2001 Chess Oddities by Alex Dunne © 2003
“No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted by any means.” THANK GOD! This is the worst collection of trash I have ever seen! There are HUNDREDS of mistakes. “Paul Morphy died of a stroke while taking a hot bath.” On [...]

Several Masters are playing a consultation game. Kasparaov says: “The weak point in our opponent’s position is g7, therefore we should play R-g1.” Direct attack. Spassky says: “yes, we should attack g7 but let’s play N-d4 first, then we can attack g7 with N-e6 or N-f5, either before or aftter R-g1.” Combination. Karpov says: “Those [...]

Book Review: Bobby Fischer’s Conquest of the World Chess Championship by Reuben Fine
“The psychology and tactics of the title match”
David McKay Co, November 1973
Review by James Schroeder published in 1974
For several years one of the best analysts in the world, Fine degenerated rapidly after he quit playing chess in 1952. In this book the [...]

Soviet Chess 1917 – 1991 by Andrew Soltis, 2000, McFarland and Company
Soltis is notorious for writing the worst researched books in history. This has so many factual errors it is worthless. It is very poorly written and abounds with inane comments such as “The tragedy of Spassky’s brief reign was that it came [...]

New York 1936: The First Modern United States Chess Championship by John Hilbert and Peter Lahde
review by James Schroeder
In 1985 I discovered that the John White Dept. of the Cleveland Public Library had a box containing the original game scores of the 1936 U.S. Chess Championship Tournament. So I hand-copied all of them and [...]

American Chess Masters from Morphy to Fischer by Arthur Bisguier and Andrew Soltis; Macmillan Publishing Company; 1974
Many years later Soltis said that he alone wrote all of the book. Despite agreeing to help write the book, Bisguier did nothing at all, for which he should be thanked, as this is absolutely worthless trash.
There is [...]

Grandmasters of Chess by Harold Schonberg; 1st ed. Lippincott 1973; revised WW Norton & Co. 1981.
Grandmasters of Chess by Harold Schonberg is a rotten book that consists of yellow jounalism based upon the writer’s ignorance and incredible stupidity. Mr. Schonberg does not understand chess, chess masters, chess history, or anything else of what he [...]

by James Schroeder
Once upon a time a man found a large bone, flat on two sides. He put a mark on one side and two marks on the other side and then found another man with whom he gambled. The man tossed the bone in the air and the other man called one, [...]

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 [...]