Review: Endgame Workshop

Endgame Workshop, by prolific writer and instructor Bruce Pandolfini, consists of lessons developed by Pandolfini over the past thirty-plus years. More specifically, five specific courses taught by the author, to classes consisting of players with USCF ratings between 1600 and 2000, served as the impetus for this text.

Basic but crucial endgame material is presented, although much of what is here has relevance to earlier portions of the game as well.

You can read the entire review here, or you can access the permanently archived review.

Review: Build Up Your Chess: Vol. 2, Beyond the Basics

The Build Up Your Chess series of books is
intended to be a “complete course of chess
improvement,” and this volume is the second to
appear in this series. In his introduction, Yusupov
clarifies the broad outline of the text, stating that
is designed for “players whose playing level lies
between Elo 1500 and 1800. The readers will
receive the necessary basic knowledge in 6
different areas of the game – tactics, positional
play, strategy, the calculation of variations, the
opening and the endgame.”

These six core facets of the game are covered over a span of twenty-four
chapters and a test section...

For the full review, go to the ChessCafe book review archives.

Review: The Sorcerer's Apprentice

First published by Cadogan Books in 1995, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, featured 222 games along with twenty or so photographs, and it quickly became a modern chess classic.

This new edition has 237 games along with more than 100 photographs, as well as offering a cleaner, more readable layout. David Bronstein was rather unique, as is the table of contents in the book by and about him ...

For the complete review of this fascinating book, see the ChessCafe book review page.
A "time graph" from the book

Review: Fischer World Champion!

For the next seven days, my review appears at the primary book review page of ChessCafe. This is the 3rd edition of the book covering the famous 1972 Fischer-Spassky match in Reykjavik, Iceland.

There are some interesting photos, excellent game annotations by Jan Timmann, and illuminating commentary by Max Euwe regarding Fischer's antics that many times nearly led to the cancellation of the classic match.

The permanently archived review can also be found here.

Review: Blindfold Chess

The full title of this textbook-like volume is Blindfold Chess: History, Psychology, Techniques, Champions, World Records, and Important Games. With its nondescript, solid, hard-cover binding; black and white photos; logical chapter progressions; print style and extensive index; this is not your typical chess book. It screams “Academic Tome.”

The authors have taken their work very seriously and Blindfold Chess represents the culmination of a combined seventy years of research. The depth of their investigation shows in the acknowledgment section, which includes the following prominent names, among many others: Maurice Ashley, Pal Benko, Frederic Friedel, Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam, George Koltanowski, Danny Kopec, Glenn Petersen, Hanon Russell, Lothar Schmid, Andrew Soltis and Edward Winter.

For the rest of the review, see the ChessCafe book review page for the next seven days, or you can find the complete review in the ChessCafe archives.

Review: Chess Tactics for Advanced Players

Have you ever visited a foreign country and felt rather disoriented by the many strange sights, sounds, smells, and tastes? Such was my feeling upon opening Chess Tactics for Advanced Players. The text is in English, and the chess is more or less familiar, but much about the book is, well, just different...

For the full review, go to the ChessCafe book review page, or see it in the ChessCafe archives.

Review: KARL International

KARL is a German-language quarterly chess magazine that began publishing in 2001. Starting in 2008, KARL International was introduced as an English-language version. It is my impression that the International edition is an English translation, not an entirely different publication. This review covers the inaugural issue...


For the next week, the review is available at the ChessCafe book review page, and is also permanently archived here.

Review: Let's Play Chess

This second edition of Let’s Play Chess is said to contain about forty percent new material compared to its predecessor, and offers an easy, stress-free peek into what we all know can be an exceedingly complex game.

In describing how each chess piece moves, Pandolfini does a nice job of not complicating matters. He initially avoids en passant captures and pawn promotion, castling, and avoids any real discussion of illegal moves such as moving a king into check, but does cover these topics later in the book. He allows readers to feel a sense of success and lessens the likelihood of frustration setting in any earlier than necessary!

You can read the full review for the next week at the main ChessCafe book review page, and it is also permanently archived here.

Review: How Chess Games Are Won and Lost

Would you pay $30 for a one-hour private lesson with a grandmaster? How about $30 for a couple dozen lessons with a GM? That’s what this book feels like. Lars Bo Hansen has a talent for really relating to the “average” club player.

For my full review of this outstanding book, see the ChessCafe primary book review page (for the next 7 days), or read it in the ChessCafe archives.

Review: Questions of Modern Chess Theory

Haven't heard of this book? That may be because this is the English-language version of the book originally published in 1956. It is said, however, that both Botvinnik and Fischer, among many others, simply devoured the contents of this text.

I was very impressed - you can read my review for the next week at the ChessCafe main book review page. It is also permanently archived here.

Review: 606 Puzzles for Chess Nuts

606 Puzzles for Chess Nuts is quite a nice book to spend time with, whether it’s five minutes at a time, or an hour or more. The diagrams are large and clear, two per page, and the authors have come up with a nice variety of realistic positions to ponder. It would appear that the book is especially suited for the “advanced beginner” and the “intermediate player.” The “tournament player” will be challenged as well, although I would have preferred in this chapter that hints (removing the guard, pin, fork, etc.) not be provided. For this reason, I might suggest Practical Chess Exercises, by Ray Cheng, for the more advanced player. Cheng’s book also has the advantage of providing answers on the facing page, whereas Wilson and Alberston have the answers at the back of the book, requiring the reader to constantly flip back and forth. For the really serious player, get The ChessCafe Puzzle Book 2.

