Review: Practical Endgames Vol 8 - Practical Rook Endgames

I've finally gotten a chance to sit down and watch Karsten Müller's Endgame Vol 8 - Practical Rook Endgames.

It's taken him a couple of Chessbase DVDs but Müller now is able to smile on camera and is definitely very relaxed. He is in a particularly jovial mood and his presentation on camera is infectious.


There is no denying the endgame aspect of the royal game is definitely in his area of expertise and this time, he gives it in spades.

Mixing a bit of humour (for a German!) in between serious analysis and explanations, Müller is by now extremely comfortable in front of the camera. This is in stark contrast to his earlier DVDs where he can rattle off some complex variations and endgame techniques in a single breath. Here, Müller takes the time to pause and allows the idea to sink in (but not too long). He has definitely become a much better presenter, in fact, in spite of his German accent, his English is easily understandable and he has become one of my two favourite Chessbase authors (the other being Daniel King).


Ironically, one of the best segments was his commentary on an endgame between himself and fellow Chessbase DVD author, Daniel King. It was a team event in the German Bundesliga and Müller's team had by then lost. However, he explains how he wanted to play the endgame through to the end with King much to the consternation of his team-mates who wanted to go out and eat.

"Why go and eat when you can play a Rook ending?" was his reply.

LOL. The game lasted some 75 odd moves so you can imagine how long his team had to wait for him!

This DVD focuses exclusively on Rook endgames. Unlike his earlier DVD 2 (did I review this? I really need to find my old Chessbase DVDs in the closet), he expounds on important techniques such as how to deal with a blockading Rook, how to use the checking distance effectively, how to maximise the full potential of the Rook.

Chessbase has kindly provided a short video of this DVD. In this video, Müller adopts a slightly more serious tone but this video is typical of the rest of his videos, his explanations are always succinct and precise.

However, all this is not just fun and games. When you start the video, Müller fully EXPECTS you to pause the video in the beginning and study the position and decide on the best course of action to take.

I feel that this method is the best way to reap maximum benefit from this DVD.

The DVD is broken down into the following chapters:

Chapter 1: Rook v Pawn (5 videos)
Chapter 2: Rook techniques (9 vide0s)
Chapter 3: Protection against a series of checks (10 videos)
Chapter 4: The 4th phase of the game (3 videos)
Chapter 5: Activity counts most (5 videos)
Chapter 6: Defence (12 videos)
Chapter 7: Complicated cases (8 videos)

The majority of each video lasts between 2-4 minutes. However, do not be put off by the short length of the videos. What matters most important is the communication of ideas and how well the audience is able to absorb the lessons imparted by Müller. And it is here that Müller does not fail you.

There is one more thing I need to add. In some positions when Müller says this game is "theoretically drawn", he EXPECTS you to know HOW TO DRAW THIS GAME. If you're having trouble with this, please do get a copy of his book, Fundamental Chess Endings (or Nunn's Chess Endings) and read it. At the very least, get his earlier Chessbase DVDs Endgames Vol 1 and 2. These 2 DVDs will teach you the basic strategies and how to apply them correctly in endgames.

In summary, this is a top class video presentation given by Müller. He has IMHO, overtaken Dvoretsky as my favourite endgame author.

I am definitely looking forward to his next Chessbase DVD on endgames. Incidentally, if you haven't got enough of his endgame lessons, I encourage you to visit the Chesscafe website (where he produces an Endgame column every month).

Review : Improve Your Chess Tactics

A new book I ordered just arrived at my desk today. It's Yakov Neishtadt's "Improve Your Chess Tactics".

Before I start my review, I'll just give a brief blurb. I am familiar with Neishtadt's older tactics tome "Test Your Tactical Ability" from 1981 so I would do a bit of comparison with this new book and his older book.

First off, this book is fairly thick (but nowhere near the monstrous Chess Informant's Anthology of Chess Combinations 3rd Edition - if you'd ever want to get a hernia, carrying that book around would do it *wink*).

But this is not to say that this book offering from Neishtadt is lightweight either. It numbers 385 pages and offers over 700 lessons and exercises.

The first couple of paragraphs in the Introduction is word for word identical but there are some differences between the 1981 tome and this book, resulting in the introduction being worded slightly differently. This is not that big a problem. In fact, I find the introduction extremely well written and I do not think it needs any changes.

