I did notice a couple of surprising omissions. Drawing possibilities with King and Knight v King, Rook and pawn are discussed but the most famous practical example is absent, as far as I can see.

Emanuel Lasker - Edward Lasker
New York 1924

White drew by holding position, with the Knight oscillating between b2 and a4.

With pawns for both sides, the general advice given here is:

The closer the pawn is to the edge of the board, the easier the win is for the side with the rook! This exception, in comparison with other types of endings, is characteristic of the downside of the Knight.

The best demonstration I have seen of the theme is undoubtedly this cute finish:

Capablanca - Emanuel Lasker
Blitz Match 1914

White won after 1 Ra8+!


A good way to get the most out of the material would be to set up the positions and play them against Fritz or even a human sparring partner.

This is an impressive book and an ideal companion volume to Practical Endgame Play - Beyond the Basics (see my archive for the review). More experienced players shouldn’t be put off by the word ‘basics’ in the title either; there is plenty of challenging material here for the club and tournament player.

Secrets of Spectacular Chess
(Second Edition)
By GM Jonathan Levitt & FM David Friedgood
Everyman Chess

The first edition of this book, published by Batsford way back in 1995, created a very favourable impression. The second edition, running to just under 290 pages, contains a substantial amount of new material. GM Levitt explains in the new preface why it seemed best to update the original volume rather than create a sequel.

Part One: Background and Context (listed in the book as Black Part One but that us surely an editorial mishap)
Introduction

Part Two: The Elements of Chess Beauty
Paradox
Depth
Geometry
Flow
Part Three: Sampling the Spectacular
The Poetry of War: The Aesthetics of Practical Play
Tactical Fantasies: The Charm of Studies
Art for Art’s Sake: The Delight of Chess Problems
The Weird and the Wonderful: Unorthodox Problems
Further Considerations on Chess Aesthetics
Solutions to Exercises

The elements of chess beauty are identified as Paradox, Depth, Geometry and Flow and the relevant chapters provide lots of evidence to fit the theory.

The authors present an outstanding amount of examples representing the beautiful side of chess. Of course, beauty remains in the eye of the beholder but this book strikes gold with it’s extraordinary collection of real-life games, problems and studies. The crossover of the two genres is very difficult to master; it’s one of the curious boundaries in chess that very few seem willing to cross.

I’m sure that most chess players are more likely to be attracted to studies that are quite ‘lifelike’, such as this one:

Draw
G.N. Zakhodiakin
Chigorin Memorial 1950

The book will give you a full explanation of all the twists and turns; I shall just give the moves so you can judge for yourselves if this sort of study appeals to you. If it does, then you’ll enjoy the plethora presented throughout the book.

1 Rc7 Rb8+ 2 Kxe7 Rb7! 3 Rxb7 c1=Q 4 Ke6+ Kg6 5 h5+! Kxh5 6 Rg7!!

…with a drawing fortress that cannot be breached.

There are two ways to approach this book. One could read it slowly, from cover to cover, and assimilate the full amount of material on offer or one could use it as one of the best-ever ‘dipping in’ books. Virtually every page features extraordinary examples of spectacular chess, guaranteed to amuse, amaze and entertain.

Here’s three randomly selected examples of what to expect…

White to play: mate in five moves
Composed by Giegold & Engel

Kosten - Farago
Amanta 1992
White to play: mate in four moves

Averbakh - Kotov
Zurich Candidates 1953

This a famous position. Kotov lit the blue touch paper and went on to win brilliantly after 30...Qxh3+!!

There are examples such as these throughout the book. It’s a real treasure trove of some of the finest gems, jewels and trinkets from all corners of the chess universe.

The new material for the second edition includes:

A new foreword by GM Levitt
An extended Introduction
Numerous additions to various chapters (including a full analysis of the classic Kasparov - Topalov clash from Wijk aan Zee 1999)
Chapter 10 is completely new and considers feedback from the first edition plus a look at ‘helpmates’ and other weird and wonderful items.

No self-respecting book on spectacular chess would be complete without this oft-quoted snippet (thus far my greatest claim to chess infamy):

Norwood - Marsh
Walsall 1992
White to play and finish off in style!

Even if you own the original, this new edition is well worth a place in your collection.

Starting Out: The Accelerated Dragon
By IM Andrew Greet
Everyman Chess

I enjoyed the previous works by IM Greet (see archive for my review) so I was looking forward to his coverage of the Accelerated Dragon.

The first thing to notice is the page count; at 320 pages it’s surely the biggest (so far) of the ‘Starting Out’ range.

A short history of the opening is followed a summary of the author’s experiences with Accelerated Dragon and a basic overview. Important differences between this and the ‘normal’ Dragon are briefly discussed also.

