Chess Books
What follows is a list of my 10 favorite chess books.
1. Secrets of Practical Chess
By John Nunn
All the advice and training you would expect from the title. A beautiful
prose style with bullet proof analysis and modern examples to boot. Some
fun dismantlement of other Grandmasters work but all in all an informative
and helpful guide.
2. Judgement and Planning in Chess
By Max Euwe
A classic textbook by an ex world champion. Covers all the important aspects
of the evaluation function as well as what you should be trying to do in
various common positions. It takes you beyond calculation!
3. Learn from the Grandmasters (origional edition)
By Raymond Keene with other
contributors.
Lessons from some of the greatest chess players around when the book was
written (1975). The first three names in the contents page say it all;
Tal, Korchnoi, and Larsen. They submit two games each with their own analysis
giving both variety and quality. (The new edition is less convincing as
some of the old contributors have been thrown out! Cheek!!
4. Modern Chess Openings (13th edition)
By Walter Korn with Nick
De Firmian
A comprehensive coverage of all chess openings. The perfect guide to openings
in general, for anyone. There is enough on each opening for a player to
use that opening with confidence and without the need for any other referance
guide.
5. Openings For The Club Player
By Tim Harding and Leonard
Barden
A selective opening guide but with greater explanation then "MCO 13". Excellent
for players without the time to grind through huge works trying to put
together an openings repertoire. Perhaps a little skimpy on the lesser
played replies to 1. d4 but this is only a minor quibble.
6. Najdorf for the Tournament Player
By John Nunn
Here he is again but this time with an extremely high quality openings
manual. The coverage is logical and complete with sufficient material even
for high class players to be satisfied with. Usefull for players both with
white and black this book is a must for anyone stupid enough to take up
this opening.
7. The Chess Players Handbook
By Howard Staunton
Another classic text first appering in 1847 this book will be a joy for
anyone who plays in a classical or romantic style. The book covers anything
you would want to know about the game itself and even has some interesting
opening ideas which have been forgotten. e.g. 1. d4 d5, 2. c4 c6?, (his
criticism) 3. f3 Nf6, 4. Nc3 Bf5, 5. e3 e6, 6. Bd3 BxB, 7. QxB Bb4, 8.
e4 BxN, 9. bc Nd7, 10. cd cd, 11. e5 Nh5 12. Ne2 "The game is in whites
favour".
8. 15 Games And Their Stories
By M. Botvinnik
Written by the only man ever to hold the title of world champion on three
seperate occasions this book is both an entertaining read as well as giving
games against some of the worlds strongest masters. The analysis and comment
is excellent and gives a deeper look into the positions. Once again a classic
text.
9. Bent Larsen Master Of Counter-Attack
By Bent Larsen
As the book above except with a larger number of games. Perhaps Larsen
was not as famous as Botvinnik for his excellence but even a quick look
through this selection of games paints a picture of a true genius and artist.
10. Pocket Book Of Chess
By Raymond Keene
The best book for beginners.
Chess Openings
Ruy Lopez.
Certainly Whites best thoretical chance for an enduring advantage after
1.e4 e5,
1. e4 e5, 2. Nf3 Nf6, 3. Bb5 a6, 4. BxN dc, 5. d4 ed, 6. QxP QxQ, 7.
NxQ += White has a superior pawn formation and can simply exchange off
into an engame with confidence. Blacks' bishop pair is not sufficient compensation
for the damage done to his pawns.
Sicilian defence.
I hate it! It is however Blacks most popular response to 1.e4 .
1. e4 c5, 2. d3 d6, 3. g3 Nf6, 4. Bg2 g6, 5. Ne2!? (interesting) Bg7,
6. O-O O-O, 7. Nd2 =
White has adopted a kind of hedgehog formation, the knight on e2 not
hindering the advance of his f pawn. The d2 knight will come round to f3
and possibly h4 after the f pawn has reached f4 to enforce the thrust f5!
Once the g pawn has advanced to g4 and possibly g5 the e2 knight will be
reasonably placed on g3. Needless to say, white is launching an assault
on Blacks king!
The French defence.
