CHESSBOOK REVIEWS 
Latest book reviews of 1 June 2006
BOOKS REVIEWS BY JOHN ELBURG.Wilhelminalaan 33John Elburg
7261 BP RUURLO
The Netherlands.
Chess Books
Chess Reader Volume I.-VI. 1955-1966 by Kenneth Whyld
2006
Moravian Chess
Offered for review by http://www.niggemann.com/
458 pages
Price
ISBN 80-7189-510-5
In 1955 at the age of 29 years Ken Whyld started a chess magazine where he used all the pages for chess book reviewing ,not only a keen way to start with a chess book collection, but also a excellent outlet for his excellent writing skills.
In his magazine “The Chess Reader” published and written by him during the years 1955-1966 he wrote over the 500 book reviews and through the efforts of Dr.Vlastimil Fiala,Tony Gillam and Dr.Jurgen Stigter this entire magazine is now available in book form and in hardcover published by the out standing chess publisher Moravian chess.
My first thought with this book was could this book stand the reviewing skills from Ken Whyld?
The layout In this book is not all perfect the original “Chess Reader” material is copied into this book by Fiala, but on the other hand it covers the so specific atmosphere of Kenneth’s creative out put.
The whole work is overloaded with unique chess material as the question from S.D.B: I am getting together a small chess library, and have little space or cash. What would you recommend as the best 6 tournament books from early days to the present, for me to purchase from time to time.
Some way the answer from Ken Whyld is quite interesting: Ignoring the books scarcity gives them an inflated price, I suggest the following trying to combine good games with good annotations.New York 1889,Hastings 1895,New York 1927,Nottingham 1936,Saltsjobaden 1948 {Pirc} and Moscow 1947 {Botvinnik}.
Excited was Ken Whyld about the book from Vukovic,The art of attack in chess,Pergamon 1965; Ken Whyld;I cannot help being carried away by a feeling of real enthusiasm when dealing with this book.A somewhat improper state of mind for a reviewer, one suspects; yet I must state straight away that this is one of the finest chess book ever,certainly the finest book of the decade,and that reading it one is carried easily along,entranced by the flow of ideas and arguments.
I can recall experiencing this sensation on only three previous occasions: when first reading Reti’s “Modern Ideas”,Nimzowitsch’s “My System”and Lasker’s “Manual. What higher praise can one give than that?
Ken Whyld was not impressed about the play of Klaus Junge and gave him the same ranking as Unzicker ,whose stay of play issimilar.He would not have been a future World Champion, but he would have won the German Championship from time to time,{Das War Klaus Junge. Budrich & Schulte Walter de Gruyter.Berlin 1956.
Interesting to mention are also the second hand lists printed in the appendix where you can find some fantastic old books for really nothing, the 1950s where not so bad at all!
Conclusion: A very important reference work on chess book reviewing!
Chess Christmas by Kenneth Whyld
2006
Moravian Chess
http://www.moravian-chess.cz
476 pages
Price €29,00
ISBN 80-7189-559-9
A interesting hobby of the late great Ken Whyld was sending with Christmas booklets to his close chess friends with various chess publications as for example the story of modern chess, covered in this book under the chapter Ken Whyld’s Christmas Series: The beginning of modern chess, Caistor 1991
Kenneth Whyld wrote: This booklet comes to you with my best wishes for Christmas 1991,and the New Year 1992; In 1872 the London Chess club began a match of two games by correspondence against the Vienna club led by Kolisch.
Shortly after the match began Blackburne,Horwitz,Löwenthal and Wisker with drew from the London team, leaving Steinitz and Potter to continue. Later Steinitz said that modern chess began with these two games, and he and Potter analysed them deeply in the pages of The Field,and these notes were than reprinted in the City of London Chess Magazine.
Kenneth Whyld included 17 pages of chess notes fromw the famous games; London – Vienna & Vienna – London and pleasantly transferred by him in a readable algebraic notation.
In the original booklets from Ken Whyld’s Christmas Series the booklets where coloured on cardboard, with the colours: white, celestial, grey, pink, clear green, clear yellow and Signed by the author with the words “Ken”.
Unfortunately we have to do in the book with copies from the original work from Whyld, and sometimes as chapter one;The Story of chess some pages are quite a puzzle but the material from Whyld is superb so we must now and than forgive Fiala and the Ken Whyld Association for the layout for some of these unreadable pages.
The material in this book is divided into two parts: where in part one you shall find the following material: Introduction by Michael Negele, Kenneth Whyld in Memoriam, Plates in Deutsches Wochenschach,Kagans Neueste Schachnachrichten,L’Echiquier Revue International d’Echecs by Henri Serruys and Ken Whyld’s Christmas Series by Alessandro Sanvito who is also responsable for Whyld's biography.
