Chess in the Year of the King

 

Published by: Hardinge Simpole

2023 Hardcover

Pages: 417

ISBN: 978-1-84382-234-9 Hardback

ISBN: 978-1-84382-235-6 Paperback

 

The Publisher’s Notes.

Grandmaster Ray Keene OBE has enjoyed a career which spans many aspects of chess, including numerous victories in international competitions across five continents, organisation of three world chess championships involving Garry Kasparov, creation of the first ever world championship in any Mind Sport between a human and a computer (Dr Marion Tinsley v Chinook in draughts, London 1992) and the world record authorship of 206 books on Mind Sports, thinking and genius, with translations into sixteen different languages.

Here, Ray adapts forty-one of his columns originally written for The Article and The British Chess Magazine, together with some additional games and illustrations, in which his primary aim has been to connect chess to wider political, scientific and cultural concerns.

Contents

Brief Glossary of Abbreviations

Foreword

Introduction

Games

 

There are five sections to the book names as follows

Section One: Arts and Civilization

Section Two: Chess Legacy

Section Three: Russia and Ukraine

Section Four: World Champions

Section Five: Additional games

Further additional notes.

 

My overview

I read the predecessor to this – 50 Shades of Ray, an anthology covering the year of Coronavirus which was reviewed on this web site in August 2021. This second anthology is similar to that book in as much as it is a collection of games and notes (essays) as described in the Publisher’s comments above. It covers the time of the accession to the throne of King Charles III who happens to have been a landing mate of the authors from Trinity College Cambridge.

I have always enjoyed Keene’s style of writing. He is able to weave into his chess columns, an extraordinary number of historical and cultural references, which in my view serves to illuminate the game and enhance the pleasure of reading. No one else seems to write in this manner. The author is a prodigious writer, having published not only 206 chess books to date, but countless newspaper columns of which his regular features for ‘The Article’ are most entertaining. Just enjoy some of his articles here:

https://www.thearticle.com/contributor/raymond-keene

One look at the chapter headings illustrates how diverse the book is, and there really is something for everyone. There are absorbing details about the history of the game, and chess players these days would do well to read them, instead of studying openings all day. Who else could graft issues such as ‘The siege of Troy, the Natural History Museum in Brisbane, the Welsh Mabinogion and ‘Anonymous Bosch’ into their chess columns? There is poetry too, and plenty of nice supplementary illustrations to accompany the articles.

Keene is an expert at articulating contemporary and historical facts, combined with his own views and experiences such as why the police contacted him with a bizarre chess request. Where he gets his ideas from is anyone’s guess, and I freely I admit that this intellectual heavyweight loses me completely at times. You can expect lines such as ‘So, Godot, a symbol, God, a metaphysical construction, or a very bad French cyclist?

Crikey! Yet I love books that challenge me in some way and I ended up Googling a variety of topics, browsing eagerly through my Oxford dictionary, and studying giant lobsters, all because of this publication.

The games

Let us not forget that this is a book about chess. There are fifty-six annotated games, which include ancient and contemporary chess, the latter showing the ‘bongcloud’ attack’ with 1.e4 e5 2.Ke2? which Hikaru Nakamura played for fun occasionally. What kind of madness is this?

The author includes his own games (quite rightly), and those from Greco to LaBourdonnais and Fischer to Nepomniachtchi. There is even a game of Einstein’s to be studied. The ladies enjoy their moment in the spotlight too, with battles from Cathy Forbes (against Tal!) and Vera Menchik, former Women’s World Champion, who died in the Blitz in 1944 at the age of 42, destroyed as she was by a Nazi flying bomb.

Ray Keene has played many fine games in his career, and he was always determined to demonstrate that Black could play for a win, not just try to gain equality. His game against Eraso Gallego in Madrid (1982) shows his pugilistic spirit.

I enjoyed the chapter ‘In Memoriam’ a tribute to Michael Basman who sadly died in 2022.

This was the game Basman-Hartston from 1968 (Birmingham-London) with White to play. Basman essayed 38.Ne6!! which demolished Black’s resistance. I will let you find the game and the finish.

