Game Collections and Bios

29/11 2009. Here's a couple of suggestions of books to give a chessplayer for Christmas!

Lately I've become interested in the Nimzo Indian for black. But the accompanying question of that choice is always, what to play against 3.Nf3 instead of 3.Nc3. Here I feel that the Queen's Gambit with Bb4 is the most tempting alternative as the resulting positions are very similar in spirit to the Nimzo Indian. It's not easy to find good book sources on the Bb4 systems though (the Ragozin and Vienna defences), but subscribing to chesspub.com will keep you updated on the latest novelties, and combined with some study of games in your databases and general books on the QG should provide a good basis for starting out with a new repertoire.

The downside of adding the QG instead of the QI is that there are some transposition one needs to be aware of, e.g. a Vienna with e3 instead of e4 is likely to end up in a QGA.

So, two other books that may be useful for others taking up the Nimzo etc, are:

(1) Andrew Soltis' Transpo Tricks in Chess is a very useful reference book, listing pros and cons of different transpositions in all well known openings. Of course, you should know your openings before as it doesn't have space left to also explain the variations in any depth. If you're widening your repertoire, this is also quite useful to consult, finding out before studying a new opening which lines the opponent may be able to move order you away from...

(2)Ivan Sokolov's Winning Chess Middlegames: An Essential Guide to Pawn Structures. The title is misleading as it only deals with four pawn structures usually arrived at via the NI/QG/QI. But don't let the publisher's attempt of getting "a selling title" scare you away from a very good chess book. *But* you must be prepared to put in some work, as it's based on deeply annotated games and not bulleted lists of rules and advice. If you want to improve your uderstanding and you play 1.d4 as white or defend against it with Nf6+e6 or d5+e6, this book is for you!

Russian Silhouettes, by Genna Sosonko, is a great book, letting you get an idea of who the great soviet chess profiles actually were. Even people who can't play chess can certainly enjoy these life stories which allows you to get a glimpse of both humanity and life's conditions as well as an idea of what life was like in the Soviet Union. The only thing I don't like about this book, is that it could be made clearer, for example using italics, exactly who is speaking in the text. Sometimes someone's e.g: Spassky's anecdotes about someone slowly turns into Sosonko speaking and it can be really hard to understand who is saying what.

Combination Art by Maxim Blokh. The best book for training combinations that I've read. Very few mistakes in the solutions (figurine notation) and well chosen positions. The only down side is that the player names in the solutions is in Cyrillic.

Schack på högsta nivå / Learn From The Grandmasters A collection of commented games from 1981, 14 GMs comment two games each, (edited by Keene). This was one of my very first chess books, and I still think it's very readable today. It's not often that one finds so many different styles, attitudes and philosophies on chess in the same work. Highly inspiring!

Pawn Power in Chess by Hans Kmoch. A great guide to chess strategy! Learn about Levers, Sealers and Sweepers etcetera.

Mastering The Endgame Vol 1 and 2 by Shereshevsky & Slutsky. Two good books (though hard to get your paws on, these days), analyzing the typical endgames that arise from different openings. Volume 1 deals with open and semi open games and Volume 2 with Closed games. As a KG player you may be disappointed though, since they only deal with two endings from the King's gambit, naturally one would expect one of those endings to be the old Kieseritzky main line with Qe7 and Qe2, but no, one is KGD 2-Bc5 and the other KGA 3.Nc3. But one can't have everything.

Bobby Fischer: A Study of His Approach to Chess by Elie Agur. This is also a great guide to chess strategy, as well as a guide to Fischer's playing style. Recurring pawn structures and manoeuvres are analyzed, but also aestetics and many other aspects of the game. A perfect book for rekindleing ones interest in the game of chess!

Dynamic Chess Strategy by Mihai Suba. This is a personal guide to dynamic chess, and not a collection of rules or dogmas. Actually, it can just as well be read as a game collection full of interesting annotated games. No matter how you choose to read it, I think you'll be inspired by the games!