Part two: The story of chess,Bibliography list,Blackburne’s matches 1887,Letters on the history and literature of chess,Devolpment of the chess problem by J.W.Allen,The beginning of modern chess,The chess board,Café de la Regence,Paris,The worst chess book in the world,A la recherché ddu temps perdu,Lasker the composer,According to Hoyle,Cordingley’s Cuts,Chess texts in the English language printed earlier than 1850,Adress to the Automaton chess player,The meeting of the B.C.A,at Cambridge {28.8.1860-1.-9.1860,Chess in Literature and at last Labourdonnais-Morphy by George Allen.
Conclusion: A very interesting chessbook!
Quarterly for chess history
Autumn 11/2004
2006
Moravian Chess
http://www.moravian-chess.cz
475 pages
Price € 32,00
Quarterly for chess history starts with a very readable contribution of Vlastimil Fiala on the legendary Oldrich Duras; The Chess Activities of Oldrich Duras in the 1905.
As Fiala writes 1905 was crowed with important international as well as national chess tournament and matches for Duras,he did started very well in the Dutch Scheveninger tournament and there was a good hope he would share with Marshall the first price but unfortunately for Duras, he lost important points to weaker rivals.
The whole contribution from Fiala is good for 94 of this book, but every game of Duras played in the year1905, is covered in this book!
Other contributions of Fiala in this heavy loaded issue goes to Karel Hromadka, Barmen 1905 {Forgotten chess tournaments},Great chess players, Chess matches, Chess miscellany and chess reviews.
Correspondence chess is slowly getting in these Quarterly for chess history chess books a important turn as for example the superb. contribution from Tim Harding on the correspondence career of Mary Rudge by Tim Harding.
The article from Tim Harding is a revised version of an article which first appeared in Harding’s Chess Mail magazine issue 6/2005.
Mary Rudge’s earliest correspondence games go back to 1872 and the latest one that Tim Harding discovered was played 30 years later but here main aim was over the board chess and she was a strong chess player!
Through this book you shall find a lot of forgotten chess games and interesting research done by famous and less famous researchers, but also latest information about the Ken’s Whyld association.
Interesting to mention is the chess research from the Dutch chess master Fred van der Fliet better known as author from the book The Polugayevsky Variation, Andriessen 1978.
But nowadays he is a regular visitor of the Dutch Royal Library at the Hague,where he is collecting all possibility chess information for preparation for a new chess encyclopaedia.
In 2003 he released a the first volume of his chess encyclopaedia, chess biographies under the title”Chess persons” unfortunately for us there is only one copy available and that belongs to Fred.
Conclusion: A very important work! {All in high quality print and in hardcover!}
Garry Kasparov’s greatest chess games volume 2 by Igor Stohl
2006
Gambit Publications Ltd
http://www.gambitbooks.com
E-mail info@gambitbooks.com
352 pages
Price $35,00
ISBN 1-904500-43-3
This part two from Igor Stohl is a dream for every chess book reviewer, a fantastic game collection with great annotations, all printed on finest paper and bound in hardcover with a luxury dust cover, as we saw in Garry Kasparov's greatest chess games volume1,Gambit 2005.
All together we come out on 54 complete games all played between Linares 1994 and Kasparov’s latest win before he retired from active chess, Adams – Kasparov Linares 2005, and was this game really Kasparov’s last win in a serious event?
As in the first volume ,every major position of the game is overloaded with diagrams so between eight and sixteen diagrams as the lovely game Kasparov – Nikolic,Horgen 1994 so it is understandable that Stohl did need 34 more pages of paper to fill this book.
But the best part of this book are of course the excellent annotations from Stohl who are really superb,
personal I prefer them even above Kasparov’s own annotations from his books “My Great Predecessors.
One of the longest games in this book goes to the smassing game Gary Kasparov against the rest of the world, which is truly good for nine pages of text, where Kasparov was supported with a small but highly professional chess team, helped by super machines and the powerful Deep Junior,but without the help of six-man databases otherwise it would have been a draw for the rest of the world!
Included in this book is a preface of one and a half page, an excellent introduction of nine pages plus a bibliography and a four page career record of Garry Kasparov.
And now we all hope that the greatest player of modern time will return to active chess.
Conclusion: The game annotations from Igor Stohl are truly superb!
Chess Informant issue 95
2006
Beograd
http://www.sahovski.com
340 pages
Price GBP 20.50
Informator issue 95 comes with a collection of 406 annotated games and 493 game fragments all played between October 1st and December 31st of the year 2005.
The most important theoretical novelty of the preceding volume goes to the fascinating game Anand – Adams,San Luis 2005.