There are so many entertaining chapters but I particularly enjoyed ‘Chess: Feasting with Grandmasters’ as Keene transports us back to a time when chess was all the rage at Simpson’s-in-the-Strand in London being the world’s greatest chess club, serving delicious roast beef, followed by coffee and cigars. The other elite club in the world at that time was the Café de la Régence in Paris. By some strange quirk of fate, I was due to visit the French capital at the time of reading this book – so I paid a visit to the café, which is not in its original location, nor does it have anything to do with chess any longer, but the book inspired me to stop by and I kept one of the coffee coasters (shown below) as a memento.

Back to my favourite chapter and Keene translates the French menu from the London 1883 tournament, which includes lobster cutlet with rich sauce, noisettes of mutton in huntsman’s style, and stuffed peaches with macaroons. This is food fit for a king for sure.

There are revelations contained within the pages too. Who knew that Britain’s second over-the-board grandmaster (the author) had an early interest in marine biology? Keene soon learned that lobsters were not only fascinating to study but also delicious to eat, grilled in a hot butter sauce. I was enthralled by the story of bogavante gigante - an immense, blue lobster not even listed on the menu. Did the author ever eat one of these brobdingnagian crustaceans? Read the book and find out.

If you want a book replete with interesting and instructive chess games, that also includes subjects such as the Jacobean cancel culture, the great chess murder challenge, Cheating at chess, and Norse code – then this is for you. I can imagine entertaining visitors by reading selected prose from the book.

Oh, and how lovely of this British chess legend to include a piece on the young Shreyas Royal – now a UK citizen, who notched up his first grandmaster result and will go on to greater things. This is what I like about Keene – he will happily share stories from days gone by, but he is also bang up to date with current chess affairs. He describes himself often as emanating from the cretaceous period. Maybe, but he has been blessed with a razor-sharp brain, and a formidable intellect. People like Ray Keene deserve to be listened to, whether or not his opinions in his articles are agreeable or otherwise. Some may say that this is merely a collection of random musings, but if so, then it is for that very reason that I like it. You never know what you will find when you turn the pages.

I found only a couple of minor typos, and I would have preferred the list of players and games at the back of the book, not the front, but these are minor quibbles. I personally would like to see the diagrams with the alpha-numeric co-ordinates on, which might help average strength players and beginners. The book is what it says it is, a collection of chess essays (chessays) over a period of time. There’s nothing quite like it out there, and I am delighted to have it on my bookshelf. I will conclude this review with my favourite words from the book.

‘Chess is an arena for human endeavour.’

Quite so.

International Grandmaster Raymond Keene OBE became a grandmaster in 1976. His victory over Mikhail Botvinnik at Hastings in 1966/7 was only the third ever victory by an Englishman over the Soviet world chess champion. Ray retired from competitive chess in 1985, after appearing for England in eight consecutive Chess Olympiads. He is a prolific author and chess columnist and has organised many top-level chess evets including the World Chess Championship in London in 1993 between Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short.

 Adam Papier Black ‘massaged’ and oversaw the book as co-author. Originally enlisted as the editor, he contributed so much that Ray Keene invited his promotion as co-author. Adam has great experience of playing, organising and writing about chess.

Chess Rivals of the 19th Century

 

                                

Published by: McFarland 

2021 softcover (7x10)

Pages: 477

Bibliographic Info: 54 photos, diagrams, games, bibliography, indexes

pISBN: 978-1-4766-8072-9

eISBN: 978-1-4766-3924-6

 

The Publisher’s Notes.

Many historical chess books focus on individual 19th century masters and tournaments, yet little is written covering the full scope of competitive chess through the era. This volume provides a comprehensive overview, with more than a third of the 300 annotated games analyzed by past masters and checked by powerful engines. Players such as Max Lange and Cochrane, known to the chess public only by the name given to a fierce attack or gambit, are brought to life. Fifty masters are each given their own chapter, with brief biographies, results and anecdotes and an endgame section for most chapters.

Contents

Acknowledgements, Introduction, Fifty-One chapters, The 19^th Century’s Top Ten Tournament Players, The 19^th Century’s Top Four Match Player, Bibliography, Opponent’s Index, Annotators Index, Openings Index (names), Openings Index (ECO classification), Index of Endgames, General Index

My overview

I am yet to read a McFarland chess publication and not enjoy it immensely. They are not just chess books, they are a historical record of an era, the like of which we shall never see again. This book is culturally enriching. I believe that in chess – as in life – you have to know where you have been to know where you are going and to do that you have to take the time to digest books such as this. One can step through the magic door and travel back in time to another world, far removed from modern madness. The test for me is, can the author bring this nostalgic world to life, or does what he/she offer tend to be rather barren? Additionally, I want to learn something, not just about the games but the characters. I want to feel a sense of occasion. I want to drown in the history of it all. Smell the cigar smoke, hear the hubbub around the 19^th Century chess club.

