The Chess Mind

Michael Melts, The Scandinavian Defense: The Dynamic 3...Qd6 (Russell Enterprises 2009); $29.95. (Available here.) Reviewed by Dennis Monokroussos.

To be honest, the opening line 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd6 isn't one I know very well, nor one I have much interest in taking up at this point. What I can say is that the new book on this system by Michael Melts (the second edition of a 2001 book) is insanely detailed. It's packed like an openings encyclopedia with game references and analysis; indeed, one might think that every 3...Qd6 game in history is included.

I'll list some pros and cons, but be aware that this is not a detailed review based on my thorough investigation of the book. With that caveat, then, let's continue.

PROS:

1. As mentioned above, the coverage is encyclopedic. As a source book, one would be hard-pressed to top this.

2. It's an economical system, by which I mean that it's pretty well one-stop shopping against 1.e4. If you want to play the Najdorf Sicilian, you first have to worry about 2.a3, 2.b4, 2.c3, 2.d4 and 2.Nc3; then after 2.Nf3 d6 there's 3.Nc3, 3.Bc4 and 3.Bb5+; after 3.d4 cxd4 there's 4.Qxd4; and even after 4.Nxd4 Nf6 there's 5.f3 and even 5.Bc4. After 1.e4 d5, however, there's really just 2.Nc3 and 2.d4 to worry about, and they're not much of a worry.

3. It's probably not such a bad system, either. Tiviakov has been playing it regularly for several years now, with generally good results, and other strong (2600+) GMs like Nisipeanu, Almasi, Dreev and Gashimov have experimented with it as well.

CONS:

1. Almost all of the book comprises variations, whether game citations or original analysis. Once the book gets going, there's almost no hand-holding for the reader, explaining what's going on, what to do next, etc.

Reply: This is mitigated somewhat by a 32 page chapter (or "Part") called "Information for Club Players", which is geared to readers in the 1400-2000 range. Ironically, a fair chunk of this chapter is in the same vein - moves without explanations - but overall it's still useful. The chapter includes examples of "opening catastrophes" for White and "typical mistakes" for Black, and then offers some tidbits on the major structures Black can choose after 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd6 4.d4 Nf6. There's a subsection on ...c6 approaches, ...a6 approaches, and ...g6 approaches (the latter is the specialty of GM Bojan Kurajica). Melts rounds out the chapter with recommendations - a commendable inclusion.

All the same, the explanations look awfully superficial to me, and there's much that goes on in the main chapters that isn't conceptually addressed in the info chapter or elsewhere. Here's an example, from Charbonneau-Kamsky, Montreal 2007, which is the first "official" game in the book: 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd6 4.d4 Nf6 5.Bc4 c6 6.Nf3 Be6. After two pages discussing Black's 6th move alternatives, Melts writes this: "With 6...Be6 Black plans to exchange light-squared bishops." Well, yes, that's pretty clear, but should he? Is it better here than on f5 or g4, and is there any general strategic reason we can appeal to for understanding? And if it is, does that mean that White should avoid 5.Bc4?

Continuing with the game, White played 7.Bxe6, and after 7...Qxe6+ Melts says that Black has no problems. Here's the note to White's 7th move, in full:

7.Bd3 (7.Bb3!?; for 7.Ne5 see 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nf3 c6 6.Ne5 Be6 7.Bc4, Game 17) 7...Nbd7 (Schallueck, H. - Klawitter, B., Hamburg 2004) 8.0-0+=; 7...Bg4 - Game 13; 7...Na6!? 8.a3 g6.

At the end of the game Melts writes that "White needs to play 7.Bb3, 7.Bd3 or 7.Ne5." Ok, maybe so, but why was White's choice bad? What did he allow in the position that he shouldn't, or what did he fail to pursue that he should have? If 7.Bxe6 Qxe6+ was nothing, then why is 7.Bb3 Bxb3 8.axb3 Qe6+ something? Is Black supposed to castle long here (he doesn't in Charbonneau-Kamsky), but not now thanks to the half-open a-file, or is that file just a generic asset for White, or is the issue that a pawn on b3 supports a knight or other piece on c4? The point isn't that Melts should explain everything, but that almost nothing is explained. Even Boris Avrukh's 1.d4! repertoire book and the Khalifman books, both of which are primarily geared towards professional and near-professional players, offer the reader more help than Melts does.