This is the most logical response to 1. e4. It blocks attacks against
f7 and prepares for a powerful attack on whites centre. Black can often
emerge from the middlegame with the better pawn structure and sometimes
an outpost on e4 or c4.
1. e4 e6, 2. d4 d5, 3. e5 c5, 4. c3 Nc6, 5. Nf3 Qb6, 6. Be2 Nge7, 7.
O-O Nf5, = The move 3. e5 commits white to a very demanding continuation
and if he doesn't swap off on c5 then black can have lots of fun snipeing
at whites centre with c5 adn f6 and Nf5 and Nc6 and Qb6!
1. e4 e6, 2. d4 d5, 3. Nc3 Be7, 4. Qg4 g6, 5. e5 c5, 6. Nf3 Nc6, 7.
Be3 h5!, 8. Qf4 Nh6, 9. Be2 Nf5, =
The Nimzo-Indian defence.
The idea of this opening is to castle quickly and gain the better pawn
structure to win a pawn for a decisive endgame advantage. As long as black
does not succumb to a king's side attack he will have good chances.
1. d4 e6, 2. c4 Nf6, 3. Nc3 Bb4, 4. a3 BxN+, 5. bc c5, 6. e3 O-O, 7.
Bd3 Nc6, 8. Ne2 b6, =+
Black can follow up with Na5, Ba6, Qd7 - a4, and Rc8. Winning the c4
pawn. Even from whites side we can see that he is not doing particularly
well!
1. d4 e6, 2. c4 Nf6, 3. Nc3 Bb4, 4. Qc2 c5, 5. dc O-O, 6. a3 BxP, =
Whites' centre is gone so he can have little hope of an advantage.
Chess Players.
What follows is a list of the top ten 10 chess players, ever, (according to me!).
1. Capablanca
Certainly the greatest natural talent of all time, he was extremely lazy
and refused to "waste" time reading chess textbooks. He had a score of
318 wins, 249 draws, and only 34 losses in match and tournament play
between 1909 and 1939. No other master has sustained so few losses. When
asked how many moves he looked ahead his reply was "One move, the best
move", and this probably holds more than a grain of truth. Capablanca was
renowned for his ability to instantly and accurately evaluate chess positions.
Perhaps, of all the chess players through history only he had such an accurate
evaluation function.
2. Kasparov
World champion for 15 years and perhaps the greatest tactician of
all time. He held the title of world champion from 1985 until 2000 (When he was beaten somewhat unconvincingly by Kramnik) and dominated
major tournaments since the begining ofhis reign challanged only briefly by Anand. His results do not realistically represent his talents and only
by playing through some of his games can his true genius be seen. He is
often described as a ten eyed monster who sees everything in all positions.
He is exuberant and showy and has a photographic memory. He is, of all
players the most computer like in tactical ability with incredible tactical
vision and yet he has a profound positional understanding and the deepest
opening preparation in history.
3. Larsen
Never world champion but one of the finest players not to be at least steriotypical
in play. He would enter into positions which to others would appear ugly
and yet was able to see original potential in all of them. Larsen never
played for draws and as such his chess was extremely popular in the eyes
of the public. His opening repertoire was extremely varied; the following
quote from him describing it well; "I do not deliberately play openings
that are obviously bad. I emphasize the surprise element and in some cases
this makes me play a variation without being convinced that it is correct".
A genius in his own right and a master of counter attack, drawing amazing
resources from seemingly cramped and uninspiring positions Larsen will
always remain one of my favourite players.
4. Botvinik
The only player to hold the world title on three separate occasions, a
feat unlikely to be repeated. He was a scientist and this showed through
in his style of play. His style was to create closed positions characterised
by flank movements and manoeuvres. His abilities although very good, were
enhanced significantly by his excellent preparation for games; with intensive
fitness regimes and extensive study, especially of endgames. The result
was superb endgame technique and superb concentration which inevitably gave
him the edge time and again. In addition to this Botvinik had an excellent
judgement of positions, probably at least partly derived from playing through
thousands and thousands of games and painstaking analysis of many more.
He was a practical player, more so than any before him and this contribution
to preparation and thoroughness came from his scientific background. His
contributions to chess computing were also significant.
