Delaware Chess Weblog

The subject of just about every review I’ve written so far is that one must work to improve. And most of us are lazy, or more charitably aren’t believers in the need for work. And this leads many of us – well, me specifically – to collect more books than will ever be useful.

There are several good sites that have some fine book reviews … and, yes, Chess Café is one of those sites. But there are often ways of marrying the work ethic we should be practicing to the desire to select the next book that will add (transparently) 200 points to our official rating.

A minor digression here. I, and most other chess players, have an incredible amount of respect for British GM John Nunn. A renowned theoretician and incredibly strong player, he is also a GM of problem solving. As an author he has written some of the best chess books of all time, and I don’t have a problem recommending anything he’s written (although a particular book may not be suitable for where you are … and where you are likely EVER to be!)

And now with the formation of Gambit Publications he is a chess publisher as well.

It’s always difficult as a publisher to ensure an evenness of quality in one’s book offerings. Obviously Garry Kasparov is not going to write a book about everything in your vision, and he certainly won’t do it for what you are likely able to pay him. So a publisher makes tradeoffs; goes with some new names; works with them through the creative process, but basically hopes for the best. Because when all is said and done and you have a book that you’ve already spent some money on, why not try and sell it? This leads to some variable–ness in quality … in the best case!

What I like about Gambit is that the variable–ness is kept to a minimum. There are some titles that I like better (like Joe Gallagher’s 365 Ways to Checkmate) and some that I don’t favor (like Beat the Grandmasters). But that says as much about me as it does about the books.

But what I really like about Gambit is that you can try before you buy. Just about every book has a downloadable pdf with a few pages from the exact book. They are nice enough to give you a coherent thought from the book’s author that gives you a good feel for what the book is like. If you like working through that excerpt, then buy one book and work through the rest of it. If not, you’ve saved your money and you can find another excerpt that appeals to you.

So here’s another source of FREE chess instruction!

Give it a try and start becoming familiar with some of the best chess literature developed today!

In the interest of fairness let me also say a few (for me) words about the other new chess publisher, Everyman Chess. I decided that I preferred Gambit over Everyman a few years ago. Both publishers try to have a consistent look across their product lines and that’s important. Gambit tends to have more “meat” in their books, and so I regard them as a better value. For example, Glenn Flear wrote a three volume endgame series for Everyman (Improve Your Endgame Play, Mastering the Endgame, and Test Your Endgame Thinking). Now the series itself (what I’ve worked through) is pretty good, but they split it up into three volumes totaling almost $55 (even on Amazon.com. It’s more if you count the fourth volume Starting Out: Pawn Endgames). That’s too much! Gambit’s offering (Fundamental Chess Endings) is half that, quite extensive and pretty readable too. And FCE also encourages you to work through it which makes it even better (there’s that work ethic again!)

Of course now I have to rethink my opinion of Everyman, because the future best–chess–writer–of–all–time (former world champion Garry Kasparov) writes for them. They also have a widely–acclaimed new writer in Jacob Aagaard. He’s written 5 volumes, starting with Excelling in Chess that are quite good. Be warned though – he’s also a champion of the “to improve you work your tail off” school, and he’s actually done it! The other warning is that none of his books are for beginners and I wouldn’t touch them until you are rated about 1600 or so.

Some of their titles do have preview sections available on Amazon.com. For example, some of Aagaard’s books and the new Master’s series book on Alexander Alekhine have excerpts on Amazon.com that you can look at. But why not the Master’s series book on Mikhail Tal (which I have and is quite good) or the newly released one on Bobby Fischer (Russians vs. Fischer)? Inconsistencies like this boggle the mind sometime ….

When I was growing up, I received a lot of chess books from relatives. Now some of them were quite good … and some weren’t. And I think it encouraged me to read them like novels instead of work through one at a time. I don’t want that to happen to you!

So here’s an offer to the readers of this website: Dr. Fleetwood has created an email account for me at bob@delawarechess.org. Send me the list of chess books that you own and I’ll create a recommendation for you on which one to work through next. If you’re thinking about buying a book, let me know and I’ll try to create a mini–review for you. When I get my first email, I’ll also create a topic on the Forums that the discussion can be continued on.

And remember – feedback of any kind is always encouraged and appreciated!

Yours for chess,

Bob

The Charter School of Wilmington brought four chess club members to Salesianum High School on Friday, May 13, 2005 to take on the top 4 Sallies players. The Charter Force took the overall victory on the day by a score of 3 wins to 1 loss after two and a half hours of fighting chess. The individual game results were:

Chase Butler (CSW) defeated Bill Frame (Sallies) in what was expected to be the biggest battle of the event but turned out to only last 10 moves as Bill obviously and uncharacteristically blundered in the opening!

Ben Riblett (CSW) defeated Ted Geneva (Sallies) in what started out looking ominous for black (Riblett). Unfortunately, Geneva blundered away his queen on move 9 when he didn’t realize a pinned piece was no longer pinned. Obviously, the game took a decided turn from there. It was very disappointing because the position they had reached prior to losing the queen was quite interesting, as our post game analysis showed.