2. Who is Melts? OTB, there's not much to see: I didn't find a FIDE rating, and he has a 2100 USCF rating based on only three tournaments. On the other hand, he's an IM in correspondence chess, so even if he's not as strong a practical player as the typical openings book author, he clearly has some skill in analysis.

In summary, it is clear that Melts has put a lot of effort into this book, and even if Khalifman or some other elite author could puncture his analysis, I imagine it should hold up pretty well in the rough-and-tumble world most of us inhabit. Whether you want to play this system is up to you, but if you do you will surely want this as a sourcebook. As I've suggested, it's rather thin on explanation (even with the one special chapter taken into account), so my recommendation is that players on the lower end of the 1400-2000 spectrum only consider taking this up if they are already reasonably familiar with the main line Scandinavian, or perhaps the Caro-Kann or the Fort Knox French.

Alexander Khalifman, Opening for White according to Anand 1.e4, Vol. 11 (Chess Stars 2009). 444 pp. ($29.99 here.) Reviewed by Dennis Monokroussos.

Former FIDE World Champion Alexander Khalifman has been writing opening repertoire books throughout this decade, in a number of multi-volume projects. There was "Opening for White According to Kramnik", "Opening for Black According to Karpov", and the most recent series, "Opening for White According to Anand". The players mentioned aren't collaborators in the series, and the games cited and analysis proposed in each book in the series extends beyond what those greats played and wrote. Still, the repertoire Khalifman proposes is well-based on what those champions played (and play), and as such it offers the reader a fundamentally stable repertoire based on main lines tested at the very highest level.

The "Anand" series is up to volume 11 (or XI, to use the numerals used by Chess Stars), and is based on 1.e4. (This was Anand's almost exclusive choice prior to the Kramnik match.) All 444 dense pages of volume XI are devoted to the Dragon and the Accelerated Dragon, and since his treatment of the Accelerated Dragon is based on 5.Nc3 approaches, it's pretty much a pure Dragon book.)

The book came out right at the start of the year, and given Chess Stars' estimable habit of speedy publication, readers can trust the book as expressing the state of the art as of the end of 2008. Likewise, the Khalifman books are consistently detailed, and this volume is no exception. In the opening books by him that I've examined closely, he invariably starts by looking at even poor moves before turning to the meat, and does so without giving short shrift to either the side- or the mainlines. Want proof? You can find the full table of contents (or more accurately, index of variations) here.

I would not consider myself a Dragon specialist for either side (one of the leading Dragon specialists, GM Mikhail Golubev, has reviewed and lauded the book for Chess Today), but there are some lines I have examined for my own use and in annotating games for the blog. One variation I spent a good deal of time on several years ago arises after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 0-0 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.Bc4 Bd7 10.Bb3 Nxd4 11.Bxd4 b5. (This came up for me via an Accelerated Dragon move order: 2...Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.Nc3 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Bc4 0-0 8.Bb3 d6 9.f3 Bd7 10.Qd2 Nxd4 11.Bxd4 b5.)



White has two main moves here; ironically, they are rook-pawn pushes on opposite sides of the board. White can choose the prophylactic 12.a4 or the sharp and bloodthirsty 12.h4. I prepared the latter move for my intended opponent, found some nice new ideas, and won a nice game (though without getting to use the best part of my preparation). Some time later I saw Bologan successfully use a very similar idea in a game with Moldovan, and I've followed and discussed the path of this variation on the blog off and on the past few years.

Naturally, I was curious to see how well my old analysis held up in Khalifman's eyes, and was surprised to learn that he advocates 12.a4 instead. Even so, Khalifman's consistent thoroughness deserves praise, and he spends over half a page with dense analysis of 12.h4 to justify his rejection of that approach. (Readers should not fear that a large chunk of the book is wasted [from White's point of view] on lines he discards. When Khalifman discusses White alternatives, it's generally to explain why he prefers one major node over another.) His arguments for 12.a4 are plausible: he thinks White gains at least a slight edge with it (generally a clear edge) and that 12.h4 is both objectively good for Black and gives him the easier, more fun position to handle. (I take a look at his suggestions here - see the first game.)

Turning to a more topical variation, he spends a little over eight pages on the almost brand-new "Carlsen Variation": 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 g6 6.Be3 Bg7 7.f3 0-0 8.Qd2 Nc6 9.Bc4 Bd7 10.Bb3 Rc8 11.0-0-0 Ne5 12.Kb1 a6



Khalifman's treatment includes discussion of the high-level 2008 games Dominguez Perez-Carlsen from Biel, Topalov-Carlsen from Bilbao, Anand-Carlsen from Mainz and Karjakin-Radajbov from Sochi and a whole lot more besides. Naturally, his coverage is deeper than what I offered on this blog (I'd hope so!), but it's still interesting to compare conclusions. (Which I do here - see the second game.)

