Published by New in Chess, 2011. Author: Christian Hesse, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Stuttgart
Hesse's labor of love is the perfect antidote to all that hard work you've been investing in tactics puzzles and rook endgames. Crack it open and grab a breath of refreshing chess air for a few minutes; you're bound to find something to make you smile. It's like getting one of the world's top grandmasters to read you Tarzan comics. (Which, I learned from this book, was Bent Larsen's chief duty as Bobby Fischer's second at the 1959 Interzonal tournament!) It's the first chess book that's given me a feeling of guilty pleasure: how can chess be this much fun?
To give you a taste of what you can expect, here are a few of my favorite moments from the book:
In "Retreats of Genius," Dzindzichashvili retreats almost all his pieces back to their starting squares...and wins decisive material.
A disgruntled Garry Kasparov calls chess website publisher Frederich Friedel and says, "You are a dead man, Fred. You have put me in a very embarrassing situation." Friedel, you see, had posed a simple little problem to Kasparov, and when Garry's students couldn't solve it, the world champion spent a day on it and couldn't solve it either. For your edification, here is the possibly the world's most difficult chess problem: "A game begins 1.e4 and ends on move 5 in mate with the move knight takes rook. What was the game?" (The book has the solution, of course.)
In the chapter on chess dreams, we see a theoretical novelty in the Sicilian Defense that came to Larry Christiansen as he slept. We also get to see a Nimzo-Indian that David Bronstein dreamed in its entirety. After a white blunder on move 14, black mates in 3, and "Bronstein can do that in his sleep." And with one hand tied behind his back, no doubt!
Hesse puts a novel spin on chess sacrifices by comparing them to Einstein's e = mc2, which is the equation that explains how a tiny bit of uranium can yield a massive explosion. A sacrifice, after all, can also translate material into incredible energy--on the chess board. Hesse illustrates this with a couple of spectacular sacs, including a 2-piece offer by the inimitable Mikhail Tal.
In "the butterfly effect," we see a study in which white can give up a passed pawn on either h6 or h7. It looks inconsequential, but 9 moves later we see that the difference of just one square is the difference between a draw and a win. The catchy chapter title is a useful reminder that, in a possibly critical situation, you need to be careful about selecting between moves that look very similar.
Several studies caught my eye. In the chapter on symmetry, we see a problem with all eight of white's pawns on the 4th rank and his king on f1, while black's pawns are all on the 6th rank with his king on f8. White to play and win. In the chapter on parity arguments, a problem has 31 pieces on their original squares--except white's h1 rook, which is missing. What was black's last move? Clever stuff.
Hesse suggests an amusing parlor game for chess players: "the conqueror of the conqueror of Fischer." The goal is to see how many degrees of separation exist between you and Bobby, counting a victory over a difficult opponent as one degree. Count your victory over a strong player as one hop, then count his/her victory over a stronger opponent as the next hop, and so on, until you finally get to a grandmaster who defeated Fischer. Count the hops, and there's your Fischer number.
I don't mind the rare moments when Hesse inserts himself into the book, as it illustrates how a patzer not unlike me can have a ton of fun exploring chess. I find his attitude to be charming and infectious.
While the book is mostly just for fun, there's actually a fair amount of instructional value here: more guilty pleasure! If you're a chess player, this is a great book for your wishlist; or if you're looking for a Christmas gift or birthday gift for your favorite chess geek, wrap this book with a bow. It easily rates 5 stars out of 5. You may purchase these 417 pages of rollicking chess fun on Amazon here.
Full disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. I have endeavored to remain completely unbiased and helpful, and feel confident that the review reflects my commitment to objectivity.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Review of "Invisible Chess Moves"
Israeli International Master Yochanan Afek and French FIDE Master Emmanuel Neiman have analyzed hundreds of high-level international games to discover what kinds of moves are difficult even for the masters to see. The result is this extremely useful collection of positions, game fragments, and puzzles that illustrate the most common causes of chess blindness.
Light bulbs kept going off in my head as I worked my way through the book. "Queen circuits" are hard to see? No kidding, my only tournament loss to a non-expert this year was the lamentable result of not seeing a diagonal queen maneuver clear across the board, followed by a horizontal check to the opposite wing. Anticipating a probable result can lead to blindness? Absolutely! In two drawn rook endgames this year I've missed opportunities to punish critical blunders and collect the full point, simply because it didn't occur to me that a winning opportunity might suddenly and serendipitously appear. Best of all, shortly after I had read the section on backward attacking moves, I invested a knight in a kingside attack because I saw that a critical defense would not prevail because of a quiet, backward attacking move available to my light-squared bishop.
Take a look at the invisible moves Afek and Neiman have classified and see how many you might have overlooked recently:
Part I - Objective Invisibility - 21
Chapter 1 - Hard-to-see moves - 22
A: Quiet moves - 23
B: Intermediate moves - 27
The desperado - 31
C: Alignment - 36
D: Forgetting the rules - 53
E: Quiet positions - 57
Chapter 2 - Geometrically invisible moves - 71
A: Horizontal effect - 72
B: Circuit - 74
Rook circuit - 74
Bishop circuit - 75
Queen circuit - 75
C: Changing wings - 77
D: Backward moves - 83
E: Backward knight moves - 86
F: Pin and self-pin - 89
G: Geometrical moves - 96
Part II - Subjective Invisibility - 111
Chapter 3 - Invisible moves for positional reasons - 112
A: Pawn structures - 113
B: Weakening of the king's defences - 118
C: Unexpected exchanges - 123
D: Unusual position of a piece - 126
E: Anti-developing moves - 133
F: Residual image - 135
Chapter 4 - Invisible moves for psychological reasons - 151
A: Anticipation of the probable result - 152
B: Blunders in World Championship matches - 163
C: Forward moves in defence - 167
D: Backward attacking moves - 176
Test - 191
Test solutions - 205
Explanation of Symbols - 237
Index of Players - 238
In addition to 30 exercise positions sprinkled through the text, the book concludes with 53 test positions graded in difficulty from 1 to 5 stars. My online ratings and recent OTB results indicate that I'm about FIDE 1800, yet I found the 2 star puzzles reasonably challenging. I learned a lot from working through the solutions of the harder ones, though, so don't shy away from this book if you're rated 1700 or above. Below that rating, though, you are probably better off just working through a conventional tactics book; if you have difficulties seeing knight forks and X-ray attacks, you should get those under your belt before you attack these more advanced themes.