Anand,V (2788) - Adams,M (2719) [C92] San Luis, 2005 <>[Anand,V] <>Inf 94/267 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0-0 9.h3 Bb7 10.d4 Re8 11.Nbd2 Bf8 12.a4 h6 13.Bc2 exd4 14.cxd4 Nb4 15.Bb1 c5 16.d5 Nd7 17.Ra3 c4 18.axb5 axb5 19.Nd4 Qb6 20.Nf5 Ne5 21.Rg3 g6 22.Nf3 Ned3 23.Qd2!N [Jusupow,Ar] [ 23.Be3 — 46/(464)] 23...Bxd5? [ 23...Nxc1? 24.Rxc1 ( 24.Nxh6+ Bxh6 25.Qxh6 Ncd3 26.Bxd3 Nxd3) 24...Kh7 25.Qxb4 gxf5 26.Qc3! Qd8 27.Qd4+-; 23...Ra1 24.Nxh6+! Bxh6 25.Qxh6 Qxf2+ 26.Kh2 Nxe1 ( 26...Nxc1 27.e5! Rxb1 28.e6!+-) 27.Rxg6+ fxg6 28.Qxg6+ Kf8 29.Bh6+ Ke7 30.Bg5+ Kf8 31.Qxd6+ Kg8 32.Qg6+ Kf8 33.Bh6+ Ke7 34.Qe6+ Kd8 35.Bg5+ Kc7 36.Bf4+ Kd8 37.Qd6+ Kc8 38.Qc7#;23...Nxe1! 24.Nxe1 ( a) 24.N3h4 Nbd3! 25.Nxg6 ( 25.Nxh6+ Bxh6 26.Qxh6 Qxf2+ 27.Kh2 Ne5 28.Bd2 Ra1 29.Bxe1 Qf6!-+) 25...fxg6 26.Rxg6+ Kf7 27.Nxh6+ Ke7! ( 27...Bxh6 28.Qxh6 Qxf2+ 29.Kh1) 28.Qg5+ Kd7 29.Be3 Qa5 30.Ng4 Kc7µ; 24...Nxd5! ( 24...Ra1!? 25.Nxh6+ Bxh6 26.Qxh6 Nxd5!= — 24...¤D5) 25.Nxh6+ ( 25.exd5? Ra1 26.Bc2 Qa5) 25...Bxh6 26.Qxh6 Ra1! A) a) 26...Ne7? 27.Be3+-; b) b) 26...Qd4 27.e5! Ne7 (b) 27...Re6 28.Nf3 Qd1+ 29.Kh2 Ne3 30.Bxe3 Qxb1 31.Ng5) 28.Bxg6! Nxg6 29.Rxg6+ fxg6 30.Qxg6+ Kh8 31.Bg5! Qxe5 (b) 31...Rf8 32.Bf6+ Rxf6 33.exf6) 32.Bf6+ Qxf6 33.Qxf6+ Kh7 34.Nc2+-; 27.Rxg6+ fxg6 28.Qxg6+ Kf8 29.Qf5+= ( 29.Bh6+ Ke7 30.exd5 Bxd5 31.Bg5+ Kd7 32.Bf5+ Re6!) ] 24.Nxh6+! Bxh6 25.Qxh6 Qxf2+ [ 25...Bxe4 26.Ng5 ( 26.Be3 Bxf3 27.Bxd3 Nxd3 28.Bxb6 Rxe1+ 29.Kh2) 26...Qxf2+ 27.Kh2 Nxe1 28.Qh7+ Kf8 29.Nxe4 Qd4 30.Rxg6! Rxe4 31.Bxe4 Qe5+ 32.Kh1 Nf3 ( 32...Ra1 33.Rg8+ Ke7 34.Qh4+ Qf6 35.Qxe1) 33.Bxf3+-] 26.Kh2 Nxe1 [ 26...Nxc1 27.exd5! Ncd3 ( 27...Rxe1 28.Bxg6!) 28.Re6!+-] 27.Nh4™ [ 27.Rxg6+ fxg6 28.Qxg6+ Kf8 29.Qf6+=] 27...Ned3 [ 27...Re6 28.exd5 Rf6 ( 28...Re2 29.Bxg6) 29.Nxg6 fxg6 30.Rxg6+ Rxg6 31.Qxg6+ Kf8 32.Qxd6+ Kg8 33.Qg6+ Kf8 34.Bh6+ Ke7 35.Bg5+ Kd7 36.Qe6+ Kc7 37.d6+! Kb7 ( 37...Kb6 38.Be3+) 38.Be4+ Kb6 39.Bxa8+-;27...Nf3+ 28.Nxf3 Bxe4 29.Bxe4 Rxe4 30.Ng5 Re1 31.Qh7+ Kf8 32.Rf3+-;27...Ra7 28.Nf5! ( 28.Nxg6? Qxg3+! 29.Kxg3 fxg6) 28...Qxg3+™ 29.Nxg3! Bc6 30.Bg5 Re6 31.e5! Dxe5 ( 31...Ra1 32.Bf6) 32.Nh5!+-] 28.Nxg6 Qxg3+ 29.Kxg3 fxg6 30.Qxg6+ Kf8 31.Qf6+ Kg8 32.Bh6 [ 32.Bh6 Ra7 33.Qg6++-] 1-0In this Informator there is a extra five page theoretical survey from this game written by IM Sasa Velickovic and please see the excellent use of latest correspondence games in this heavy loaded survey.Again there are contributions from the best players in the world as Anand,Svidler,Kramnik,Ivanchuk,Gelfand,Ponomariov etc.