With that out of the way, let's go onto the meat of the book.

The book is classified according to themes. The first few sections are devoted to the primary ideas of Deflection, Decoying, Eliminating Defenders, Clearing Squares And Lines.

Each page has been arranged in 2 columns (with the exception of some section introductions).

Chess diagrams are clearly displayed and a small white box or black box indicated to the left of the chess diagram denotes which is the side to move.

The font used is typical of other New In Chess books (you can see the font in the puzzle diagram below). I've owned other New In Chess books including the excellent tournament books (also by New In Chess) Botvinnik-Smyslov and Botvinnik-Petrosian (I humbly suggest that you at least get Botvinnik-Smyslov if you're looking to get a good tournament book about the history behind the World Chess Championships - Botvinnik's annotations are superb).

Each section begins with a chockful of lessons. The author has clearly taken time to explain the not just the moves but also the ideas behind the moves and did not simply to resort to just pure Chess Informant style notations. Additional diagrams for these lessons are supplemented when the variations run too long and this is very nice to see. After all, not everyone can calculate like Magnus Carlsen or Vladimir Kramnik and can retain the diagrammed positions in their heads after some 12 ply moves.

It must also be noted that some lessons from the 1981 tome has carried over to this book (eg. Puzzle 103 Levitina v Gaprindashvili). However, the similaries end there. The words have clearly been rephrased so it looks like the author and editors have taken care to each puzzle and did not simply rehash the same paragraphs. However it must be noted that this simple rephrasing of the words does not mean that they make the explanation any less unclear.

Unlike the 1981 book, this book places a lot more emphasis on a combination of themes. While the older book focuses on specific themes like pinning, decoying etc, the newer and later chapters concentrate more heavily on the topic of a combination of themes. This is IMHO, a very good change and a refreshing update as compared with the old book. At the upper echelons of chess games, it is very unlikely that a game can be won through a simple theme like a pin. Typically, a combination of themes is a certainly required to turn the game to your advantage.

Unfortunately, the claims of having the combinations of the puzzles computer-checked is that it is not thorough. I've recently discovered a small error in the book and have emailed the editors about it and will await their response. I will update it once I've heard from them.

Now having spent some more time with this book for a good few hours, I've not noticed any more visible mistakes. In fact, I found the addition of newer games a very welcome change because some of the ideas and the games I've not seen before and are extremely instructive. Some of the combinations require a good deal of calculation. One of the nice things about this book is that the variations in the lessons never get too far ahead that it makes your brain struggle.

Once the lessons end, the real homework begins. This book is slightly different in its approach. In the older tome, Test Your Tactical Ability, the puzzles that proceed after the lessons are given with hints and problems to overcome. These are then followed by puzzles with just diagrams and no verbose provided.

In this book, puzzles with no explanations nor descriptions (just single diagrams) are presented first. It is only after these puzzles that is then followed by puzzles with some verbose question. In other words, the order of the puzzles have been reversed.

I have to warn you that at my patzer level, the puzzles that are aided with hints/questions are definitely not easy. Some are just given one-liners like "Continue the attack" or "Is Black's kingside really well defended?" or "Can you take the pawn on e5?" Others are however given very extensive treatment and can take up to a paragraph or two. A case in point, Puzzle 309 reads,"White has sacrificed a knight to open the h-file and his pieces are aiming at the kingside. By playing 1.Qe4, he threatens to bring the Queen to h4. It cannot be taken because of mate on h8. How can Black defend?"

Such questions can add to or detract from the puzzle (depending on your tastes) because they provide subtle hints that forces you to work through them. On the other hand, if you feel like up to a challenge, you can also choose to cover these hints with a piece of paper as you work through them. However what these questions do is that they force you to think critically and tactically.

The solutions are presented in the later half of the book. What I do like about the Solution pages is the layout (see picture on the right). Instead of just simply cramming in the solution to a single 1-2 liner littered with chess notation and symbols, detailed descriptions including explanations of the ideas are provided. That is a great aid to anyone who wishes to improve their tactical vision.

A more welcome change is that the original puzzle diagram is also posted to the left of the solution. This is more than an advantage than it appears. No longer do readers need to flip and back-flip to the puzzle page and solution page ad nauseum.