Excellent tactics books have flooded the market, but excellent books dedicated to hard-to-see moves have been, well, practically invisible. Thus I am willing to give this unique work 5 stars in spite of some minor flaws that I hope will be corrected in a future edition:
* The authors do not apply their criteria for game selection consistently. They state that they will generally not use examples that involve rapid time controls or time pressure, but almost 10% of their examples (15) come from rapid games or zeitnot situations. Moreover, in several of the examples the players actually saw and played the putatively hard-to-see winning continuation. Why are they in a book about moves that masters don't see?
* About a dozen of the 53 concluding test problems have hints that are too obvious. "Long diagonal" will definitely draw your attention to the winning skewer on the a8-h1 diagonal, don't you think?
* The first set of 6 exercise positions do not include a discussion of why the winning continuation should be considered hard-to-see.
* The English translation occasionally falters, using phantom words like "automatical," "profylaxis" and "devaluating."
As these flaws detract little from the book's overall impact, I heartily recommend it to anyone rated 1700 or above who wants to improve their chess vision. You may purchase it from Amazon here.
Full disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book to me. I have endeavored to remain completely unbiased and helpful, and feel confident that the review reflects my commitment to objectivity.
Light bulbs kept going off in my head as I worked my way through the book. "Queen circuits" are hard to see? No kidding, my only tournament loss to a non-expert this year was the lamentable result of not seeing a diagonal queen maneuver clear across the board, followed by a horizontal check to the opposite wing. Anticipating a probable result can lead to blindness? Absolutely! In two drawn rook endgames this year I've missed opportunities to punish critical blunders and collect the full point, simply because it didn't occur to me that a winning opportunity might suddenly and serendipitously appear. Best of all, shortly after I had read the section on backward attacking moves, I invested a knight in a kingside attack because I saw that a critical defense would not prevail because of a quiet, backward attacking move available to my light-squared bishop.
Take a look at the invisible moves Afek and Neiman have classified and see how many you might have overlooked recently:
Part I - Objective Invisibility - 21
Chapter 1 - Hard-to-see moves - 22
A: Quiet moves - 23
B: Intermediate moves - 27
The desperado - 31
C: Alignment - 36
D: Forgetting the rules - 53
E: Quiet positions - 57
Chapter 2 - Geometrically invisible moves - 71
A: Horizontal effect - 72
B: Circuit - 74
Rook circuit - 74
Bishop circuit - 75
Queen circuit - 75
C: Changing wings - 77
D: Backward moves - 83
E: Backward knight moves - 86
F: Pin and self-pin - 89
G: Geometrical moves - 96
Part II - Subjective Invisibility - 111
Chapter 3 - Invisible moves for positional reasons - 112
A: Pawn structures - 113
B: Weakening of the king's defences - 118
C: Unexpected exchanges - 123
D: Unusual position of a piece - 126
E: Anti-developing moves - 133
F: Residual image - 135
Chapter 4 - Invisible moves for psychological reasons - 151
A: Anticipation of the probable result - 152
B: Blunders in World Championship matches - 163
C: Forward moves in defence - 167
D: Backward attacking moves - 176
Test - 191
Test solutions - 205
Explanation of Symbols - 237
Index of Players - 238
In addition to 30 exercise positions sprinkled through the text, the book concludes with 53 test positions graded in difficulty from 1 to 5 stars. My online ratings and recent OTB results indicate that I'm about FIDE 1800, yet I found the 2 star puzzles reasonably challenging. I learned a lot from working through the solutions of the harder ones, though, so don't shy away from this book if you're rated 1700 or above. Below that rating, though, you are probably better off just working through a conventional tactics book; if you have difficulties seeing knight forks and X-ray attacks, you should get those under your belt before you attack these more advanced themes.
Excellent tactics books have flooded the market, but excellent books dedicated to hard-to-see moves have been, well, practically invisible. Thus I am willing to give this unique work 5 stars in spite of some minor flaws that I hope will be corrected in a future edition:
* The authors do not apply their criteria for game selection consistently. They state that they will generally not use examples that involve rapid time controls or time pressure, but almost 10% of their examples (15) come from rapid games or zeitnot situations. Moreover, in several of the examples the players actually saw and played the putatively hard-to-see winning continuation. Why are they in a book about moves that masters don't see?
* About a dozen of the 53 concluding test problems have hints that are too obvious. "Long diagonal" will definitely draw your attention to the winning skewer on the a8-h1 diagonal, don't you think?
* The first set of 6 exercise positions do not include a discussion of why the winning continuation should be considered hard-to-see.
* The English translation occasionally falters, using phantom words like "automatical," "profylaxis" and "devaluating."
As these flaws detract little from the book's overall impact, I heartily recommend it to anyone rated 1700 or above who wants to improve their chess vision. You may purchase it from Amazon here.
Full disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book to me. I have endeavored to remain completely unbiased and helpful, and feel confident that the review reflects my commitment to objectivity.
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