The best of Chess Informant goes to the enormous creative Alexei Shirov with collection best games,the most important theoretical novelties, excellent moves and combinations, endings and statistics.
The sections studies is completely devoted to John Nunn’s 50thBirthday study tourney and first place goes to a real masterpiece created by Oleg Pervakov & Karen Sumbaty!
Conclusion: Buy it! Because there is no better chess magazine in the world!
Portable chess coach by Judee Shipman
2006
Cardoza Publishing
http://www.cardozapub.com
176 pages
Price $9,95
ISBN 1-58042-185-7
Portable chess coach is a easy read from the American female chess player Judee Shipman to learn chess in no time.
The material in this book is educative explained with a lot of text and not to much technical details.
Included are review questions to see if you have learned her lessons and believe me she can play chess as no other as we can see in her game against Shirazi; 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Bc4 Nxe4 5.Nxe4 d5 6.c3 dxc4 7.cxb4 0-0 8.Qc2 b5 9.Neg5 f5 10.d3 h6 11.dxc4 e4 12.0-0 exf3 13.Nxf3 Bb7 14.Qb3 bxc4 15.Qxc4+ Bd5 16.Qc3 f4 17.b3 Nd7 18.Bb2 Rf6 19.Rad1 Nb6 20.Rd4 Qd7 21.Re1 Re8 22.Rxe8+ Qxe8 23.Rxf4 Bxf3 24.Rxf6 Nd5 25.Re6 Qf7 26.Re8+ Kh7 27.Qd3+ Qg6 28.Rh8+ Kxh8 29.Qxg6 and Kamran had to put his king down,Judee Shipman – Kamran Shirazi,New York 1992,
but this is of course no surprise she is the daughter of the famous Walter Shipman.
Included practical puzzles and a glossary of chess terms.
Conclusion: Certainly a good learning book!
The French advance by Sam Collins
2nd edition
2006
Everyman Chess
http://www.everymanchess.com/
176 pages
Price $23,95
ISBN 1-85744-391-8
A brand new French advance book from the former Irish champion Sam Collins, based on knowledge from French experts as Grischuk,Nakamura and Timman who now as no other to handle this complicated opening. As Tony Kosten once wrote in his first edition on the French advance; It is the player who understands the opening better who normally wins.
The young Collins is ambitious and enjoys covering interesting alternatives in this book as for example the interesting line from Paco : 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Bd7 6.Be2 f6 7.Bf4!? a move, that I by the way could not find in the latest work Steffen Pedersen: French Advance and other lines,Gambit 2005.
All material in this book is explained at the hand of a collection of 69 model games, all well analysed with a large amount of text and many references between the lines to other games.
Unfortunately there are nearly no references to correspondence games, Collins has based this book mainly on 2400 rated over the board players.
Between the model games I found two interesting losses from the young Magnus Carlsen so it would not be wrong from him to pick up this book! Magus played against Cu.Hansen: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Bd7 6.Be2 Nge7 7.Na3 Nf5 8.Nc2 cxd4 9.cxd4 Qa5+ 10.Bd2 Qb6 11.Bc3 Be7 12.0-0 a5 13.a4? but as Collins points it out in this book he had to try 13.Ne3! or 13.a3! the move from Timman against Sokolov,Amsterdam 1996.
Tony Kosten did spend nearly six pages on the famous Milner-Barry Gambit and Collins does it all with only two model games and they are exactly good for only four pages of this book, no on the Milner-Barry I prefer the book from Steffen Pedersen!
But Collins does give between the lines the interesting move 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Nc6 5.Nf3 Bd7 6.Bd3 Qb6 7.0-0 cxd4 8.cxd4 Nxd4 9.Ng5! once the pet line of the correspondence chess player Kjell Krantz, but this knight move is so good that GM Jan Smeets managed to surprised GM Daniel Stellwagen!