5. Steinitz
Somebody once said that if you take all the piecs from the board, put them
in a box, shake them around a bit and then pour them onto the board you
would have the style of Steinitz. His games include many bizzare positions
and his origional style of play made him an unpredictable and dynamic
adversary. "For 20 years Steinitz stood heigher above his contemporaries
than any other master". This overwhelming superiority demonstrated that
he was well ahead of his time and his tournament record was the best up
to his defeat in the world championship match in 1894 at age 59. His play
could be tactical or positional as he excelled in both areas and this dynamism
was his greatest asset.
6. Alekhine
He held the world champions title twice, losing only once to Euwe but regaining
it almost immediatly afterwards and lost the title eventually only because
of his death. He was a drunk and a devious manipulator and would surly
have lost his title to Capablanca had the match between them taken place.
It did not take place because Alekhine effectivly refused to play it! He
was a strong player with great determination and studied for many years
to make himself "the complete player". He had an incredible combinative
talent. He is Kasparovs' hero and this in itself is sufficient to make
him a player worthy of imitation. Perhaps he is inimitable?
7. Deep Blue
It's a computer. It beat Kasparov (if rather unconvincingly). It can analyse
200,000,000 positions a second. It is probably the strongest chess calculator
of all time. It will however be superceded in a way which human players
cannot.
8. Karpov
Dull and uninspiring, Karpov takes positional play to new depths. The domination
themes and willingness always to resolve tension make his games drab and
sleep inducing. His talent however is undeniable. He was world champion
for ten years and came close to retrieving it from Kasparov on several
occasions. His tactical vision and positional understanding are outstanding
and it is a shame he never put them to better use!
9. Shirov
Likely to be the next world chamion Shirov may yet rise in this list considerably.
His games are wild and exciting and he is always willing to enter into
further complications. It was his Bh3 which won the most amazing move of
all time award in the British chess magazine and the idea of sacrificing
a bishop in an endgame with no visible compensation but only the gain of
a distant tempo was amaziing and if he is able to repeat such feats in
the future he is likely to reach the very summit of the chess world.
10. Nunn
The most thorough chess analyst of all time, it is unlikely that any of
his many chess books will ever be found to be innacurate in any way. His
precision and sharpness give him, if not over the board success then at
least victory in the post mortem! His contribution to chess literature
has many highlights but his latest creation "Nunns' chess openings" is
quite possibly the most complete and reliable guide to opening theory ever
produced.
Chess Quotes.
"The game greater than its players"
(Chess the Musical)
"Thus the devil played at chess with me, and yielding a pawn, thought
to gain a queen of me, taking advantage of my honest endeavours."
Thomas Brown
"All we have gained then by our unbelief is a life of doubt diversified
by faith, for one of faith diversified by doubt: we called the chess-board
white, - we call it black."
Robert Browning
"Life's too short for chess."
Henry J Byron
"Chess is the gymnasium of the mind."
Lenin
"A pawn is a pawn."
Unknown
"Chess is too much to be merely a game but too little to be anything
more."
Unknown
"Pawns are the soul of chess."
Philidor
"Chess is 90% tactics"
Teichmann
"The beauty of a move lies not in its' appearance but in the thought
behind it"
Unknown
"Chess is not an equation."
Unknown
"Chess is not dominows"
Kasparov (refering to the Grob!)
"You may have the bishop pair but I have the ultimate advantage; I am
the better player!"
Adams
"Draws make me angry."
Romanishin
"Rook endgames a pawn up are drawn. Rook endgames a pawn down are lost."
Walsh
"Checkmates don't work if there's no one answering the door."
(In reference to correspondance chess.)
"A real chess game can only be experienced by two people."
Donner
"Our game is just too difficult for ordinary intelligent people."
Donner
"Chess is just a rhyme without a reason."
Adapted (!)
"If cunning alone were needed to excel, women would be the best chess
players".
Albin
"Women are far too sensible to play chess."
A woman
"Chess is beautiful enough to waste your life for."
Hans Ree
"Chess is thirty to forty percent psychology. You don't have this when
you play a computer. I can't confuse it. "
Judith Polgar
"I thought I was playing the world champion, not some 27-eyed monster
who sees everything in all positions."
Tony Miles
"I'll take my five positions per second any day, thank you"
Viswanathan Anand (comparing humans with chess computers.)