The first chapter covers the Hyper-Accelerated Dragon (1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 d4 Bg7!?) and then the rest of the book analyses Classical lines (one chapter), Yugoslav Variations (two chapters) early Nxc6 by White (one chapter) and then five chapters on the very important and popular Maroczy Bind.

The Accelerated Dragon played a part in my own repertoire back in the 1980s. Mike Closs and I did some work on it together using David Levy’s book as a guide, having moved on a bit from the standard Dragons. Mike kept it in his repertoire whereas I moved back to the French following a couple of losses (and frustration at rarely getting main line Sicilians over the board - the 1980s were rife with anti-Sicilians systems until people started following John Nunn’s lines from ‘Beating the Sicilian‘.) So it was with the company of a few burning embers of former knowledge and experience that I approached this new book.

The differences between this and the Dragon are best demonstrated by a line in the Yugoslav chapters.

In this position, Black has played a good developing move instead of the standard Dragon …d7-d6. This gives the significant option of playing …d5 in one go.

To gain an extra tempo after only eight moves is quite an achievement under any circumstances. When we are dealing with a sharp, tactical variation involving opposite-sided castling, the importance of every move increases enormously.

In fact there are several such move-order tricks adopted by Black and it’s very easy to imagine club players being unaware of the nuances as they blithely head for what they think is a transposition to normal Dragon lines.

One of the suggested lines against the Maroczy Bind features the remarkable plan dreamed up by the great free thinker Bent Larsen.

In a game against Anatoly Karpov (Brussels 1987), after the moves:
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.c4 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Nc3 Ng4 8.Qxg4 Nxd4 9.Qd1 Ne6 10.Rc1 Qa5 11.Qd2 b6 12.Be2 Bb7 13.f3 h5 14.0–0

…Larsen showed more of his idea with 14...g5!?.

Later in the (eventually drawn) game, Black’s dark-square control was apparent.

It’s an intriguing and attractive way of playing, but it does come with a health warning and this book reveals a strong-looking White counter.

It is quite possible to get into Accelerated Dragon lines via other openings, such as the English Opening. A list of common transpositions wouldn’t have been out of place in a Starting Out book but with 320 packed pages a lack pf space could be the reason that one wasn’t included.

There are a couple of things that could have been tighter, editorially speaking. On more than one occasion the reader is referred to a diagram on a different page (and not just the facing page either). The sheer amount of material probably led to some diagrams being doubled up to preserve space. There’s a bit of repetition on page 80 when the author relates the tale of how he ‘…suffered a swift, painful and humiliating defeat’; the very next sentence tells how he ‘…went on to suffer a quick and humiliating defeat’.

All in all, IM Greet has done a very thorough job and this book can be readily recommended to all readers interested in getting to grips with this interesting opening. I’m sure that those who already have the Accelerated Dragon in their repertoire will find plenty of interesting material too.

The strategies, themes and traps are all very well explained and just as in other volumes in the ‘Starting Out’ series, the book is replete with ‘Tips’ ‘Warnings’ and other valuable general advice.

For further details of these and other Everyman products, please visit: http://www.everymanchess.com/

Missed a review? Pop along to my archive:
http://marshtowers.blogspot.com/2007/12/chess-review-archive.html

The Hawk Attacks: 24 Qf5

The Hawk has played another very strong move in our ongoing correspondence game.

24 Qf5 threatens to end the game instantly. How can Black defend? Please vote for the next move in the usual ways.

Closing date: Midnight, Wednedsay 7th May

Can The King Survive?

The Rest of the World team has played 23...Kf8 against The Hawk.

The King is trying hard to find sanctuary behind his last unmoved pawn!

Chess Reviews 44

The Survival Guide to Rook Endings
By GM John Emms
Gambit Publications

(This is reissue of the 1999 volume, with updated analysis thanks to the latest tablebases)

Rook endings are still officially the most common so it makes good sense to learn something about them. Endgame books, generally speaking, aren’t as attractive as books on openings to the average player but it’s refreshing to note the sober title; this is indeed a survival guide and not a rash claim to be able to ‘force a win’ or ‘win brilliantly’ (or anything piece of opening-book hyperbole) in Rook endings.

Study of the survival guide will definitely save - and gain - points at the chess board. There’s no doubt about it; knowledge of just the classic Lucena and Philidor positions alone will guarantee a decent return for you invested study time.

Starting with the very basics, the first position in the book leads on to a demonstration of how to mate with Rook and King v King.

Things get meatier straight away with the very famous - and highly entertaining - Saavedra Position….

White to play and win. Not as simple as it looks!