The older book, Test Your Tactical Ability has a section that is no longer present in this book. It is a small section titled,"Do you know the Classics?" In it, you will find the games played by great chess players of the past, and they range from well known tournaments to lesser known games vs lesser known opponents. While I find the omission of this section a bit sad (but not by much), I can understand why it has been removed. Sometimes, the moves played by great chess players of the past do not stand up to scrutiny against the most vicious chess engines of today.

All up, in spite of the error I discovered, I liked this book a lot and I can forsee that it is going to take me up to a year to work and re-work through the puzzles (yes, I have a day job) and I'll be having a lot of fun with it. I'm an old stick-in-the-mud player so I think the maximum benefit that can be derived from this book is if they set up the positions on an actual chess board and work through them by hand (alternatively, you can setup the board position on Fritz/Chessbase in 3D to give you roughly the same effect - although it's not the same, it saves you time from resetting the board positions ).

Conclusion: IMHO this book is fantastic. It is a great learning tool for players and coaches.
Target rating: 1700 - 2200

UPDATE: I've received the reply from the New In Chess editor. They were extremely responsive and replied with the next day. The problem with the diagram I've posted above (2nd diagram) is that there is a error in the line.

The original line is given as:

3. Bg6+! Inviting the king into a mating net

…… Ke6

4. Qc8+ Qd7

5. Bf5+ Kf7

6. Qxd7+ Kf8

BUT now

7. Qd8+ cannot be played because of Black's dark square bishop guarding the d8 square and thus, the rest of the continuation falls apart.

Instead, I've found a much better way to proceed. (LinuxGuy, nice spot on Qxc7 in the comments!)

3. Bg6+! Ke6

4. Qg8+! (idea is the White Queen stops the Black King's escape route along the back rank) Kd7

5. Bf5+ (the Black Queen is now forced to sacrifice itself) Qe6

6. Qxe6+ Kd8

7. Qd7#

Apparently, the NiC editor discovered my mating line was even quicker so they will add my line to the Errata page as well. :D

Botvinnik-Petrosian Book Review

For readers who have been wondering where I have gone, I have been reading some of the books I bought the last 3 months. And I've just finished reading Botvinnik-Petrosian - The 1963 WCC Match by Mikhail Botvinnik.

I started reading the book 2 months ago and despite it being a somewhat thin book, it was hard because trying to find time to read the annotations and play the game (using a chessboard and its variations) is time-consuming!

If you've ever wanted to know about the old Soviet chess champions, this book is very insightful. It details the going-ons of the clash between 2 heavyweight chess personalities.

Note that this is a patzer's review so hang on to your seats!

Book quality:

This book is printed by New In Chess. The covers have a slight cardboardish glossy feel to it that is typical of many softcover chess books (slightly better than what softcover novels use). Inside, the pages are of pristine white paper and the quality of the paper makes it very easy to move between pages. The binding is glued based but considering how relatively thin this book is, it does the job decent enough in holding the pages together. The font is in Times New Roman using figurine algebraic notation. The font is just a shade bigger (about 1-2 points bigger) than most chess books which makes the annotations stand out very clearly and makes reading a joy. The typeset in combination with the white pages makes reading comfortable.... very comfortable. The book is presented in 2 columns on each page.

Content:

The presentation of the book is well thought out. A table of contents was accompanied with a foreword from Karpov, followed by notes from Igor Botvinnik, a simple overview of the match regulations and a match table containing the 22 games fought.

And with that, the game begins in earnest.

This is where things get a little uneven.

The annotations do not have a uniform feel to it. This is of course, no doubt in part due to the different annotators of each game. While we would all like to have all game annotations from Botvinnik or Petrosian, unfortunately, this is just not possible. So the book has to make do with annotations from other notable chess figures.

