Book/movie review © 2003 James Schroeder The Luzhin Defense by Vladimir Nabakov. 1930. Translated from Russian by Michael Scammell in collaboration with the author. Copyright 1964. I have read the novel and the movie is an atrocious disgrace that has only superficial resemblance to the story. In short: Luzhin is a Russian who suffers from [...]

Movie review © 2004 James Schroeder “The Chess Player” From the novel by Henri Bupuy-Mazuel. Produced by La Societe des Films Historiaues. 1926. France. This is a melodrama, starting in the town of Vilnius in Polish Lithuania in 1776, which is occupied by Russian soldiers of Catherine the Great. The leader of the Polish resistance [...]

[Click HERE for floating game board.] Copyright © 2006 James Schroeder It was a beautiful spring morning about to turn into a sunny afternoon, for which Southern California was famous. Twenty years later Harry would remember it nostalgically as “the good old days”. It was a Saturday, a day off from work. Having very little [...]

Why Lasker Matters by Andrew Soltis, © 2005 Batsford Other than having many great games by the best chess player of all time, this book is worthless. How can anyone look at all Lasker’s games and read everything by him and about him and not learn anything? Instead of analyzing the games correctly, Soltis puts [...]

Everyman Press © 2006 This abominable series is almost worthless because there are hundreds of factual errors and the games are full of useless analysis. Ego-maniac Kasparov says: “I discovered this move which has been unknown for fifty years,” or forty, or thirty, etc. His “great” discovery is crap, leading to a “quicker” win – [...]

Vladimir Kramnik, Chess Champion of the World, accepted a challenge from Veselin Topalov, FIDE Champion, for a “12 game match”, beginning September 23. Kramnik is an honorable man but naive and gullible. He let the match be held under the auspices of FIDE, a corrupt organization ruled by a virtual dictator: Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. Compounding his [...]

  THE PRISON CHESS PROGRAM sponsered by the National Chess Foundation has been actively helping jail inmates for over a decade now and has supplied them with thousands of chess sets, boards, clocks, books and magazines. This remarkable humanitarian effort is primarily the accomplishment of one dedicated man, James R. Schroeder. Almost singlehandedly he has [...]

MANY YEARS AGO I decided, by making a chart of past results, that I was due to have a BAD tournament. I went to Indiana to get it over with – not wanting to have a bad result in any important event in Ohio. I played terribly and almost everyone beat me. I had Black [...]

Question 1. There was a world championship chess match played in New York where the games were copyrighted and sold to newspapers, wire services, etc. Was it Lasker – Steinitz 1894? If not, was it Steinitz – Zukertort 1886 or Lasker – Marshall 1907? Please send me details. Answer: Lasker – Steinitz 1894, see comment. [...]

Please direct inquiries about books in this list to James Schroeder by phone (360-258-9401) or mail (address below). Updated: Sept. 24, 2007 For Sale. MINIMUM ORDER $20.00 postpaid. Send your name and address, list of the books you want, and a check payable to James Schroeder for the total amount to: James Schroeder 3011 E. [...]