By the way Ng5 is mentioned in the book from Pedersen but not the above mentioned game from Smeets.For the interested reader please also see the book from Watson on the French,Play the French Everyman chess 2003.
Conclusion: A very interesting read on the advance!
Chess CD's
Chess for Networks, Professional package
5 working places
2005
Convekta Ltd
http://www.convekta.com
E-mail support@chessassistant.com
Price € 85,96
System requirements for Chess for Networks program: To the local network: Windows NT/2000/XP, network 10 Mbit / sec.To the server: Microsoft Windows Server XP/ 2000/ 2003, 256 RAM, 20 GB HDD, Internet access.To working places (for the teacher and the students): Windows NT/2000/XP, 128 MB RAM, monitor resolution no less than 1024x768.
This interesting program from Convekta contains a chess program for networks which includes a server program for teachers, so it is possible that one person for example a chess trainer can easy correspondence with hundreds of students all within the local network of this program.
Included on this CD are around 350 chess lessons plus 7000 theoretical examples to test the students skill all aimed for beginners and les experienced chess players.
The teacher shows all material on a chessboard and can even include for the students real homework and he or she can save the material on a simple floppy disk.
Again the teacher has excess to the made homework where he can also generate in no time lesson for self-working where each task can include theoretical material and tests.
All programs from Convekta are very good in statistics and for this program I can say; the teacher has full information on every student that is logged in and it is even possible for him or her so what kind of exercises have been solved and with what success and how much time the student has spent on his or hers task
Each student on his net work receives a unique login and password so the work of the student is well protected.
Besides this professional package these is also a Mega package with 12 working places!
Conclusion: A must for every school!
Pocket Chess Basics
2006
Convekta Ltd
http://www.convekta.com
E-mail support@chessassistant.com
€ 22,41
System requirements: Pocket Chess Basics runs on Pocket PCs with Windows Mobile 2005, Windows Mobile 2003 and Pocket PC 2002.
Languages: English and Spanish
Pocket Chess Combinations
2006
Convekta Ltd
http://www.convekta.com
E-mail support@chessassistant.com
€ 22,41
System requirements: Pocket Chess Combinations runs on Pocket PCs with Windows Mobile 2005, Windows Mobile 2003 and Pocket PC 2002.
Languages: English, German, French, Spanish and Italian
Pocket encyclopaedia of opening blunders
2006
Convekta Ltd
http://www.convekta.com
E-mail support@chessassistant.com
€ 22,41
System requirements: Pocket Chess Combinations runs on Pocket PCs with Windows Mobile 2005, Windows Mobile 2003 and Pocket PC 2002.
Pocket tactics for Beginners
2006
Convekta Ltd
http://www.convekta.com
E-mail support@chessassistant.com
€ 22,41
System requirements: Pocket Chess Basics runs on Pocket PCs with Windows Mobile 2005, Windows Mobile 2003 and Pocket PC 2002.
Convekta the famous inventor of the bright made chess program Chess Assistant is converting a lot of there successful chess programs into the so called handheld computers where you need besides a pocket PC a normal PC to do a installation.
Pocket Chess Basics comes with five instructive courses; Utilizing a Decisive Material Advantage, The Three Stages of a Chess Game, Basic Pawn Endings, The Fundamentals of Chess Tactics, and Utilizing a Material or Positional Advantage.
This all is good for 55 lessons,450 instructive examples and 750 exercises so that is super intensive! So I hope your handheld does not get over heated!
Again it is possible to work with multiple user profiles and statistics for each user, but I am afraid with these pocket chess programs from Convekta you will never give your pocket PC out of hand.
Pocket Chess combinations comes with a unbelievable amount of 1170 selected combinations and there is some help from the build in navigator.
All material is compiled by the well known chess coach Sergey Ivashchenko and available in the languages English, German, French, Spanish and Italian.
Pocket encyclopaedia of opening blunders is designed for studying opening blunders in more than 40 different openings and contains 1250 instructive exercises where the use shall find easy and difficult examples all taken from real played games.
And it all runs under the following languages English,German, French, Spanish and Italian. And at last Pocket tactics for beginners under the super ship of the famous chess trainer Ivaschenko.
Here you shall find over 1300 instructive exercises to struggle with, based on; Mate in one opening material, draw sacrifice and more!
Availabe in the same languages as the above mentioned Pocket encyclopaedia.
Conclusion: Great stuff!
Chess Informant 95 on CD
2006
Beograd
http://www.sahovski.com
Price £ 20.50
Chess Informant 95 printed boek + CD is only £ 27.50
All Informator games are pleasantly packed in this CD where you can choice out two different programs to read your Informator games.