Annotations are as follows:-
Game 1 - Mikhail Botvinnik
Game 2 - Tigran Petrosian
Game 3 - Alexander Kotov
Game 4 - Mikhail Botvinnik
Game 5 - Tigran Petrosian
Game 6 - Vladimir Akopian
Game 7 - Vladimir Akopian
Game 8 - Mikhail Botvinnik
Game 9 - Vladimir Akopian
Game 10 - Mikhail Botvinnik
Game 11 - Mark Taimanov
Game 12 - Salo Flohr
Game 13 - Mikhail Botvinnik
Game 14 - Mikhail Botvinnik
Game 15 - Garry Kasparov (from My Great Predecessors)
Game 16 - Mikhail Botvinnik
Game 17 - Viktor Kortchnoi
Game 18 - Vladimir Akopian
Game 19 - Vladimir Akopian
Game 20 - Vladimir Bagirov
Game 21 - Vasily Panov
Game 22 - Vasily Panov

It must be noted that by game 20, Petrosian had an overwhelming 3 point lead. At this stage, Botvinnik knew the game was pretty much over. He tried making an effort in game 20 but when that quickly petered to a draw, games 21 and 22 were just signatory moves that only lasted 10 moves. I don't think anyone can really complain about the annotations of the last 2 games! :)

This is followed by what must be the highlight of the book. A valuable 10 page insight given by Petrosian about the match. In it, he explains the circumstances surrounding the match, his preparation, his psychology and state of mind.

Somewhat oddly included after is a symbolic game of Botvinnik's preparation in his game against Mark Taimanov. This is then succeeded by a 2 page excerpt taken from Chess World 1964 by Botvinnik on why he lost the match.

9 games of Botvinnik-Petrosian were then shown, of which only 2 were properly annotated while the others were simply shown with little or no annotation at all (what a pity!). This is followed by training games between Botvinnik and Furman (no annotations) and the book concluded with Botvinnik's final notebook on opening preparation.

I admit that I've not played through these games but I might possibly do so at a future date when time permits.

Criticisms:

The unevenness of the annotated games makes one feel a tad disjointed. One moment, we are treated to Botvinnik's pedantic style, the next, Akopian's more modernish annotations (with some very extensive annotations by virtue of the length of some of the variations that run up to 20 ply moves!)

I think this is probably the only criticism I have of the book and indeed, it's very difficult to find fault with the book.

Kudos:

The book is littered with many pictures of the 2 players. This is a nice departure from the Botvinnik-Smyslov book where annotations and more annotations fill the book.

All of the annotations were superb and I find it hard to pick out the best game annotation of the whole book. If I were given a choice, I would nominate Game 5 annotated by Petrosian. What makes Game 5's annotations memorable was that Petrosian himself inserted some very interesting comments between moves (including the match environment).

Summary:

This book is going to be one of my favourite books for many years to come. The nice thing is that due to its largely fewer pages (when you see the Botvinnnik-Smyslov tome, you would know what I mean), it is an extremely handy and great book to read along to fill in the time.

I would judge this book to be very educational for players who want to improve their game or for readers who simply want to know about the 1963 match.

Conclusion:

A solid A+ effort!

I've done 1 book and 2 more to go.... I don't expect to finish reading the next 2 anytime soon. They are Botvinnik-Smyslov and San Luis 2005 *gulp*

Review: Perfect Your Chess

Over the weekend, I picked up a different kind of book on tactics, Andrei Volokitin and Vladimir Grabinsky's Perfect Your Chess.

For those in the 1800-2400 rating level wishing to improve their chess, this book firmly hits right on the target.

The introduction reads,"It is easy to explain the popularity of chess. The game is simple to learn, it is interesting, and after one's first victories, one can get the illusion that with a small effort, there is no reason why one should not become world champion."

The book goes on then to state,"We are not denying the value of studying opening theory or recent games, but we suggest that one must think more carefully about the relative importance of these and other factors, and the correct allocation of one's time to such essential things as developing combinative vision, calculation of variations, and the development of one's imagination."

And it is in the last 3 phrases that the book really focuses on. The book is divided into 3 sections:

1. Make A Move (positions where one must find the best move) - aimed at developing intuition and imagination in chess
2. Find The Win (positions where one must find a forcing variation, leading to a win) - aimed at testing combinative vision and calculation of variations
3. Answer A Question (find an answer to a concrete problem) - aimed at developing positional understanding and logic

The good thing about this book is that each section starts with a "taster" of Volokitin's own games comprising 23 games. But after solving these 23 games, the meat of the section lists 100 test examples.

The first 40 are aimed at FIDE master level, the next 40 at IM level and the remaining 20 at GM level.

Here the authors encourage the reader to give enough time to explore, including setting up the positions on the board and "cheating" by moving pieces around for exploration and the calculation of variations. And the idea is to solve them gradually and systematically.