Matt Fendt (Sallies) defeated Matt Borowski (CSW) in a 149 move marathon where both players seemed resistant to offering a draw, claiming a three position repetition or claiming the 50-move rule. Borowski decided to go for a risky move that finally cost him the game.

Phil Saponaro (CSW) defeated Joe Savage (Sallies) in what probably turned out to be the most interesting game of the match. This was a classic full of good moves and blunders and one dubious sacrifice by Savage that showed daring and vision - a move most young players would never have even considered. Phil found a solid enough defense that tested Savage’s ability to make the most of his sacrifice but, unfortunately, Joe played the wrong move and Phil went on to take back control in a game that changed hands repeatedly. You can view this game, along with some annotations, by going to http://www.delawarechess.org/chessviewer/cswsallies.htm

Another great chess day for two schools. We all look forward to a scholastic league next year!

I’m willing to try new things … how about you?

The reason I ask is that I am writing a review about something I want, not something I own! But I will own it, once I get the money!! So … here goes!

Many of you active on the web have probably come across articles by Mig Greengard - whether you know it or not. He’s a frequent columnist on www.ChessBase.com; and a regular contributor to www.ChessCafe.com.

He also has his own website at www.ChessNinja.com, which has to be one of the coolest URL names I’ve ever come across!

If you like news (and don’t wish to visit Chess Base frequently) you can subscribe to his Daily Dirt “blog”. In addition to light coverage of important tournaments (he is now posting updates on the Super-GM Mtel tournament in Sofia, Bulgaria and the huge HB Swiss in Minnesota), he includes significant personal notes (like updates on Kasparov). Everything is short and well-written and can be somewhat irreverant.

But what I want are the weekly email training newsletters. He has two: the White Belt series (for those under 1600) and the Black Belt series (for those over 1600). Jennifer Shahade is a regular contributor, and he just signed on US Champ and superstar Hikaru Nakamura. And what sold me are the sample issues at the bottom of his home page. There are two sample White Belt issues, and two sample Black Belt issues. In addition to that there is a tantalizing sample at http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=2011.

Now like most things, these won’t help if you aren’t committed to working through them. But if you try these out and want more, the cost is quite reasonable. For $35 (in other words, the price of two books a year or less) you can have over 400 pages of material, sent to an email account at 8+ pages a week. And here’s a Bob-challenge: if you diligently work through a 6-month’s subscription your rating will go up! Or send me a note and I’ll commiserate with you !!

Also an update: The Chess Review of January 16 touted the value of the ChessBase family of products. If you’d like to try a “classic” version of Shredder for free, I found this site: www.shredderchess.com. I couldn’t beat it either (sigh). But it has a lot of features for a free download!!

Good playing - Bob

Back in the early 1980s, British publisher Pergamon Press did the English speaking chess world an incredible favor by creating a series of books that were translated from Russian. Just about every one of these books was worthwhile, and brought to us a nice assortment of some of the best tools that were used by the famous Soviet chess school.

Two of the books that helped me become a lot stronger (300 rating points) were the Test Your Chess IQ books by A. Livshitz, copyrighted in 1981. Volume I was the first book I saw that gave the reader a series of tests that then would “predict” his rating.

Looking back, I think that was a somewhat goofy idea, but it’s a gimmick that ensures better sales. The real value of it – that I did not appreciate until later – is that it encourages a systematic study of tactical combinations the correct way. What is the correct way? Well – his tests are timed, each position is to be set up on a board and solved there, and the solution written down before proceeding to the next problem. The correct answers are only checked at the end.

It helped me because I was lazy up until that point; and struggling with the problems in a tournament–like environment made the lessons more ‘real’ and longer lasting.

Since the early 1980s, the books have been re–organized. There are now three volumes: Test Your Chess IQ: First Challenge, Test Your Chess IQ: Master Challenge, and Test Your Chess IQ: Grandmaster Challenge. My old volume I was geared toward ELO 1500 – 1900 which was about USCF 1600 – 2000.

I recommend those books highly … and for those that would like to try it out, I put the first test from my old Volume I on the bear website: http://bear.delawarechess.org/studies/Livshitz01.pdf

One of my other favorite tactics books is The Art of Combination, by M. V. Blokh. It was published by Inside Chess (or actually International Chess Enterprises). It is a delightful collection of problems that is organized well, and each problem has a level of difficulty associated with it.

Unfortunately the systematic approach has to be imposed on the book by you – but the problems are well chosen, and this was one of the books that Jennifer Shahade singled out in her lecture at the Bear library.