Both Chess Informant Reader 2.1 and Chess Informant Expert Lite do there work perfect and offer the user excellent database possibilities.
As for example in my Chess Informant Expert 5.0 version I have access to chess engines as Crafty and Ruffian but it is not possible to run latest ChessBase engines as Fritz9.
But you can edit games,add new text,insert games from the clipboard,copy to clipboard and more.
In my version it is unfortunately not possible to play chess online but lest be honest you buy these Informator CD’s for the Informator games or other Chess Informant publications as Chess Opening’s Monograph’s and chess Encyclopaedia’s!
Included on this CD is a free supplement of Chess Informator 94 in PGN but without any annotations.
Conclusion: A very well developed chess CD!
ChessBase magazine issue 111
2006
April
ChessBase http://www.chessbase.com
E-Mail info@chessbase.com
ISSN 1432-8992
Price Euro 19,95 per issue
Annual subscription costs Euro 99,70
This latest ChessBase Magazine 111 starts with a fantastic made multimedia introduction report from GM Karsten Müller, who we all know as the great endgame expert and author of Fundamental chess endings Gambit 2001 and Secrets of Pawn Endings {Karsten Müller & Frank Lamprecht},Everyman Chess 2000.{There is also a nice video report between these files from GM Karsten Müller on knight endings from nearly 38 minutes!}
But there is more multimedia fun as a heavy loaded Chess media system report from IM Ari Ziegler who discusses some remarkable games, as Grischuk – Istratescu,FIDE Cup 2005 with the fantastic move15.Rd4!! all in a high-resolution video with a synchronised chess board.{Other analysed games in this file are Van Wely – Topalov,Wijk aan Zee 2006,Adams – Topalov,Wijk aan Zee 2006,Karjakin – Anand,Wijk aan Zee 2006 and Aronian – Ponomariov,Fide world cup 2005}
It looks that ChessBase has broken away from the regular video reports and is planning future reports on Internet, and that sounds all very exciting, just imagine life reports from just finished games.
But there is more on this CD as a master file from 1311 entries where around 447 of them carry excellent annotations. For the theory files you have to open the folder “Theory” and you shall find seven interesting openings articles: English {A28 by Zoltan Ribli} with 1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.e3 Bb4 5.Qc2 Bxc3 6.Qxc3 Qe7 7.a3 d5 8.d4 where black has a head in development but white the bishop pair.Caro-Kann {B10 by Jerzy Konikowski}1.e4 c6 2.Nf3 d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.Ne5!?
Sicilian Sveshnikov {B33 by Dorian Rogozenko}1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.Bg5 a6 8.Na3 b5 9.Nd5 Be7 10.Bxf6 Bxf6 11.c3 Rb8 12.Nc2 Bg5.
French {C10 by Alexander Finkel}1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Nf3 Ngf6 6.Nxf6 Nxf6 7.c3 c5.King’s Indian {E92 by Avrukh Boris}1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.Be3 Ng4 8.Bg5 f6 9.Bc1!?
Nimzo-Indian {E35 by Michael Roiz}1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 d5 5.cxd5 exd5 6.Bg5 h6 7.Bh4 c5 8.dxc5 and at last the Elephant Gambit by Peter Leisebein {C40 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d5 3.exd5 Bd6 Part7}
Heavy loaded is the ICCF telechess file with 10236 entries where a small 31 of them carry annotations. Useful is the contribution from Roberto Alvarez to play Email Chess for free
where I found over 21 links!
The chess historian Johannes Fischer goes back to the dark year 1936 and looks at the chess Olympiad of 1936.Besides the interesting written text report all 1682 games from this event are included.
Other contributions are Tactics with Unleash the Power of the Major Pieces where Valery Atlas looks at the power of major pieces and how to use them.
A other very interesting contribution comes from The English GM Peter Wells and The exchange sacrifice revisited {Part1}.
Other contributions are endgame {Karsten Müller!}Demo {New ChessBase products}updates for Chessbase 9 and Fritz9,ChessBase Reader plus a usefull booklet from 27 pages!
Conclusion: A very important reference CD!
ChessBase Magazine extra issue 111
May 2006
ChessBase
http://www.chessbase.com
E-Mail info@chessbase.com
ISSN 1432-8992
Euro 12.99
This ChessBase magazine extra, the one with out the annotations to the games comes with a impressive file from 14822 entries, all played between 23/10/05 and 20/04/06.