GM Emms always writes very readable books and at no stage does he leave the reader in the dark. The material has been chosen for practical reasons so it is not encyclopaedic; nevertheless, there is still a very methodical approach when it comes to building up the reader’s knowledge.
There are plenty of astonishing moves, despite the reduced material. For example, it’s amazing to find that in this position…

Lerner - Dorfman
Tashkent 1980

…there is only one winning move: 71 Rf2! The key point is that after the more obvious 71 Kb7 Kf6! 72 Kc6 Ke5! Black succeeds in ‘shouldering’ the enemy King.

The shortest section, featuring double Rook endings, misses one important aspect; with extra firepower it is often possible to sacrifice a pawn or more to massively increase the activity of the Rooks, leading to a significant increase in practical chances. The following is a classic example (curiously overlooked by endgame books)...

Sahovic - Korchnoy
Biel 1979

Black sacrificed two pawns and brought the game to a swift conclusion.

39...h5+ 40.Kxh5 Rd8 41.hxg5+ Kf5 42.Kh6 Rh3+ 43.Kg7 Rd7+ 44.Kg8 Kg6 45.Rf2 Rg7+ 46.Kf8 Rh8#

Nevertheless, this is an impressive and well-written guide and one of the most accessible and practical endgame books around. As the author says, it is ‘…a book for the survivor and not the connoisseur’!

Several exercises are given at the end of each chapter (28 positions in all). Here are a couple of samples.

The main three moves here are 1...Rd2+, 1...Rb2 and 1...Ra2. What are trhe verdicts on them?

Can White force a win in this position?

Jon Speelman’s Chess Puzzle Book
By GM Jon Speelman
Gambit Publications

GM Speelman starts off with a short introduction in which he outlines his reasons for writing the book and he whets the appetite of the reader a general discussion about tactics.

‘…There is a fairly simple message which is worth hammering home: tactics is a combination of vision and calculation; both are necessary and neither is obvious - even to the best players - during the hurly burly of practical play.’

There follows a short explanation on the subject of ‘vision’ and ‘calculation’, complete with a now-customary swipe at Kotov’s ‘Tree of Analysis’ method.

Soon, the reader is plunged into the world of tactics and there are plenty of positions to solve. The book is split into two main parts.

Part 1: The Elements

Knight Forks
Loose Pieces
Opening and Closing Lines
Pins
Skewers
Overloaded Pieces and Deflections
Mating Attacks
The Back Rank
Stalemate
Pawn Promotion

Each section gives a number (between 12 and 34) of reasonably simple examples of the theme in question, enabling the reader to develop a skill for pattern recognition. Little clues are often given and the answers are on later pages, thus removing the curse of the (involuntary?) roving, spoiling eye.

Part 2: Tactics in Practice

Finger Exercises
Mixed Bag
Tougher Examples

The first two parts give present 48 exercises, still not too difficult, but all aimed at further developing the tactical vision of the reader. As the tests are no longer categorised, the reader must first decide what is on offer from the whole gamut of tactical possibilities covered in part 1. 42 Tougher Examples conclude the work.

It’s a bright and breezy read, ideal for a quick feel-good solving session to warm up before your next game and, provided there’s not a hoodie sitting next to you, a great way to pass the time on the bus or train.

The puzzles start off with a very elementary Knight fork but things build up nicely through the book with some tricky stuff capable of making stronger players pause for thought. Good fun!

Here’s a few of the Tougher Examples to test your powers (sorry - no clues!).

Black to play

White to play

Black to play

And finally, your chance to ‘beat’ two of the all-time greats.

White to play.

Imagine you are White against Kasparov here! Khuzman was…

and he forced a swift resignation.

White to play.

Can you KO Karpov from here?

Gambit’s book covers continue to show imagination and originality. The Puzzle Book shows a number of tactics in the guise of specimens of various dangerous-looking lotions and potions and The Survival Guide to Rook Endings depicts a lonesome Rook presumably ably surviving on a seemingly endless chessboard desert.

For the anwswers to the problems above - and plenty more - you're going to have to buy the books.

Further details of GAMBIT books are available over at: http://www.gambitbooks.com/

The Hawk v RoW: 22...a5 23 Ng7+

The Rest of the World, worried by the prospect of White's Rooks being doubled on the seventh rank, opted for 22...a5. The Hawk (fresh from sharing first place in the Durham Open tournament thanks to a last-round demolition of a Grandmaster) has repled with 23 Ng7+

What should Black play now? Please vote in the usual ways. Closing date: Midnight, Wednesday 30th April.

The Long Weekend

Scarborough Literature Festival
The Long Weekend….
17-20 April 2008

I was delighted to be able to attend part of the Second Scarborough Literature Festival.
Real-life activities prevented me from being there for the first two days but I made up for it by booking tickets for all of the Saturday events and most of Sunday’s too.