So, what about the book?

There are several things in general to note about the fifty masters profiled in this book. The anecdotes throughout are splendid and any chess player interested in history cannot fail to find them of great interest. It surprised me how many were of Polish descent, and that country certainly produced its fair share of top players. Also I am always saddened when I read just how young many of these men were when they died. Harry Nelson Pillsbury was 34 and Rudolf Charousek was only 26 when he succumbed to tuberculosis.  Cecil Valentine De Vere was 29 (Consumption) and Carl August Walbrodt slipped away at 30 again from tuberculosis. It is terribly sad, and one wonders what they might have achieved given another 20 years of life. The book profiles all of these players and I do like the simple layout. Each person has an introduction with background information about them, this includes a photograph/sketch which helped me to link the man with the story. Then there are some details about when they died and some notes from their official obituaries – and here the reader can see how significant the British Chess Magazine was in reporting and recording such events. The ration of diagrams to text is fine, illustrating key moments.

Many players barely made a living, and actually much like today it was more financially lucrative to give simuls and write about the game than actually play it. There are a few select games for each player and the last section from each player shows a few endgame examples, which I found to be intellectually stimulating and can be used as coaching material today.

When I studied the images of the players, I visualised sitting opposite them. I tried to imagine how they spoke, and what their views on the world were. I loved the way they dressed. Adolf Albin (pictured below) looks like he would be more at home in a mid-west saloon bar. Well, he invented the exciting ‘Albin-Counter Gambit’ (1.d5 d5 2.c5 e5!?) which is akin to a shootout on the chessboard. Yes folks, he looks like the kind of man who would go for that!

 

                                                        Adolf Albin 1848-1920

                                                         Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=667979

Now I do have one issue. The author does not use the internationally recognized ELO system to rank/rate the players. Instead, he chooses to use a chess metric called an EDO rating. I have never heard of this before. This is a valuation introduced by one Professor Rod Edward, used for the purpose of ascertaining a player's peak strength. This of course is purely the author’s choice – and not a crime – but I kept wondering as I went through if or how the player’s EDO rating translated to an ELO rating so I could compare it to contemporary players. I am still a bit baffled by it but it by no means a show-stopper.

We all know about the likes of Anderssen, Lasker, Steinitz, Staunton and Morphy but what about other rivals? I was amused to read some of the names of these ghosts of the past. In first place for me, and the gold medal pedestal goes to Lionel Adelberto Bagration Felix Kieseritzky, silver medal is awarded to Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa and the Bronze goes to Curt von Bardeleben. Ooh, aren’t those just marvellous names? Dig in folks and enjoy some of their games, too.

The games

There are some 300 games, which kept me busy. These range from coffee-house encounters to International tournaments and World Championship clashes. It’s true that in those days there was some sub-standard chess played at that level. I am thinking of Staunton - Von der Lasa (Brussels 1853) which went 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bb5 Nf6 4.Qe2 Bd6 yet to be fair, very strong players these days have played it. I have personally never seen it in any club match, county match or tournament in my life though. Then there is W. Steinitz - Winawer (Vienna 1883) which went 1.e4 e6 2.e5 f6?! I mean come on, really? It is a move, fair enough but not one that even club players would try, I am sure of it.

We also see the crazy games. The 19^th Century was a time where men were men, and they essayed the likes of the Vienna and King’s Gambits for fun and lord help any opponent who never accepted the challenge. These rivals were all at it, going for the throat from move one. Max Lange was the one for me – he used to just play open and wild chess. This example from Lange-A. Anderssen Berlin 1851 was typical of some of the swashbuckling chess on show.

 

One is given to wondering how anyone could even arrive at such a position. It is as if someone has picked up all the pieces and thrown them liberally across the board. You will enjoy many games like this in the book. In other battles we find ‘Imbecile moves’ and marvellous attacking gems, many known to chess players at all levels. Miniatures such as Zukertort - C.V. De Vere from London 1892, and endings such as Bardeleden’s in Dresden 1892 against Albin are just great fun.