There are no time limits here, no pressure for you to find the answer, but rather to develop your thinking ability. The book encourages you to do at least 5 training puzzles daily but I think most club players would be having problems just solving 2 or 3 a day.

Be warned, the puzzle positions are tough. Very tough.

To give the book a good flavour, the sections are rather brief and scant on details. The position can involve anything. For example, the first section consists of positions where the solution can be either a quiet move, a zwischenzug (in-between move), prophylactic move etc. In this way, the authors are trying to make you think as you would in an actual board situation.

Unlike other tactical books, the solutions to each section are given immediately after the section.

When I went through Volokitin's test examples, I am quickly humbled. The solutions give very concrete and extensive analysis (including variations) with small notes on why the solution is as is.

These test examples are not one trick pony solutions - they're not even three-move checkmates.

To give you an idea of how hard it is, take the following example from one of Volokitin's 30 questions (for the purpose of brevity, I've taken shorter solutions as examples):

See the following puzzle on the right. White to play.

The following solution is listed in the book (highlight between the brackets to see it):

[In sharp positions, the value of the move is considered. Here White dallied with:
13 Nb3?
and fails to find the beautiful tactical possibility:
13. Nxd5!! Nxd5
14. Nf5! Rc4
15. Qb5 Bxf5
16. Rxd5 a6
17. Qxa5 Qxa5
18. Rxa5 +-]

If you thought the above was hard, I'll throw in another slightly easier example. See the 2nd puzzle on the right. Black to play and find the win.

[Black missed the win by playing
31 ... Qb5?
when
31 ....g4!
32. Qg3 Qf1+!!
33. Rxf1 Ne2#
(or Kxf1 Rh1#)]

One minor defect of the book is that not every variation is given and when given, they run up to usually 8-10 ply deep with verbose explanation.

So if you're at least 1800 in strength, willing to work hard on your game, this book will pay its rewards very well.

GM Davies Threatens Lawsuit At S&BCC

I've been a reader of the blog Streatham & Brixton Chess Club for many months now. The blog gives me a good update on chess events happening in the UK.

However, what shocked me over the last few days was the heavy-handed response to a review of the book, The Dynamic Reti from GM Nigel Davies.

This led to a flurry of exchanges where GM Davies threatened legal action against a blog post and it was followed up with the supposed offending poster issuing an apology under that same post. GM Davies subsequently put out a somewhat-sniping retort under the header Nigel Davies emails (see below).

GM Davies also described what he feels in his blog at here and here.

If anyone is wondering about the original content, I'll give a quick break down.

In a reply (since removed) to the blog post on Echo Echo, the OP opined that Davies's work is comparable to Keene's work which might suggest some form of impropriety (ie. mildly alluding that Davies might be using Keene's analysis in his book since he lists Keene's book in his bibliography).

However, I wonder what possessed him to write the following to S&B CC:

"Thanks for removing those comments, I was left no choice but to defend myself. I see that a lot of the negative stuff is still up there and I do have something to say about this.

I’ve probably bought more chess books than your entire club put together, including some by the most damned authors out there. And it’s never occurred to me to try and do any kind of nitpicking hatchet job on them.

Why? The way I see it, books are just about the best value out there, you can gain insights into just about anything for the price of a few pints. And even the supposedly ‘worst’ authors (which ain’t me or Glenn Flear btw) usually have something interesting to say.

As an example, I started playing the Kan Sicilian after using a book on this opening that got really slated by the reviewers. It gave me an idea about the lines after which I started playing around with the thing with a board and pieces. It never occurred to me that I should be spoonfed or that this book should be perfect in every way. It saved me heaps of time in getting to grips with the thing and provided a starting point for my own thoughts.

Maybe the question you should be asking is why people are so negative about books. I believe the that the answer may be the key to why they’re not better players."

I thought this was way over-the-top.

Chess materials get reviewed all the time and reviewers by and large tend to be subjective because each reviewer's bias, perception and knowledge is different. Anyone reading Chesscafe's Checkpoint articles and John Watson's chess reviews would know what I mean. Some chess books gets ripped to absolute shreds.

Me? I find this whole event to be a storm in a teacup considering the original offending post was over a year old.

A close friend once told me,"Opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one."

Chessbase Review: French Defence

I've been meaning to review this DVD since the end of last year and I finally managed to get some time to do this.