"I don't have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem."
Unknown
Chess Sets.
Staunton chessmen
The standard chess set is the Staunton design.
It is named after the great player Howard Staunton (1810 - 1874) but was
registered by Nathaniel Cook in 1849. The sets were made in ivory and wood
and were advocated by staunton himself. Each set came in a box bearing
his signature and he was paid a fee for each one sold. The popularity grew
rapidly primeraly because of the ease of identification of each piece.
Now they are the only sets permitted in FIDE events.
The Lewis Chessmen
One of the most famous chess sets is that
composed of the Lewis chessmen. They are the largest group of of early
chessmen to have survived. They were discovered on the south shore of Uig
Bay on the Isle of Lewis in the outer Hebrides in1831. Ninety three related
pieces are known today of which seventy eight are chessmen, and they
are all carved from the ivory of walrus tusks. They are supposed by experts
to be the remains of four complete sets as the numbers of pieces seem to
indicate; eight kings, eight queens, sixteen bishops, fifteen knights,
twelve rooks, and nineteen pawns. They are extremely detailed in design
especially when considering thet the tallest of them is only just over
four inches high (10.5 cm). Each piece is unique with no two the same,
an extemely unusual quality in a chess set! The pawns look like tombstones
and the pieces are human representations with expressions varying from
gloom to anger. The actual date of creation is uncertain but the generally
accepted one is around 1150 AD. The most important question and one which
the answer will probiably never be known is how they got to the Isle of
Lewis, since various experts have claimed that they were created in one
of Iceland, Britain, or Scandinavia.
The Levantine Chess Set
The chances are that you will never have heard
of this one but I include it because it is one of the few modern examples
of a hand crafted chess set with unique figures and a "deeper meaning"
(!). Its forces are supposed to represent in a balanced way the present
day conflict between Muslims and Isrealis. Each figure dipicts a specific
cultural or historical steriotype. The board too has depth, containing
elements of memorial, tiled tomb and commemorative mosaic. The Muslim forces
include an Iraqi tank soldier, a suicide car bomber, and an Egyptian Mummy
terrorist. The western/Israeli forces on the other hand include an American
tourist, a Biggles airman, and a cruicified sheep (!!). The board itself
even has a series of names inscribed upon it as if to suggest a cenotaph.
Although this particular set is of little value to a chess player who is
used to having all his pawns the same shape it does serve as a powerful
symbol of the tensions and millitary conflicst which exist in our world.
St George Chessmen
This was the standard design in Britain
until the 1850's when it was almost universally replaced by the staunton
sets. They were popular because they were cheap and easy to make as all
but the horses heas could be turned on a lathe. They were mainly produced
in France but were not used a great deal there. The main fault with this
design was the difficult of identifying the pieces as they were all so
similar. Only the Knights heads were really distincive.
Chess Thought.
How chess players think
One of the most commonly asked questions when people
begin to play chess is how far ahead good chess players look or calculate.
This varies a great deal, not only from player to player but from game
to game and even in different positions during the same game. In general
good players look between 3 and 5 moves ahead by both sides but will concentrate
only on the plausible moves. It is possible, when very little time is available,
to play entirely on instinct, and still play good moves. This instinct
comes from experience. It is often useful to compare the way in which human
chess players think and the way in which computers calculate. The number
of positions which can occur after only three moves by each player is well
over 64,000,000, there are far more possible games of chess than there
are particles in the known universe, and the number of chess positions,
though far fewer, is still astronomical. Some computers can analyse huge
numbers of positions; Deeper blue for example was able to consider 200,000,000
positions a second. Quite clearly it is impossible for a human to calculate
such a massive number of positions and so he relies on instinct and feeling
(which come from experience) in order to cut down the number of positions.
The way in which a human player calculates
is fairly straightforward. Players construct what is known as the tree
of analysis, where each branch represents a different position. It usually
appears disorganized. The reason is that two variations can sometimes lead
to the same position and that a player will not always calculate the same
number of moves from each position or in the same depth. Only a small number
of positions are considered at each level. This rejection of the vast majority
of available options is known as thinning the tree. It has been estimated
that humans will only consider around three dozen positions before choosing
a move.