I don’t know what the strong player might learn from the games in this book – but let us not forget that these gentlemen did not have the luxury of chess engines as we do today so what we have before us is honest, human chess. There are plenty of tactical shots, especially in the endgame positions to enjoy and learn from at all levels. The reader should be aware that most of the book concentrates on the second half of the 19^th Century, because there were no real tournaments or World Championships as such before then. 

How was it for me?

I thoroughly enjoyed it. I am not a chess historian by trade so I cannot account for the accuracy of everything, but the annotations and anecdotes were taken from official sources such as newspapers and magazines. I would love to have seen one of my favourites from the 19^th Century in there but he was obviously not strong enough a player to feature. Arthur Bolland Skipworth (1830-1898) was one hell of a character – the reader should look him up!  

On the subject of what isn’t in the book – and in fairness to the author this won’t have been within the scope, I shall give a shout out for the only female player to be considered amongst the top players in the 19^th Century player. Ellen E. Gilbert (née Strong) (April 30, 1837 – February 12, 1900) was dubbed ‘The Queen of chess’ and she was a very strong correspondence player. She was one of the first significant women players in chess history. She allegedly once announced mate in 21 moves and certainly fared well as a woman in a man’s (chess) world. It was said that Steinitz analysed her games.

I was delighted to learn new things in this book. For example, I never realised that the Italian player Serafino Dubois, when in London 1862 had to play by the rules of chess then standardised throughout Europe, except for Italy. He was used to the 15^th Century rules which allowed freehand castling, allowing the king to go to g1/h1 and the rook to f1/e1. Castling queenside allowed the king to go to b1/a1 and the rook to b1/c1 or d1. Furthermore en-passant was forbidden. This is just the kind of information I love to digest.

I mentioned the pros – but were there any ‘cons’?

There are a few typos, but that’s to be expected in such a big tome. It would be easy to miss the typo ‘Tarrrasch’ (three r's) but at least it shows that I read the book! This and the EDO system I referred to were all I would mention. 

Does the book achieve its aim?

The author writes that the aim of this book is to give the reader an overview of competitive chess throughout the 19^th Century. There’s a feast of chess and a feast of information about these players to bring the subject to life. It is a bit like a chess séance – reaching out to these men down the decades. It worked for me, and enhanced my appreciation of our beloved game, ergo the book certainly did achieve the aim, for me anyway. It may cost a few pennies, but you will have a lovely resource, for life.

If you want to know who ‘The invincible English Bulldog’ or ‘The Black Death’ were then this is for you. I did not realise that Paul Morphy was born on 22^nd June – the date of my wedding anniversary – so I shall raise a glass to him each year. It is a cliché to talk about a labour of love, but this clearly was, written over many years the author can be rightly proud of his work. I believe that it deserves a place on any chess players’ bookshelf.

If you want to start by studying chess and chess players from the past, the author gives the top four players of the 19^th Century for match play, ranked according to results against opponents rated 2600 or more. These four are W.Steinitz, P.Morphy, E.Lasker and L.Paulsen. Start with them, and you won’t go far wrong.

Once again, McFarland publishing (and Tony Cullen) have delivered a seriously valuable book which adds value to the historical record of this ancient and epic game.

I must finish with a wonderful quote that reflects the style of writing at the time. A Hungarian newspaper (Pester Lloyd) wrote this of Géza Maróczy…

‘Of chief importance is the manner in which Maroczy (sic) has won his triumphs. At the present time there is unfortunately a method of chess play in vogue which characterizes itself by its colourless, tasteless manifestation of life, by which the game is begun with a closed opening, the pieces are shoved together into a lurking position, the objective point apparently being to create a weak pawn for the opponent, and then very carefully play nothing at all.’

Well, I did tell you that they preferred swashbuckling play, didn’t I?

Who is the author?

Tony Cullen played chess for the strong London Central YMCA Chess Club and organized tours playing team matches against strong opposition in various European cities. He lives in London.

 

 

 

PREPARE TO WIN A club player's guide to winning at chess before move one

 

BOOK REVIEW by Carl Portman

PREPARE TO WIN

      A club player’s guide to winning at chess        before move one

 by Jonathan Arnott

Jonathan Arnott

Foreword by GM Gawain Jones

Pages: 226

Published by: Steel City Press  

2022 softcover

 

What is this book about?