I used to play the main line French then subsequently moved onto the Winawer/MacCutcheon variation (which I mentioned a long time ago that I was not going to learn to play but which I took up in the end). Since then, I've moved on from the French Defence.That means no more Milner Barry gambits, no more Alekhine-Chatard attacks for me although I'm still quite tempted to investigate the Burn and Guidmard variations of the French Defence.

So what I am getting to here? Well, this blog post is dedicated to Greg who mentions in this blogpost here.

I've been playing the French on and off for nearly half a year now. I am not an expert in the French Defence and I don't profess to be one. However, it has garnered me a few wins so far so I guess it's not that bad. Till today, I still have a soft spot for the French Defence although I have been investigating other opening defences to improve my opening repertoire in response to 1.e4.

The problem with playing the French Defence is that it's a rather misunderstood defence. Some people think that the French Defence is a tame defence. Well, they couldn't be more wrong. The French Defence is a strong counter-attacking defence.

In case you missed it, let me say that again, it is a counter-attacking defence.

While White is busy pushing pawns, Black hits back at the center (usually) with everything except the kitchen sink.

For a club player, I would seriously recommend Ari Ziegler's French Defence DVD (image on left) - Repertoire For Black if and only if you're interested in taking up the French as your main repertoire. Unlike some *other* Chessbase DVDs, this DVD is by and far, one of the best Fritz Trainers to have come out of Chessbase.

The DVD comprises some 7 hours (!!) of lessons. Frankly I am very surprised that Chessbase managed to squeeze that much information into 1 DVD. If Ziegler were to make a second DVD dealing with other variations of the French Defence, I would be the first in line to buy it.

What about the DVD itself?

Ziegler speaks with a rather slow, serious (some would say ponderous) and thoughtful voice. He is so unlike the cocktail-drinking-yawning-in-front-of-camera Jacob Aagaard, the somewhat placid but solid presenter Andrew Martin, the funny Daniel King, the somewhat-whiny voice of Rustam Khasimzhanov and the ever-gruffy-voice-and-nerdy Karsten Muller.

When he says something, he pauses, thinks, and gives you his thoughts on the position. He does not rush but he expects you to see tactical combinations quickly.

However, I do notice that Ziegler sometimes zips through the moves at record speed at later segments. That's because he presumes you've already watched the earlier clips and knows the variations so he doesn't bother wasting time .

He starts off with the Advance variation (you can read up ChessCafe's rather brief review of the DVD in this link), followed by the Tarrasch, the Classical and the Steinitz.

There are a few minor odd-looking moves in Ziegler's repertoire unfortunately (I leave it to you to figure it out) but I would say it is definitely more than good enough for the club player. He also gives short rift of the Exchange Variation and does not even delve into the Winawer nor the MacCutcheon. So if you're looking for insights into these lines, unfortunately, you would have to look somewhere else.

I have since expanded my repertoire of the French Defence and included a few new lines taken from materials from other sources.

This DVD would take at least a week to digest all the necessary information (especially for newcomers to the French Defence) and I would strongly urge to work at your own pace and not to hurry.

One big pity is that some of the annotations for the games are in Swedish. A real shame as Ziegler's annotations are very insightful.

As a note, some viewers may be left "hanging in the air" regarding a particular reference to a player. In one of his video segments, Ziegler mentions of a player who "knows the French from every angle". He is not referring to Uhlmann or Korchnoi but the Swedish CC Grandmaster Rune Holmberg. You are not likely to find his games in normal databases but you can find it by looking up CC chess databases. I strongly urge you to find his games and go through them if you're interested.

After you have digested the DVD, what next, you say? I would say, read up more on the French Defence. Any books by John Watson regarding the French is usually good.

I know what some people are thinking. Who plays the French Defense these days? It has virtually disappeared from super-GM play. Well, the beauty of the French Defence is that there are still many unexplored lines.

If you want to know more, there is no shortage of great players on the Black side of the French. They include Victor Korchnoi, Wolfgang Uhlmann, Mikhail Gurevich, Nigel Short, Alexander Morozevich and Evgeny Bareev.

And now for something unrelated.....

For the last note of the day, speaking of a trip back to the past...... here's a very nice blast from the past.

Who was undoubtedly acknowledged as the greatest in the chess world?

One that even Kasparov, Kramnik and Anand saw fit to humble themselves and acknowledged; together with other famous grandmasters as shown in the signatures in the picture on the right?