To conclude this review, let me say that this book appears characteristic of the series. The coverage is thorough and the analysis is deep, but with a fair amount of verbal explanation to help the reader. In the past, I've noticed that Khalifman's analysis can sometimes be a little biased for the repertoire side and perhaps under-reliant on computers (even in tactical lines), but I didn't notice any problems this time around. (Granted, I've only checked a very small percentage of the book.) Even so, I'm happy to have the earlier volumes, and this is an obvious must-have for any serious Dragon player. Similarly, it's a must-have for the target audience as well; i.e. for anyone who faces main line Dragons (and Accelerated Dragons without 5.c4 - mention this, and that an earlier book in the Kramnik series covers that approach). I think 1800s and up can benefit from this book; players below that figure but not too far from it might try it as well, at least if they're devoted Dragoneers. Below that, and I think it's probably both a bit too much and a misallocation of resources - there are far more important things to do than learning heavy-duty Dragon theory.

IM Tibor Karolyi and Nick Aplin have already written a valuable pair of books on Garry Kasparov's career (Kasparov's Fighting Chess: 1993-1998 and Kasparov's Fighting Chess: 1999-2005); now they have written a third and much lighter work on the 13th world champion. Originally conceived as an article for the satirical chess magazine Kingpin, Kasparov: How His Predecessors Misled Him About Chess (I'll subsequently abbreviate this as MMP, for "My Misleading Predecessors") is something like My Great Predecessors meets How to Beat Bobby Fischer meets The Screwtape Letters.

The basic structure of MMP is a first-person narrative wherein "Kasparov" (i.e. them speaking as Kasparov) blames his predecessors for his losses. In each chapter, going in reverse chronological order, "Kasparov" presents games where his predecessors succeeded with a given idea or motif, one which he used in his own games and then lost. It's a clever concept, and beneath the humor there's the salutary reminder that ideas and "rules" are not absolutes: a motif that's strong or useful in one position may not be in another.

As I mentioned, the authors originally intended this concept for magazine publication, but as the material kept accumulating they decided to turn it into a full book. I'm a fan of their work (in addition to the works mentioned above, they've also written an excellent work on Karpov's endgames) and appreciate their concept, but I'm not sure this idea merits 271 pages. The problem is twofold, and the problems are somewhat interrelated. The first is that the humorous aspect wears off after a while; the second is that the instructional element is sometimes subsumed for the sake of the joke. The first problem requires no further explanation, but the second does.

What I mean is this: sometimes, the relationship between the predecessors' games and Kasparov's is pretty close. In those cases, the book's premise works and the instructional value is greater. On other occasions, however, the connection between the predecessors' successes and Kasparov's failures is tenuous at best. This can occur in three ways:

(1) The resemblance between the idea in the earlier games and Kasparov's is relatively negligible. (Of course there must be some disanalogy, given that the predecessors win and Kasparov loses, but the degree of disanalogy varies.)

(2) The resemblance is reasonably close, but there was nothing wrong with Kasparov's use of the idea.

(3) The resemblance is reasonably close, but there was nothing special about the predecessors' use of the idea.

To be clear, I'm not claiming that all of the examples are like this - not at all. The need to keep the blame-the-predecessor theme going through the book does force the authors to stretch the parallels, however, on a relatively regular basis. On the other hand, the games - both Kasparov's and his predecessors' - are all you'd expect from world champions, and the Karolyi/Aplin notes are instructive (though generally (much) lighter than what you'd expect from their previous books, referred to above).

So I must offer a mixed verdict. I can't quite recommend it, but I certainly wouldn't recommend against it either. There is much that's worthwhile in the book, and I think fans of How to Beat Bobby Fischer may be similarly fascinated by a book with a lot of great chess and many, maybe most of Kasparov's losses.

Let me start by noting that I'm no expert in the beginner-book genre, much less in the sub-genre intended for young children. That said, I think Igor Sukhin's Gary's Adventures in Chess Country (Mongoose Press, 2009; $23.95) is a book that can be profitably used for and by youngsters to teach them the game and to get them on their way to developing some important but non-traditional skills.