The publisher’s notes:

 

Preparation used to be something chess players would only read about; the kind of thing that players would do to prepare for a World Title match. But like it or not, in the computer age every serious club player now has two choices: learn to prepare for your opponents or become a target for their preparation. There isn’t much literature on the subject, and much less aimed at anyone of 1400 to 2200 strength.

Most of experienced teacher and coach Jonathan Arnott’s wins against IMs and GMs have come as a result of precisely this preparation. In some cases, a game has literally been won and lost before a single move was made on the board. In this book, he provides a grounding in everything the modern player needs to fight against opponents from club level to GM. Key topics include:

 

Ø  What to look for in preparation

Ø  What to spend your time on

Ø  How to avoid becoming a preparation target

Ø  Avoiding your opponent’s preparation

Ø  Setting traps and dictating the style of game

 

‘Armed with the recommendations in this book it will become even tougher for us titled players to out-prepare our opponents. On behalf of all professionals can I selfishly ask that you disregard Jonathan’s advice?’ – GM Gawain Jones

 

Contents

 

·         Foreword

·         Introduction

·         Sixteen Chapters

·         References and final advice

 

My thoughts and comments

A good chess coach will tell their student to ‘begin at the end’ and study the endgame as much as if not more than the openings initially. In that sense I am going to start at the end by saying from the off that I highly recommend the book and that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Don’t just take my word; when an esteemed grandmaster like Gawain Jones writes a foreword and champions the book for club players, you know it will be good.  

 

What’s the book about?

Essentially this is a book sharing the author’s views on how to prepare for opponents before you even sit opposite them (or play them online) and he uses his substantial (methodical) experience in this area to guide the reader through with examples. If you are a French Defence player (as I am!) then you’ll derive particular pleasure from this book but trust me, it’s great for everyone.

 

How was it for me?

Very useful. I learned plenty of new things, not least that there was a web site called openingtree.com and you can use this in your preparation. The author highlights the fact that these days it can be tricky to prepare against people because they use these weird usernames online which bear no relation to their actual name, so you have to try to dig deep and find out who they are, but there are ways to do this. I actually learned a couple of new lines in the French Defence too, which helped!

 

I enjoyed some of the top tips, including this gem ‘When preparing, don’t go into a line you don’t know or understand just because it’s got a positive engine evaluation.’ So many people nowadays leave a portion of their brain dormant and let the engine make the decisions, but this is not going to help a chess player improve. Arnott tells us not to play lines if we don’t actually know how to play them. This sounds obvious but we do it so often. There are many more valuable tips but of course I won’t reveal them all here.

 

Chess games

There are plenty of games contained within the pages of the book. Some involve a player I actually know, and I played him online only a couple of weeks before this review. If only I had known about the openingtree resource before I played Harry Taylor!

 

One lovely example was how Arnott prepared against the London System. It went 1.d4 e6 2.Bf4 c5!? 3.Nf3 cxd4 4.Nxd4 and we end up in this position (below)

 

 

The author’s prep served him well (2…c5 was the slippery customer) and he now had a winning move, but what was it? You’ll see in the book of course.

There are plenty of annotated games and where parts of games have been given to illustrate points, the full game can be found at the back of the book, which is useful as I definitely wanted to delve deeper going into the endgames of some positions.  

 

Was there anything I didn’t like?

Well, a genuine review must involve all of my feelings in order to be objective although inevitably such feelings are subjective! Actually, I only have a couple of minor points. I found several typos and a couple of muddles in the move annotations, and I would have liked an index of openings, but that is just my preference and in fairness, openings were not the point of the book. Other than that, no problem. I can see how much work and thought has gone into the content and presentation of the book.

 

Does the book achieve its aim?

Definitely. The author has given me much food for thought about how I go about preparing for games. Reading about how another chess player prepares is fascinating and it brought home to me the fact that so many of us only scratch the surface. There is so much more information out there on the information superhighway about our opponents and indeed ourselves, if we are prepared to look for it. The author describes how to interrogate data and he offers some psychological advice on how to prepare if you don’t even know who your opponent is to the last minute.

 

He also reminds us to be honest with ourselves. We should analyse our own games, our own weaknesses and try to find ways to fill the gaps. This of course is a vital element of self-improvement and a very good point indeed. All too often we are not honest with ourselves.