David Bellows, that's who.

I know what you're thinking,

"Who On Earth Is David Bellows?!!" *wink*

Karsten Mueller: Endgames Vol 1

I've finally got some time (in between fuelling a massive cough/sore throat) resting at home, sucking on Strepsils, gargling salt water and taking cough medicine, I got some time to sit down and watch Mueller's Endgame Volume 1 : Basic Knowledge For Beginners.

Mueller is a well known endgame expert GM (my wife calls him the "bun" - because his cheeks are rather round and the shape of his head looks like a bun) and also has a PhD in mathematics. In this series of DVDs, he lays down the basic rules which "all chess players must know" (as Mueller himself puts it).

A resident from Hamburg, Mueller speaks with a noticeable German accent. Mueller is concise, goes through each example slowly and it was thus, not a problem following him.

The layout of the DVD is as follows:

Chapter 1: Mating (with Queen, Rook, double Bishops, Bishop and Knight)
Chapter 2: Pawn Endings (Rule Of The Square, K+P v K, Bodycheck, Opposition, Passed Pawns, Triangulation)
Chapter 3: Knight Endings (Knight vs Pawns)
Chapter 4: Bishop Endings (Bishop vs Pawns, Opposite coloured Bishops)
Chapter 5: Bishop vs Knight
Supplementary Chapter: Queen vs Pawns (1 video)

In all, there are slightly over 35 video fragments.

Most of the material covered here is fairly basic but it is a very good refresher course (even if you do know it). Mueller chooses highly instructive examples to demonstrate his point and he is very comfortable with the Fritz GUI, using highlighted squares and arrows throughout his presentation.

Mueller's tone is slightly deadpan, he's not as interesting as say, instructors like Andrew Martin but he carries himself well in front of the camera and exudes confidence.

There are some slightly comedic moments eg. when Mueller says,"Even if I were to wake you from your sleep, you will still be able to know how to checkmate with your Queen!"

Do note that his material is taken from his encyclopedic book, Fundamental Chess Endings. So if you don't feel like spending the $$$ for this DVD, do at least grab his book.

One thing I noticed with regards to learning chess this way, I absorb the material much faster than if I were to read a book and play the moves from the book using a board. The downside is that Mueller unfortunately cannot cover more of this in just one DVD.

If I have to give this a rating, I would say, it's 8.5 stars out of 10 stars.

It's a very good chess DVD (the Chessbase Reader is included fyi) and one I would heartedly recommend.

Review Of Alexei Suetin's 3 Steps to Chess Mastery

I recently picked up this chess book from the library. It's titled 3 Steps to Chess Mastery.

I tried looking up a review for the book but the comments were less than favorable (I'm not sure why).

I was actually quite surprised. Having leafed through the about 50 odd pages now, I actually found that this is quite a good book for my chess level.

GM Alexei Suetin has a knack of putting things simply and accurately.

Who is GM Suetin, you may ask? Well, Alexei Suetin is a highly respected GM in former USSR who is also a second and trainer to Tigran Petrosian for many of his most important matches, including his world championship victory in 1963. He was for many years Moscow's senior coach, overseeing the development of promising new talents.

This book combines 2 of Suetin's other works: The Chess Player's Laboratory and The Path To Mastery.

The book is published by Cadogen Chess, first in 1982 and then reprinted again 1983, 1988,1998 and 1996. Certain chess ideas may be a bit dated but the book has surprisingly aged well. It's been translated by Ken Neat.

The book is broken down into 9 main sections and I've highlighted a few subsections within these sections:

Part I : The Chess Player's Laboratory

1. Ways and Means of Improving
- Methods of Evaluating A Position, Planning, The Choice Of Move, Connection Between Opening And Middlegame etc.

2. In The Player's Laboratory
- The Test Of Mastery, Working On One's Own Games, The Technique Of Opening Preparation etc.

Part II: Work On The Elimination Of One's Shortcomings, And Other Problems Of Self-Improvement

3. Certain Tendencies In A Chess Player's Thinking
- Impulsive Thinking, Play By Analogy etc.

4. A Chess Player's Characteristic Thinking Defects
- Sense Of Proportion, Chess Culture, Loss Of Consistency, Keep Your Cool etc.