It's a colorful book with oversized pages and lots of illustrations, and as the title suggests it tells a story. (It's at least reminiscent of the Fritz & Chesster disc, though each has its own strengths.) Gary is a youngster who opens the door one day to find Cassie and her magical six-seat tricycle ready to spirit him away to Chess Country. (Don't worry, it's not Kalmykia.) While there he meets Riddles (his primary teacher), Zug (the [redeemable] villain, with whom he has a final showdown), the mysterious FRD and various chess pieces.

One chapter at a time, we see him learn how each piece moves followed by a discussion of checkmate and stalemate. Each step of the way there are review questions, some of which require thinking beyond the bare information presented, and then there are position puzzles. These are excellent, and I think they are valuable for non-beginners of all ages as a way to improve one's board vision.

By way of example, let's take the chapter on the knight. After the verbal questions, we have a series of exercise sets, each with six positions. called "To take or not to take?" In each case a knight is involved - though it's not always the piece to be moved - and while the side to move can capture a piece in each puzzle, there are cases where it can be recaptured. (In those cases, the answer to the question is "no".)

Next up: six "Army of One" positions, where the white knight gobbles up all Black's pieces seriatim. It's not challenging, but what it does do is help the student "see" what the knight can do, and to see it more quickly. Along the same lines, but moving up a level of abstraction, there's "Capture the Flag", in which the goal is to maneuver the knight from its current square to another square with a red flag.

The next exercise ratchets up the difficulty a couple of notches. Labeled "Amazing Maze", the positions again feature a knight and a square with a red flag, but the maneuvering is made much more difficult by the presence of minesweeper-like mines on many of the squares. Getting from point A to point B is far more difficult here, and working through these exercises offers a nice challenge for the youngster's maneuvering ability and thinking skills.

After this, it's time for a bit of a break, challenge-wise, with a set of puzzles called "Attack the Enemy". As you might expect, the aim is to attack the enemy piece with the knight, and in each case this is achieved in one move. Sukhin then, once again, builds on what has gone before with "Double Attack". This is a series of one-movers where two pieces are attacked. Usefully, the knight does the attacking sometimes, but in other positions it's the victim. This helps the beginner remember the other pieces and how they move, and further memory assistance comes in the next section, in which the goal is to capture the only black piece that is not protected.

Then it's time for another concept, "Defense", when White must find the only move that avoids losing a piece. Conversely, the next set is "Win a Piece", wherein the goal is just what it sounds like. There are five more sections after this, some of which are among his best ideas, but you'll have to get the book to find them. (Or find someone else who will blab.) I think it will be clear that a child or other beginning student who works through all the exercises in this book will have a huge advantage, tactically, over someone who learns the game by more conventional means.

The book doesn't teach the newbie everything he or she needs to know - the center is discussed, but only very briefly, and principles like rapid development and the value of castling early, etc. are not discussed. That's not a flaw in the book, of course; I bring it up only so the buyer has a sense of what is and isn't included. And for what it is, I like it a lot, but I'd like to hear back from anyone who has field-tested it, too.

I do have a couple of complaints; the first quite minor, the second a little more serious. First, a mild formatting complaint: The style of the white king should be changed - you can only tell that it's white's piece when contrasting it with its counterpart. It doesn't have the same shading as the rest of its army, and stylistically it doesn't fit in either (it's oversized).

A more important complaint, one that could easily frustrate a child or beginner using the book without a teacher's help: In the earlier chapters with "Get to the Base" puzzles, an important condition is missing from the instructions. The goal is to get a particular piece to a target square in a given number of moves, overcoming enemy resistance. There are several examples where the opponent can make the task take more moves than permitted by giving away the piece, but that "spite resistance" is not allowed is not mentioned until the chapter on knights. It's also not mentioned in the earlier chapters that the goal is to reach the "base" safely.

Two examples to illustrate. First, the "spite defense" problem: White queen on f3, Black queen on b4, flag on h8, mines on g7 and h7. The goal is for White to reached the flag in two moves, and the solution is supposed to be 1.Qa8 followed by 2.Qh8. The problem, of course, with making it a two-move puzzle with no restrictions on Black is that Black can play 1...Qb8 or 1...Qf8, making it take three moves rather than two.