 

And I should mention his emphasis on ‘not punishing mistakes immediately.’ This sounds weird, because we often say when you see an opportunity (a mistake by the opposition) seize upon it immediately - but Arnott calmy explains his rational and all becomes clear in the book.

 

There is one other abiding thought from me. GM David Howell once spoke online about the advantages of writing your games in a book. That way, your games/preparation/analysis cannot be found online by billions of people, thus it will make preparing against you much more difficult. I agree with this totally but we now live in a world where so much can be found online and Arnott’s book is a very useful tool to aid the keen and improving chess player to better prepare for games. Can it really be a guide to winning before move one, as the cover suggests? Yes!

 

We should use any means we can to collect information about our opponents if we are serious about improving. I shall finish with a start – the first words of the introduction to the book which states

 

‘Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.’

 

Amen to that.

 

Who is the author?

Jonathan Arnott has decades of teaching and chess coaching experience. He has captained the Yorkshire County side, represented White Rose in the European Club Cup (the ‘Champions League’ of chess) and captained Chessable White Rose to victory in the inaugural online Four Nations Chess League. He is a Candidate Master.

 

I wish I’d had this book a couple of years ago. Jonathan’s recommendations took me a lot of trial and error to discover. – GM Gawain Jones, two-time British Champion.

 

 

 

 

BOOK REVIEW by Carl Portman

THE BERLIN DEFENCE

by ANDY MACK

Andy Mack

Pages: 291

Published by: Elk and Ruby Publishing House   

2020 Softcover

From the Publisher

‘That afternoon, Lothar sat down opposite Lev Ivanov, and with a furrowed brow, determinedly pushed his King’s pawn forward two squares, punching down the clock as he did so. When Ivanov ventured a Sicilian Defence, Lothar sacrificed first a Knight and then a Rook for a raging attack.

Lothar Hartmann dreams of reaching the big time in chess. Overcoming the mind-games of his opponents at the chessboard is a challenge in itself, but how will he cope when he comes face to face with the political manipulation and oppression of his own corrupt government? A tale told with dark humour of love and loss, hopes dashed and regained, it is a window into a world of tactics, psychological warfare and the balance of fate and opportunity, while asking fundamental questions about life’s purpose and moral choices. As Lothar begins to realise that his world is not simply black and white, and that the chess players themselves are pieces, moved across a board to further the reach of East German propaganda, he hatches a plan that defies all expectations.’

 

Contents

 

·         Prologue – None is completely on your side

·         Part One – The Opening

·         Part Two – The Middlegame

·         Part Three – The Endgame

·         Epilogue – Ich Bin Ein Berliner

 

My thoughts and comments

The first chess novel I ever read was ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ by Walter Tevis. That was back in 1983 and of course it finally became a blockbuster on Netflix this year.  As a chess player, I am always keen to read a novel with chess as the central theme and I was looking forward very much to reading this one, especially at this time of year as the winter nights draw in.

 

It captured my interest immediately, focusing on East Berlin in 1967 and all that was happening with the Cold War and the Stasi (Ministry for State Security) in the German Democratic Republic. That organisation was formed in 1950 on the same date (not year) as my birthday on 8th February. Their methods were initially crude (physical torture) but later more sophisticated with the idea of ‘Zersetsung’ (Undermining and decomposition of a character) being employed. Having lived and worked in Germany myself, I am familiar with a good deal of its history and East v West tensions still bubble under the surface in some areas even today.

 

In the book, Lothar, the main character finds that chess is the guiding influence of his life in his formative and later years, despite all of the madness going on around him with people ‘disappearing’ and living in fear of the state, especially the dreaded knock on the door from the Stasi.

 

The novel takes us on the roller-coaster ride that is Lothar’s life both at and away from the chessboard. He not only has the social and political problems to deal with, but the battles at the chessboard and his constant desire to improve. How far can he go? How far does he want to go? If we throw love into the mix (as the author does) then we have a tale of joy and despair. Of hope, failure and success.

 

I thought I would be able to predict how this went chapter by chapter but I was delighted to be surprised at several turns including at the very end, which was the scenario that I had been mentally begging for throughout. The author finally put me out of my misery and it was bliss. Chess occasionally takes Lothar out of East Germany (for tournaments accompanied by his Stasi guards) and it introduces him to many people, but which ones are friends and who has the knife in their hand? Power, coercion and control - who can live under those conditions? Welcome to East Germany.