These ChessBase magazine always cover more games than any other free available down load games as for example: Denda,R (2054) - Bondick,K (2165) [C40] EU-chT Seniors Dresden (3), 19.02.2006 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.Nxe5 Nc6 4.Qh5+ g6 5.Nxg6 Nf6 6.Qh4 Rg8 7.Nxf8 Rg4 8.Qh6 Rxe4+ 9.Be2 Qe7 10.Nc3 Rxe2+ 11.Nxe2 Nd4 12.0-0 Nxe2+ 13.Kh1 d6 14.Qe3 Qxe3 15.dxe3 Nxc1 16.Nxh7 Nxh7 17.Raxc1 Be6 18.c4 0-0-0 19.Rfd1 Nf6 20.f3 Re8 21.Kg1 Nd7 22.Rd4 a5 23.b3 Nc5 24.Rc3 Rh8 25.h3 Kd7 26.Kh2 Ke7 27.a3 a4 28.b4 Nb3 29.Rf4 c5 30.g4 fxg4 31.fxg4 cxb4 32.axb4 Ra8 33.Rf2 Rc8 34.Rfc2 b6 35.Kg3 Bg8 36.e4 Kf6 37.Kf4 Nd4 38.Rd2 Ne6+ 39.Ke3 b5 40.Rxd6 Ke7 41.c5 Nd8 42.Ra6 Nc6 43.Rb6 Bc4 44.Rxc4 bxc4 45.b5 Nb4 46.Kd4 Ra8 47.Rb7+ Ke6 48.Rb6+ Ke7 49.Rb7+ Ke6 50.Rb6+ Ke7 ½-½ was brand new for me.
The 482 MB multimedia files that are included on this CD go all Wijk aan Zee part 2 and Linares-Morelia 2006.
Very interesting are the interviews with Bessel Kok,Silvio Danailov, Viswanathan Anand,
Jeroen van den Berg and Jan Timman!
Conclusion: Buy it also for the interesting multimedia files!
Zap!Chess
2006
ChessBase
http://www.chessbase.com
E-Mail info@chessbase.com
Price € 49.99
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Minimum: Pentium II 300 MHz, 64 MB RAM, Windows Me, 2000, XP, DVD ROM drive, Windows Media Player 9. Recommended: Pentium IV 2.2 GHz or more, 256 MB RAM, Windows XP, GeForce5 graphics card (or equivalent) with 128 MB RAM or more 100% compatible with DirectX, sound card, Windows Media Player 9, DVD ROM drive.
Zap chess is more than a exciting chess program, it is the commercial version of Zappa the 2005 World Chess Champion.
Zappa with the engine Reykjavik took first place at the 13th World Computer Chess Championship that was held in Reykjavik, Iceland from August 2005.Where Zappa won 10 games and drew one but he did beat former world champion programs such as Junior and Shredder from Stefan Meyer-Kahlen.
"ZAPPA played really impressively," said Meyer-Kahlen, author and operator of the program that has won ten world champion computer chess titles including the 2003 World Computer Chess Championship. "It undoubtedly deserved the title."
This program has a large amount of chess knowledge and uses Singular Extensions, the same search algorithm as the great Deep Blue who managed to out play the legendary Kasparov.
Zap! Chess makes excellent use of multiple CPU systems, and uses the full potential of the new 64-bit machines.
I had no problems with the installation but on http://www.chessbase.com/download/index.asp?cat=Zap!Chess there is some information if your Zap! does not run.{The following problems are corrected: - it was possible that the engine played illegal moves - on some computers the engine could not be unloaded}
By the way the installation will work only if the original engines are installed. The service pack must be installed into the same directory that contains the original engine, replacing it in the process.
Zap! Chess comes with a Fritz9 user surface with many training functions plus a exclusive photo-realistic 3-D boards in different designs and access to the ChessBase internet chess server Playchess.com (And you have it again free for 12 new months!)
Included is a Hugh Database from around from one million chess games {exactly counted 1000688 games}The Power book is around 106 MB and that is more than enough information for Zap to play a good openings game.
The CD contains two engines “Paderborn”and “Reyjavik,where Paderborn includes some latest ideas from the brilliant programmer Anthony Cozzie.
He graduated two years ago from Carnegie Mellon University with a Masters degree in computer Engineering, entered the department's graduate program this fall. He has spent the last two years working as a government contractor for Sparta Incorporated. Anthony Cozzie is especially interested in artificial intelligence including computer vision and robotics.
For his outstanding performance, he was awarded the Claude Shannon trophy, which is proudly displayed in Siebel Center's academic office. The thrill of the victory is still evident on Cozzie's face, although it is undoubtedly lost on ZAPPA. This is a small wonder. As the program's namesake, singer/songwriter Frank Zappa once said, "The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows."{Please see the whole article on http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/news/articles.php?id=2005Sep1-76}
My first experiences with this engine is in one word impressive!
Conclusion: A very impressive chess engine!