The actual process of "looking" at positions
is not a case of thinking "I have a pawn there and a bishop there and if
he goes there then I go here and I will have a rook there and a knight
here" etc. After someone has played a number of games the important characteristics
of the positions become obvious to the person's mind and little conscious
effort is needed to hold positions close to the one in front of you together.
Humans do not choose their moves solely on
the basis of cold logic and calculation. Players usually have a plan around
which specific variations can be constructed. This plan is usually based
on position considerations. This sounds complicated but in fact it is little
more than a gut feeling which is usually innate and is extremely difficult
to teach or explain. Attempts to do his usually consist of ideas of thousands
of positions from previous games flashing past the minds eye and making
an almost subconscious impression which can somehow be detected by the
player. Positional considerations are things such as weakness of King position,
and space available for manoeuvring.
The most important element of a chess player's
thinking is how well he evaluates positions. That is, how well he can decide
who is winning and why. Again an analogy to the chess computer is useful.
A chess computer program will first check if the position is the end of
the game for example checkmate, and if not it will add up the pieces giving
a numerical value to each position. It will do this crude evaluation in
each position it looks at and will choose a move based on which sequence
of moves gives it the biggest end number. A human player has a much more
advanced evaluation function. In most cases he will carry most of his evaluation
over from the last move editing it as appropriate to save time. He will
check the material balance, consider the strengths and weaknesses of the
relative positions of the two sides, both in terms of long term and short
term factors, and will decide what plan each player will form. He will
then select the sequence of moves which will either;
a) give him a material advantage (more pieces) or
b) give him the more straight forward and reliable plan.
The conclusion must be that a chess player's thinking is far more general
than is usually thought, and far more effective and advanced than the way
in which computers play.
How to play chess.
Chess is a game for two players and is played on a square board of 64 squares. Half are white and half black alternatly. The bottom right square is white. The squares are refered to using letter and number coordinates. Beggining on whites bottom left corner we have letters a-h along the bottom and 1-8 up the side. Each player has 16 pieces. One players pieces are white the others black. The pieces are named. In order of size from smallest to largest on a standard Staunton set they are pawn, rook, knight, bishop, queen, King. The pieces are arranged as follows: From left to right along the the row of squares a1 to h1; (all white) rook, knight, bishop, queen, king, bishop, knight, rook. On the row of squares, a2 to h2; (all white) pawns. Blacks pieces are placed at the opposite side of the board simply reflecting the white ones (such that the black queen stands on a black square). The pieces can move as follows: The King can move one square in any direction (horizontally, vertically and diagonally). Check is when a piece threatens to take the king. He cannot move into check. If he is in check he must move to a square on which he is not attacked. The Queen can move any number of squares in any direction. The Rooks can move any number of squares horizontally or vertically. The Bishops can move any number of squares diagonally. The Knights can move in an "L" shape which means that they move two squares in one direction then 1 to the left or right (of the direciton they were moving in). The knight is the only piece which can jump over other pieces. The Pawns can move one square, forwards only. They can capture one square diagonally, forwards only. On its first move a pawn can move 1 or 2 squares, forwards only. Special moves: Castling; if the king and rook are both unmoved, if the king is not in check, if no pieces are between them, and if none of the squares between them are attacked (except b1 and b8) then the king may move two squares towards the rook and the rook may jump to the adjacent square to, and on the other side of, the king all in one go. En passent; If a pawn is on its fifth rank (ranks are rows of squares accross the board) and an enemy pawn moves two squares forward to either of the adjacent squares to the pawn then the pawn on its fifth rank may capture this enemy pawn as if the enemy pawn had only moved one square. Promotion; when a pawn reaches the eigth rank it must be exchanged for another piece (not a pawn or a king). The object of the game is to deliver checkmate. This is when a king is threatened and it cannot avoid capture. The side whose king cannot avoid capture has lost and the other has won. Stalemate occurs when a players king is not in check but that player has no moves available to him, this is a draw. A draw can also occur if 1) both players want a draw and agree to a draw, verbally, 2) 50 moves occur without a pawn move or a capture, or 3) the same position occurs three times. Victory can also be obtained with your opponents resignation.
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