 

I found it easy when reading this to put myself in the position of the central character. What would I do? What choices would I make and why? There are plenty of twists and turns and moral dilemmas. It is also ineffably sad in some places, especially where love is concerned. How many of us have felt the pain of unrequited love? Mack introduces loving relationships in a very human way without ever being crude. As Lothar gets older, he can appreciate what he had, but also acknowledges the opportunities spurned. Is that not the case for us all?

 

The book is well presented with a clever art cover, nice page and text quality and I found it highly readable, but then I have an interest in the subject matter. I am certain that both chess players – and non-chess players – will enjoy it. I would give it to anyone as a gift and they wouldn’t be confused if they didn’t play the game. 

 

There is a nice play on character names, as they are clearly taken from actual chess players throughout history and changed to identify the people in this story. I had tremendous fun working out who was who and if you know your chess history, it will enhance the reading experience for sure. Clearly the author has taken his own knowledge and experience of the game and woven it into the story line in a very subtle way. Like all good writers, he always seems to leave you wanting a little bit more - therefore you feel duty bound to keep turning pages.

 

I was further intrigued about his knowledge of the East German culture. Did he live there? He says that his favourite European city is Berlin, and I am with him on that. It’s a remarkable place, totally cosmopolitan, soaked in history. It remains a city where a punk rocker with a rainbow Mohawk can stand next to a businessman in a sharp pin-striped suit and neither bats an eyelid. I wonder why Mack chose this part of the world at that time. What gave him the idea? I imagine living in those dark times, and thank my lucky stars that I don’t, but this book above all, illustrated the power of chess and what it can do to transform and influence lives in a positive way. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Well done Andy Mack, and to Elk and Ruby Publishing for supporting such a venture. Prost!

 

Who is the author?

Andy Mack was born in 1970, in Bromley, South-East England. A keen chess player from an early age, he has competed three times in the British Chess Championships and achieved the title of FIDE Master. He also plays poker to a high standard, and has written a book entitled Omaha 8 or Better – Winning at Hi-Low Poker. In his professional life, Andy qualified as a Chartered Accountant and is a Director in a large accounting firm. Andy continues to live in South-East England. His favourite European city is Berlin, and The Berlin Defence is his first novel.

Yakov Vilner. First Ukrainian Chess Champion and First USSR Chess Composition Champion.

 

Book Review by Carl Portman

YAKOV VILNER

FIRST UKRAINIAN CHESS CHAMPION AND FIRST USSR CHESS COMPOSITION CHAMPION

by SERGEI TKACHENKO

 

Sergei Tkachenko

Pages: 386

Published by: Elk and Ruby Publishing House   

2021 Softcover

 

From the Publisher

Yakov Vilner (1899-1931) was one of the leading Soviet chess masters in the 1920s. He won the Ukrainian championship three times (1924, 1925 and 1928), the Odessa championship five times (1918, 1923, 1925, 1926 and 1928) and competed in five USSR championships, his highest position being sixth equal in 1924. His attacking, combinational style delivered many memorable games and he regularly played against strong contemporaries such as Bogoljubov, Romanovsky, Bogatyrchuk, Verlinsky and an upcoming teenager called Botvinnik.

Vilner was also a leading chess composer. He won the USSR composition championship for three-move problems in 1929 and in total he won prizes at 30 chess composition competitions.

In this historical work illustrated with rare archival photos from the period, Sergei Tkachenko tells the story of a man who, despite suffering constantly from the respiratory illness that would eventually end his life at the age of just 31, was a leading chess organizer and journalist in Ukraine as well as a player and composer, against a background of major social and political upheaval that significantly impacted the chess world. It was Vilner who, in 1919 as a member of the Revolutionary Tribunal in Odessa, managed to save Alexander Alekhine from the firing squad, which Tkachenko wrote about in his book Alekhine's Odessa Secrets: Chess, War and Revolution. The latter work was short-listed for the 2018 English Chess Federation Book of the Year.

 

Tkachenko has selected 49 full games and another six fragments, annotated in detail by Vilner himself, Tkachenko, Romanovsky, Bogatyrchuk, and other leading players of the 1920s. The author has also included all 95 of Vilner’s known problems and studies, some of which are fairy problems, as well as many earlier versions and related compositions. Like in Tkachenko’s other collections, all 95 compositions are set on the right-hand side of the page with the solution overleaf.