Opening Repertoire Black by Alexander Bangiev
2006
ChessBase
http://www.chessbase.com
E-Mail info@chessbase.com
Price € 24,99
System requirements: Pentium, 32 MB RAM, Windows 98 SE/2000/Me/XP
Included is a German version!
A new openings repertoire book from IM Alexander Bangiev based on the openings moves 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 c5 where the play easy can transpose in to the Sicilian,Benoni or English opening.
All these possibilities are well covered by Bangiev at the hand of a large collection of five instructive written text reports and 149 game reports.
Included is also a heavy loaded database with around 103420 games where 1254 of them cover comments plus a heavy test file from 166 exercises to see if you have understood Bangiev.
Bangiev does not play around the edges as Tiger Hillarp “Tiger’s Modern” or Andrew Martin in his Hippopotamus Rises did,no black easy goes for 1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 c5 with a eventual 4.dxc5 Bxc3 as Lawrence Day does in his later years.
Conclusion: A openings CD that is based on logical sense!
Chess Magazines
British Chess Magazine No.5
Volume 126
May 2006
Price: £3.60
BCM starts with the USA championship and once again hold in San Diego,California and John Watson was there for on the spot report.Good for twelve pages and some fine French games as the McCutcheon with{1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Bb4{4…h6!? 5.Bxf6 Qxf6 6.exd5 Bb4 has been played recently!} 5.e5 h6 6.Bd2 Bxc3 7.bxc3 Ne4 8.Qg4 g6 9.Bd3 Nxd2 10.Kxd2 c5 11.Nf3 c4!?} between Nick de Firmian and Hikaru Nakamura.
But also 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 h6!? Batchimeg Tuvshintugs – Anna Zatonskih is certainly worth considering!
Other contributions are:4NCL March weekend, Woman’s world championship {The 29 year old Chineses Xu Yuhua became the 11th woman’s world champion after defeating Alisa Galliamova!}Karpov Poikovsky, Games department by Sam Collins and learn 1.d4 with Alex Baburin! Linares/Morelia Part2 etc
And please don't forget to read: reviews and new books, problem world, quotes and queries!
Kaissiber Issue 23
April - June 2006
Deutschland 6.10 Euro
Offered for review by http://www.niggemann.com/
Besides the regular contributions as Chrilly Donninger with his “Bytes und Bauern” and the great Bent Larsen with his superb contribution on Siegbert Tarrasch “Siegbert Tarrasch gab das Zentrum nicht auf”
Is the main structure of this issue a detailed study of 40 pages on the Max Lange! {Plus a extra four page discussion on the Max Lange}
The author Lew Gutman looks in this issue at all kind of lines where black goes for a early 5…Bxd4 {1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.0-0 Nf6 5.d4 Bxd4 6.Nxd4 Nxd4}
Most books don’t even mention 5…Bxd4 in the Max Lange but there are some differences seen that white plays here first 4.0-0 and normally white goes for a direct Max Lange with 4.d4 and than the normal move is 4..exd5 and it seems that the latest deployments are only interesting for black.
But be aware in this opening a single can easily prove to be fatal!
Kaissiber is besides a gambit magazine also a historical magazine where I found two interesting contribution: First Alfred Diel with “Aus vegangen Zeiten”where he looks at a exciting game fom Cochrane against Popert,Lodon 1842; 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Bc4 Bb4+ 5.c3 dxc3 6.0-0 c2 7.Qxc2 d6 8.Qb3 Qe7 9.Bd5 Bc5 10.Bg5 Nf6 11.Bxc6+ bxc6 12.Nc3 0-0 13.e5 dxe5 14.Ne4 Ba6 15.Rfe1 Rab8 16.Qc2 Bd6 17.Nd4 Bb7 18.Nf5 Qe6 19.Nxg7 Kxg7 20.Bxf6+ Kg8 21.Ng5 1-0.And a readable contribution from Michael Wien on “Der Ritter und die Dame”
A game that you shall not find in the MegaDatabase from ChessBase but in the Chess Player’s Chronicle from 1842!
Conclusion: A very good read!
Latvijas Šaha Vēstnesis
Issue 2 2006
March/April
For information mail Val Zemitis chess@davis.com
Val Zemitis born April11,1925 in Riga,Latvia was able to hold in his young years against players as Sämisch,Kashdan,Prins,Herman Steiner and once he even held the US Master title.
Currently he is working on three chess projects,a Chess Term Polyglot Dictionary featuring 24 languages,a Chess Calender and a collection information for a book Encyclopedia of Latvian Chessplayers.
This issue is mainly based on the Championships of Latvia and the birthday of Olafam Kronlakam who became 65! {Our congratulations!}
If you are interested in Latvia Chess just mail: Val Zemitis chess@davis.com