Second, about the failure to specify that White must reach the base safely, take this example: white queen on h1, black bishop on b8, flag on d4. White can get to d4 in two moves very easily, via a1, d1, d5, e4, g1, h4 and h8. It's only via a1 that White can prevent Black's bishop from guarding d4; or rather, from safely guarding it. So we have a sort of conjoined problem, because Black can meet 1.Qa1 with 1...Ba7 or 1...Be5. If White goes to d4 on his second move, he achieves the stated goal but loses the queen, and in that case 1.Qa1 is no better than any of the other moves. On the other hand, if White takes the bishop on a7 or e5, then it's a three move job. So the instructions need to include something about hanging pieces to be complete.

Finally, I noticed an interesting ontological claim in the chapter on pawns. Here's a bit of dialog:

"Right, Gary, very good!" the big Pawn said. "How about this one: can a pawn visit all the squares of the chessboard?"

"No!" all the other children replied in unison.

Gary smiled. He realized why it was such a tricky question. "Yes, it can. It can get to the last rank, turn into a queen, for example, and walk to any square it wants!"

"Perfect!" the big Pawn said, smiling again at Gary.

Do we really have the same piece before and after promotion? If so, what is the ground of its "personal" identity through time? I wouldn't bet the house on it, but I'm more inclined to agree with the (other) children against Gary and the big Pawn - especially since queens can't capture en passant!

Anyway, it's a nice book for teaching beginners, and - with the repeated proviso that I'm not a specialist in this genre - I recommend it.

Alexander Alekhine, New York 1924, 21st Century Edition (Milford, CT: Russell Enterprises, 2008). $29.95. Reviewed by Dennis Monokroussos

Nowadays there’s a super-grandmaster tournament almost every other week, but it wasn’t always so. (Ah, 2007, the good old days.) In fact, there was a time when there were years rather than just days, weeks or months between tournaments. How remarkable, then, that in early 1924 the organizers were able to round up a field with the then-current world champion and his predecessor, not to mention the man who would win the championship three years later. Three more participants contested world championship matches without winning the title (two past, one a few years later), and the remaining players were strong as well. Only one player could really be called an outsider, and while he finished near the bottom, he had the best score by a non-prize winner against the prize-winners!

Let’s elaborate. In a few months, the organizers were able to get the then-current champion, Jose Capablanca; his predecessor, Emanuel Lasker; and his successor, Alexander Alekhine. Frank Marshall and Dawid Janowski, who had lost world championship matches to Lasker, both played, as did later two-time championship match loser Efim Bogoljubow. Richard Reti was in good form, and Geza Maroczy and Savielly Tartakower were also leading players. Frederick Yates wasn’t of their caliber, but he was a strong player with wins over many of the world’s best players, and finally Emanuel Lasker’s distant cousing Edward Lasker filled out the field.

These 11 players went at it in a double round-robin. That’s right, 20 games, a distance which might cause contemporary players to die of exhaustion. The first half was a real horse race. Lasker led, but Reti, Alekhine and Capablanca were all fighting it out for first place. Capablanca had started very slowly, with four draws and a loss to Reti, his first loss in many years. After that he kicked into it gear, and with a win over Emanuel Lasker in the second cycle made the race interesting. Unfortunately for him, Lasker’s form stayed (exceptionally) strong, and the 55-year-old ex-champion won with an impressive 16-4 score, a point and a half ahead of Capablanca and further two and a half points ahead of Alekhine.

The tournament was very hard fought with only 38 draws in 110 games. Many of the games remain famous today (Reti-Bogoljubow, Marshall-Bogoljubow, Capablanca-Lasker, Reti-Capablanca, the Capablanca-Tartakower rook ending, the Em. Lasker-Ed. Lasker ending with knight against rook and pawn all come immediately to mind), and there are many more games of interest that aren’t as well known (for example, the Janowski-Ed. Lasker game I presented in a recent ChessBase show). Of course the games are all available in any worthwhile database, but part of what makes the tournament book valuable is that all the games are thoroughly annotated by Alekhine. Alekhine’s notes aren’t perfect (proof here; further, on the subject of errata, Edward Winter notes a game score error here - item 6009), but he was a fine analyst and communicator.

The last issue to discuss is the new edition, from Russell Enterprises. While some side features of the original were eliminated – and I don’t know why – the improvements in the layout (clearer, whiter pages; much crisper diagrams; notes incorporated into the games rather than given at the end in a series of footnotes) and the conversion from descriptive to algebraic notation make this edition a worthy buy for chess fans with any interest in the history of the game.

Highly recommended to all but the most utilitarian of chess fans.