The book is long out of print, I think, but it is still available on the computer. This book is the basis for the highly acclaimed program CT–ART 3.0 by Convekta Enterprises. For those that don’t know Convekta, they are best known for Chess Assistant, but they’ve also published a whole series of programs based on works by Russian chess authors. The interface is a little un–polished in some of the programs, but CT–ART is top notch, and also highly recommended. I’ve shown it to Dr. Fleetwood who has already written a review about Intensive Chess Tactics by Renko – which is the competitive offering from ChessBase. Hopefully over the summer he will be able to compare the two programs for us (hint hint!).

For those of you who wish a feel for the Blokh problems, I’ve put together my own quiz based on his book at: http://bear.delawarechess.org/studies/Blokh01.pdf

Enjoy … and let me know of any feedback or questions!

Bob Wilder

On Saturday, May 7, 2005, Jennifer Shahade visited the Bear Library
to give a lecture and simul to 35 Delaware players. “SuperJen” as
she is known, enjoys promoting chess and it showed in her enthusiasm
and radiant smile as she talked about game tactics and strategies with children and adults. After giving a mini-lecture on various tactical positions, SuperJen fielded questions from the audience. During her lecture she spoke of the benefits of tactical training, especially for the less experienced players. When preparing to move you should, “Always look at checks and captures as candidate moves and then look for other possibilities” she said as she worked through one of the positions on the large display board. She also demonstrated why it is sometimes beneficial to under-promote a pawn to a knight or bishop rather than a queen – something most young players would never really consider. Although she did quickly add that you should never under-promote just to “torture your opponent!”

How old were you when you started chess?

What is your favorite white opening?

How long have you been playing in tournaments?

Is it okay to approach you at tournaments to say hi?

What was your best Olympiad experience? (The women’s team had their best showing ever in the last Chess Olympiad as they won a silver medal!)

Speaking of training, what is your training schedule like?

What do you think of the Fischer situation?

Are there any training books you recommend?

What is in your immediate future?

The Delaware chess community definitely wants to thank Jennifer for spending the day with us. It is an amazing ability to be able to play 35 people at the same time and still maintain your sanity! Everyone involved had a great time and enjoyed interacting with this very personable Women’s International Master. We certainly wish her the best in the future. Be sure to check out her website. And, for the results of the simul and more information on the day be sure to click on over to the Bear Scholastic site http://bear.delawarechess.org/Jen_simul_news.pdf

Let me extol the benefits of ChessCafe for one more week.

We’ve reviewed the three contributors I read seriously every month. I glance at most of the others, and there are occasional nuggets of gold in several others.

There is a book review column that changes much more frequently than once a month, and the reviews are quite good. I’ve read several that are right on the money.

My appreciation for Nigel Davies is moving up. His February 2005 article is one of my favorites. We have all heard (I hope!) that beginners should not spend a large percentage of their time studying openings – and I support that. The reason is that your sight of the board, your tactical acuity, and strategic knowledge have to be at a certain level before you can appreciate and understand the ideas behind the openings and why a particular opening has certain strengths – and certain weaknesses. Alas in chess, as in life, you don’t get something for nothing (unless you are playing me in a blitz game!) Nigel’s article presents a pretty well rounded opening repertoire that requires little theoretical knowledge. So you can start practicing openings without wasting precious study hours memorizing variations (which hardly ever helps).

There is a column from the Informant series every week. You may not be able to afford a subscription, but you have access to the best Grandmaster games – annotated! – at ChessCafe.

So let’s say that you have worked diligently through your favorite contributors this month, and have some serious study time on your hands. What then?

Archives!!

Current contributors have all their back columns a mouse click away. Non–current contributors have all their columns zipped up and available to download.

Who are these contributors?

The late Anthony Miles, an incredibly strong English GM has two years worth.
Lev Alburt (with Burt Hochberg) have almost that much.
Sunil Weeramantry and several others have a year or more.
Yasser Seirawan is recycling the best articles from Inside Chess (4 years worth now)

I am quite serious about the value of these columns. If you want to improve, there is no shortcut – you must work. ChessCafe ensures that you can get quite good without spending any money on books (as long as you have an internet–accessible computer!).

Try it!

Bob Wilder

Delaware Elementary School Championship

May 15, 2005; JCC of Delaware, 101 Garden of Eden Rd.;
5SS, G/30, nonrated; EF: $7 by May 10th, $10 after;
two sections: grade 4-6, grade 3 & below; in each
section, trophies to top 4, top in each grade, and top
3 teams. Onsite registration ends at 12:00, rounds
12:30, 1:30, 2:30, 3:30, 4:30; entries to Randy
Rosenthal, JCC of Delaware, 101 Garden of Eden Rd.,
Wilmington, DE 19803, rrosenthal@jccdelaware.org,
302-478-5660.

This upcoming weekend (5/6-5/7) will be a busy one for Delaware Chess fans. While it is unfortunate that two big events occurred at the same time it is also exciting to see the Delaware chess world exploding in popularity with so many things to do. So mark you calendars for…

The New Castle County Open - a Grand Prix Event

and

The Jennifer Shahade lecture/simul

Come join in on all the fun!