For many years I played at the Scarborough Chess Congress, in October, at The Corner Café. Although the Café is no longer there (flats are being built on the site), the weather seemed to be just as I remembered it (very cold with a permanent threat of rain), despite the difference of several months. However, as the activities were all indoors, the outside temperature had little bearing on proceedings.

Rather than go into too much detail about the specific works of the authors on show (a simple Google search will speedily lead you to their individual websites) I shall give a little overview of the weekend as I experienced it.

The main venue was the Scarborough Library Concert Hall - and what a magnificent room it is. Tastefully done out in purple and lilac, there were approximately 220 seats and nearly all were filled for every panel I saw.

The first one I attended featured Helen Dunmore and Deborah Moggach and was hosted by James Nash.

As this was my first such festival, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect; this panel nicely set the scene for what was to follow. The format worked very well. James made an excellent host and knew exactly when to speed things along and when to allow conversations to run their course. A general discussion with both authors was followed by a deeper talk about their individual work. This led to readings by both guests and then questions from the audience. The final part was a quick chat based on books recommended by the audience as being well worth a read.

An impressive Crime Panel assembled for the afternoon session, featuring Mark Billingham, Stephen Booth, Denise Mina and Natasha Cooper, with the latter in the role of host. A loose theme running through the hour was to show that crime writers, despite the grisly body-count, are actually nice, normal people. Sex scenes were discussed also, with Mark making the point that writers can provide detailed descriptions of horrible murders, with nobody believing the authors have ever committed such atrocities, but as soon as a sex scene is committed to paper readers assume it’s written from experience!

Blake Morrison was a very interesting guest. His early life was recently filmed ('And When Did You Last See Your Father?'); surely a mixed and interesting experience for anyone. He spoke about that for a little while but there was plenty of discussion about his poetry and his most recent novel, South of the River, from which he read a couple of sparkling and witty passages.

The final event of the Saturday was an extended (90 minute) panel with a terrific mixture of personalities. Christopher Brookmyre, Justin Cartwright and Jasper Fforde are all very successful writers with completely different styles to each other. They told how they all became writers and discussed lots of other aspects of literature before reading fascinating passages from their own books.

I have read a number of books by Sunday’s first guest, Steve Cole. A lot of his more recent writing is for young children and for his hour the Concert Hall was packed with enthusiastic Astrosaurs fans. Steve certainly knew how to pitch his talk perfectly to his predominantly young audience and his lively readings kept everybody amused and entertained for the full hour (not an easy task with children, believe me).

Carol Drinkwater came directly from her home in France for the Festival and proved to be an especially popular guest. A very natural speaker, she needed no host but had the audience enthralled by the story of her life and how she became so involved with olive trees and the genesis of her writing on the subject.

It was very interesting to hear that most of the writers don't always know how their books are going to end and in some crime cases aren't even sure 'whodunnit' until quite late on. The strong central idea is always in place but the characters often take the author in their own direction.

Another thing most authors happily agreed with: the writer's life is not a secure one and they are forever expecting someone to tap them on the shoulder and demand they get a real job!

Guests I didn’t manage to see included Ian Rankin, Susan Hill, Joanne Harris and Simon Armitage. Maybe next year!

As can be clearly seen, the Festival attracted some very big names. Judging by the amount of people in attendance and the various comments I heard over the weekend, the whole thing was a resounding success. I certainly had my horizons broadened, my enthusiasm fired and my imagination inspired. The wallet was not too depleted though, as prices were very reasonable. For example, a day ticket for all of Saturday’s events was just £19 and I think that is excellent value for money.

In addition to writing tales and tips, plenty of other insider knowledge was revealed over the weekend. For example, ‘staff recommendations’ in certain shops are actually more like paid adverts by publishers; and ‘3 for 2’ offers are financially sweetened by publishers too, to the tune of a five-figure sum. Fair enough - but it’s easy to see that big publishers are holding all of the aces in that particular selling battle.

North East England needs more events of this calibre. Hopefully, this time next year, I will be writing about the third Scarborough Literature Festival.

Well done to all concerned for producing such an excellent and inspirational event. I’m sure the hard-working staff will feel their efforts were all worthwhile.

Further information, including a list of all of the event’s sponsors and supporters, can be seen over at the website: http://www.scarboroughliteraturefestival.co.uk/

22 Rxb7

The Hawk has swooped and picked off a weak pawn. The position is looking increasingly poor for The Rest of the World.

Latest move: 22 Rxb7

What is best for Black now? The Rest of the World are invited to vote for the 22nd move, in the usual ways.

Closing date for this move: 6.00 p.m., Saturday 26th April.