This book will be of great interest to fans of Soviet chess history, exciting games collections and problem solving.

 

Contents

 

·         Part I – Life and Games (Thirteen sections)

·         Part II – Compositions and related works (Three sections)

·         Index of games and fragments (including openings)

·         Vilner’s key achievements

 

My thoughts and comments

First of all, and just one reason why these books from Elk and Ruby are so important, is that they bring to our attention characters from the past who might otherwise have passed us by. Yakov Vilner does not appear even in the Oxford Companion to Chess (Hooper and Whyld) which is a crying shame. Was nothing known of him at the time? Well anyway here he is, ‘Herz und Seele’ within a single book of dedication. I feel rather humbled to be one of the beneficiaries of such hard work. I admit to having a great interest in Russian/Soviet chess throughout history, so I was looking forward with great anticipation to opening the pages.

 

Here we have a man who like so many before him made significant contributions to chess and who died very young. He passed away at the criminally young age of thirty-one. They say it is not the years that you put in your life, but the life that you put in your years. Well, Yakov Vilner certainly packed a lot in, despite his poor health both with over the board play and chess compositions. The book is written in two parts, the first being an overview of his life and games, and the second containing those compositions and related works.

 

How did the book make me feel?

We tend to think about chess in a contemporary way, forgetting those who have gone before. We live and breathe in the time we are born, for sure. Today we have advanced medicines to keep us alive, especially for respiratory illness, but there was nothing like this for Vilner. Today we can enjoy excellent conditions for playing chess, and a support mechanism in terms of chess engines and a wealth of books and the Internet to aid and develop our game. There was nothing like this for Vilner. What he did, he did by dint of hard work and talent alone. I felt that this man, ill as he was for much of his life, had chess as his constant friend and spirit guide. Without it, his life would surely have been diminished, not so much in a physical, but intellectual sense. So many of us can relate to this.

 

Vilner was the first Ukrainian chess champion, and the games are interesting, because he clearly had a good feel for tactics. Tkachenko gently and skillfully helps the reader to comprehend what is happening. Personally, I enjoy looking through games from this epoch because they do contain errors (not the cold and compliant slavery of computer moves even if they are superior) and one can begin to grasp the style of chess played at that time and how for example openings were explored and developed.

 

Here he was White against Pogrebyssky at Odessa in 1928 and this position was arrived at after 1.d4 d5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bg5 c6 4. Qd3

 

Vilner plays the Veresov. I wonder how many people would play move today? Well, Hikaru Nakamura for one, in a Blitz game in 2019. It is just good fun looking at these openings and occasionally little gems can be found to perhaps employ in your own games later.

 

Then there are the compositions. Some of these are remarkable in their inventiveness and I can only wonder how Vilner actually devised them. Did they come to mind in the bath? Did he do them exclusively at the board, or did they appear at random?  

 

Here is one little example which was published in the Odessa News in 1913. It is White to play and mate in three. I shall provide the answer at the end of this review.

 

 

I felt some of Vilner’s frustration that his illness deprived him of even better results and more opportunities to play chess. I appreciated the inclusion of the rare photographs and drawings which enabled me to ‘step into’ his age.

 

The layout of this book is very good, with plenty of diagrams, photographs and results tables on good quality paper. It is a busy cover, but quite rightly an image of the man himself sits front and centre.

 

Does the book achieve its aim?

The book tells the world about Yakov Vilner’s life and his chess. It has been compiled after many years of hard graft and I am full of admiration for the player, the author and the Publisher on this one. It must have been a labour of love.

 

What really made this book worth reading is the fact that before I picked it up, I knew absolutely nothing about Yakov Vilner. When I finished it, I felt culturally enriched in a personal and chess sense. Tkachenko has done all the work, all you have to do is read and enjoy it.

 

Who is the author?

Sergei Tkachenko, a member of the Ukrainian team that won the 5th World Chess Composition tournament in 1997.

 

Answer to chess composition.

 

1.Ba8! e2 (only move) 2.Rb7! Kxg2 (only move) 3.Rh7#

This is lovely. When the bishop goes to a8, it will lie behind the critical b7 square which the rook will occupy, blocking any stalemate from a bishop check on g1. It paves the way for the rook’s mating ploy. This effect is the essence of the ‘Indian Theme.’ I love compositions like this, they are just so clever.