5. Direct And Indirect Consequences Of Tactical Mistakes
- Mistakes Which Are Difficult To Rectify and Errors Leading To Positional Concessions

6. The Problem Of Choosing A Move
- Combination Visions, The Harmfulness Of Routine Moves, Visual Imagination etc.

Part III: The Master Level

7. Dynamics Of The Struggle And A Concrete Approach To The Evaluation Of A Position
- A Modern Panorama Of The Chess Battle, Inductive And Deductive Methods Of Thinking, Visual And Verbal Ideas etc.

8. Intuition And Risk In Chess
- Broad Aspects Of Intuition, Restrictive Play And 'Pressurizing' etc.

9. The Various Styles And Schools Of Chess Creativity
- Problems Of Classifying Styles, Individual Playing Styles, Playing Styles And Chess Practice etc.

This book has about 190 pages in all. Keep in mind that many of these subsections are only discussed in about 2-4 pages each.

One thing I liked about this book is how Suetin lays out the details to you in a concise manner. He doesn't go through many pages explaining why he states a particular statement. He shows it to you by means of suitable game examples, historical anecdotes (and explains them why they are so).

I'll read to you a few of the paragraphs so you can have a good idea of what the book is like.

The following few paragraphs relates to what should go on in the player's laboratory with respect to to preparation.

"For a young player, wishing to raise the standard of his play, it is important, even essential, to make analysis an integral part of his home training. The starting positions from this can (and should!) be most varied (after all, in practice one has to deal with all kinds of situations). But nevertheless, the emphasis should undoubtedly be on complicated middlegame set-ups, full of tactical content. For the most part, such a criterion is well satisfied by positions arising at the transition from opening to middlegame in present-day openings. It is no accident that it is on such problem set-ups that the strongest players sharpen their analytical mastery. In this way a dual aim is achieved : the development of analytical skill, and a penetration into the jungle of a particular opening system, which one can add to one's 'armoury'.
....

What generally happens is that, the deeper you go into the jungle of such positions, not only does the evaluation not become clearer, but often the player is faced with an even more confused picture.

But this should not dismay the analyst.

A knowledge of highly complicated, practically inexhaustible positions opens up enormous scope for the development of the most varied aspects of chess thinking. The result is that, along with the development of analytical potentialities, the player's genuine understanding of chess grows, without being confined within some formal framework. Also, the deeper your analysis of positions in the transition from opening to middlegame, the greater the advantage you gain over your future opponents. Also in opening preparation, virtually the most important thing for the practical player is to be constantly ahead in your 'production secrets'.

Thus you should attempt to be a Sherlock Holmes of chess. And remember that each time you can get down to the essence of the problem by a combination of painstaking and inventive work, worthy of a clever detective.

It is not all positions, arising on the transition from opening to middlegame, that are full of specific content. But always, after the completion of mobilization, there arise a certain complex of of strategic and tactical problems (provided, of course, that in the opening neither side has made some bad mistake, allowing the opponent quickly to gain a serious advantage).

Therefore, when studying variations, you should attempt in particular to see the 'physical meaning' - the intrinsic strategic and tactical ideas. In short, when studying an opening (ie. in essence, a specific middlegame) you should not so much aim to remember the variations, but rather to study the most important critical positions that arise here."

This is very good advice. The book is practically littered all over the place with explanations like this.

The book also contains some very interesting insights and stories. Take for example, the following excerpt:

"Later I became acquainted with several of the training methods employed by Keres. Thus, for example, he liked to study one and same position from opposite points of view. If say, a pawn was sacrificed for the initiative, with inexhaustible ingenuity he would seek resources for the attack. But then came the 'dead point'. Keres would turn the board through 180 degrees, and with equal ingenuity and energy would begin searching for resources of defence and counter-play."

Too often we have books these days of tactics, endgames, combinations, openings, middlegames. However very few books have been devoted to combining them together so they make sense. What this book does is connects these 'dots', so to speak.

Unfortunately, I've not the chance to investigate the highlighted games mentioned in the book in depth but I think the games serve more to highlight a point (and the lines should of course be checked with computer analysis where possible for accuracy) than anything else.

The book contains many many useful tips on how to master chess and what are the steps needed to achieve success over the board.

If you manage to find this book at an old second hand bookshop, do read a bit through it and see if you like the book.

I know I certainly had.