Read the full review here.

Review: The Genius and the Misery of Chess

Perhaps when the author wrote the manuscript in his native language, all flowed well and errors were minimal. But somewhere between the original manuscript and the final edited version in print today, countless quirks appear.

The premise of the book is quite promising. Forty-seven players, ancient and modern, are examined with brief profiles, a picture and one or more games. Each profile is short, generally up to six pages in length. My personal chess library is full of books on openings, tactics, endgame strategy, puzzles and single-player biographies, but doesn’t contain a single volume profiling a multitude of players. Even Kasparov’s My Great Predecessors series required multiple volumes.

The book has a number of "ups" and "downs" - for the next week my review appears at the main ChessCafe book review page, and it is also permanently archived here.

A young Sammy Reshevsky

Review: Attacking Manual 1

It's full of typos, but it also belongs on the table (open, in use) of any aspiring chessplayer. It's Jacob Aagaard's Attacking Manual 1, and you can read my review of it here.

Review: Viswanathan Anand: My Career, Volume 2

In a timely appearance, my review of the DVD Viswanathan Anand: My Career, Volume 2 is now online at ChessCafe. It is also permanently archived here. This is a brief excerpt:

Volume 1 of Viswanathan Anand: My Career covered Anand’s career through 1999. Volume 2 begins in the year 2000 and includes games as recent as June 2008. This DVD contains 1,037 of Anand’s games during this period, and he annotates a number of them over the course of the more than four hours of video segments. As in the first volume, he adds personal and humorous anecdotes along the way.

For example, in September of 2000, Anand won the FIDE World Cup tournament. He was met with throngs of fans upon his arrival in India, many of whom thought that winning the World Cup meant that he was now the world champion. When asked what his next plans were, he explained that he hoped to win the World Championship later that year in New Delhi and they asked, “Are there two world championships in one year?” Anand was caught a bit off-guard until he realized the fans’ misunderstanding. “I thought that was cute,” he says.

Review: Viswanathan Anand: My Career, Volume 1 (DVD)

This week ChessCafe features my review of World Champion Viswanathan Anand's ChessBase DVD titled Viswanathan Anand: My Career, Volume 1.

This DVD consists of twenty-three video segments, totaling just less than four hours of playing time. It contains an astounding 1,423 games, from early 1984 through October 1999; many are annotated by Anand or others. Interspersed among the games he presents are a number of interesting stories...

The full review can also be viewed in the ChessCafe book review archives.

Review: Pawn Sacrifice!

Pawn Sacrifice! is devoted to what IM Timothy Taylor refers to as “real” sacrifices. He explains, “A real sacrifice is by definition incalculable: the player ventures a real sacrifice based on various positional considerations, or psychological considerations, without any idea if or when he will get the material back.”

“What interests me,” Taylor writes, “are the courageous, imaginative sacrifices that involve risk and have no clear result. This, to me, is really playing chess!” He provides sixty-seven complete games with an interesting method of analysis; at the point of the pawn sacrifice in question, Taylor examines it from three different perspectives: ...

Read the full review for the next week at the ChessCafe main book review page. It is also permanently archived here.

Review: Jon Speelman’s Chess Puzzle Book

The question might well be asked, “Is there really a need for yet another tactics puzzle book?” In fact, author Jon Speelman asks this very question in the first paragraph of his introduction to Jon Speelman’s Chess Puzzle Book. The British GM answers by pointing out, “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.”

For the rest of the review, including three puzzles from the book, see the ChessCafe book review home page. You can also find it in the permanent book review archives.

Review: PowerPlay7: Improve Your Pieces (DVD)

The DVD begins with the presentation of sixteen test positions, for which the viewer is asked how to continue. This is followed by a twenty-seven minute introduction in which King examines the game Rustemov–Vaganian, demonstrating how subtle piece maneuvering can completely alter the game.

Many of the video segments revolve specifically around knight repositioning, particularly to the square f5 (for White) or f4 (for Black). “It’s often the case when you get a better square for the knight that things start to happen,” he says.

The entire review can be viewed for the next week at the ChessCafe main book review page and is permanently archived here.

Review: The Art of Attacking Chess

Gambit Publications has produced a number of annotated game collections, along a variety of themes. A few come quickly to mind: 50 Essential Chess Lessons, 50 Ways to Win at Chess, Grandmaster Chess Move by Move, Grandmaster Secrets: Winning Quickly at Chess, How to Crush Your Chess Opponents. What these all have in common, besides inviting covers and excellent production, are highly instructive annotations. Game notes are heavily weighted toward explanations and tactical and strategic concerns, as opposed to just dense variations.

The Art of Attacking Chess is another Gambit book along this same model. The author is Zenon Franco, a grandmaster and chess trainer from Paraguay. Thirty-three complete games are carefully analyzed, in addition to a number of “supplemental” games or game segments.

Read more of the review here, or you can view the permanently archived review here.

Review: 100 Endgames You Must Know

On the one hand, I found that 100 Endgames You Must Know has a lot to offer, but on the other hand, there was just a little too much ambiguity for a complete thumbs up. Read about it here.