The Art of Bisguier Volume Two
One Hundred Selected Games 1961 – 2003
© 2008; 267 pp.; figurine algebraic

The introduction by Berry is atrocious. He is incredibly egotistic and stupid and not qualified to make any comment about master play, much less grandmaster play. He is especially insulting by saying: “Lubosh certainly must have thought …” I hate damn mind-readers. He is a very poor writer: “One possible move” instead of “one legal move”.

There are too many draws, which are dull and uninteresting, as usual.

Why did Bisguier lie? “I won the U.S. Open outright three times (1950, 1956 and 1959).” I said in my review of Vol. One that in 1956 Busguier tied for first with James Sherwin. I sent copies of my review to Bisguier and Berry.

The proof reading is poor and there are many more factual errors, for which the two moronic “Researchers: Allen Becker & David Granik” should be shot.

Art is a poor writer, using insulting childish words: “horse” & “cavalier” instead of knight, “infantryman”, “fortress”, “monarch”, and assorted garbage, “his own king” and the incredibly stupid “three-fold repetition.”

Art makes the asinine mistake of reciting the list of “best players” as compiled by Keene and Divinsky, which is insane crap. He also makes the inane mistake of mentioning analysis by computers, which proves he is lazy and incompetent. “Fritz says Black has the advantage, but I think he’s wrong.” WHO CARES? NO INTELLIGENT PERSON!

“Benko and Robert Byrne tied for first in the 1966 U.S. Open.” With Milan Vukcevich, who beat Bisguier in their game.

“Boris Spassky trained first with Tolush and then Bondarevsky.” WRONG! His first trainer was Vladimir Zak.

“Tony Miles played an entire tournament lying flat on his back.” WRONG! At Tilburg 1985 Miles scored 4-3 while sitting in a chair. Persistent back pain caused him to ask the organizers for help. From round eight on he lay on his stomach while playing and tied for first with 8-1/2 – 5-1/2.

“I collaborated with Soltis on the book American Masters from Morphy to Fischer.” Soltis says Bisguier was so lazy and irresponsible he did not write ONE word of that book, which is an abomination.

1 PK4 PK4; 2 NKB3 NQB3; 3 BN5 NB3; 4 O-O NxP “The Rio de Janeiro Variation.” WRONG! That can come later but Art NEVER played it.

“Two Knights Opening” instead of “Two Knights Defense”.

“David Bronstein’s play is very careful and cautious, hoping that his opponents will become careless or too aggressive.” Bisguier is a damn imbecile. That is exactly the opposite of Bronstein’s style. He was the greatest combinational player of his time with a very risky, daring, creative style.

A serious defect is the lack of lists of Bisguier’s tournament and match results. Volume One ends with Log Cabin 1960. The photo-copy of one of Art’s columns from Chess Review has print so tiny it is worthless.

Why are there so many mistakes in this book? Bisguier is notorious for being indifferent to the truth. Berry is a terrible editor. If ignorance is bliss, he must be ecstatic. The “researchers” are hopelessly ignorant and stupid. Hanon Russell is a selfish ego-mainiac who is ultimately responsible for all errors. He refused to put “Volume Two” as part of the title. That is insulting to Bisguier and to Berry, the publisher of Volume One. Hanon Russell is a jackass.

The quality of play and players is much higher than in Volume One. Art is more creative and his moves are hard to predict and you should NOT try to copy most of his play in openings.

Of great interest is the comments Art makes about the various players.

:”A Los Angeles County doctor, Anthony Saidy is an International Master who won the American Open twice, in 1967 and 1992, a quarter-century apart.” Typically inane writing. TWENTY-FIVE YEARS, which is no where near one hundred years. “Dr. Saidy also authored a couple notable books: The March of Chess Ideas and The World of Chess.” WRONG! The first book is good but The World of Chess is completely worthless garbage. Saidy once won a tournament game from Samuel Reshevsky.

Arthur Bisguier won the 1950 U.S. Open and the 1954 U.S. Championship and became a grandmaster when there were only 40 in the world. He’s an amateur who has been successful in international chess. His style in these games is aggressive and tactical, but with a strong emphasis on positionally safe moves, based upon much experience. An excellent book.

© 2008 James Schroeder

Selected from Confidential Chess Lessons

To get this book, send $30 (post paid) to:

James Schroeder
3011 E. 9th St.
Apt. #15
Vancouver, WA 98661

Reviewed by Dave Davis

This is a collection of 110 problems in geometry, algebra, and combinations based on the moves of the chess pieces. The only chess knowledge required is the rules of the game. The amount of mathematical skill needed is considerable.

The preface states: “Almost none of the problems and puzzles, from the very old ones to the newest ones, involving computer procedures, exceed a high school level of difficulty; advanced mathematics is excluded”.

This is certainly-not true of an American High School education. The author is Yugoslavian and this may be so over there, where a “High” school is equivalent to a Junior College in the United States.

The problems are divided into six chapters, with solutions at the end of each chapter. The first chapter contains almost nothing directly related to chess, but calls on the reader to solve recurrence relations, add probabilities, understand the binomial distribution, supply proof by mathematical induction, and evaluate 8 x 8 determinants.

The subject level is that of a course in Foundations of Mathematics as studied by Math Majors, or Discrete Structures as studied by computer science majors. If these are not your fields, you will get very little from these problems.

The second chapter involves a little more chess. Problem 2.3 requires White, with King and Queen, to checkmate the lone Black King without moving White’s King.

This is a good exercise for novices because it requires visualization of mating patterns and using the Queen alone to drive the Black King to a square where it will be checkmated. However, this is the only problem I could find of any value to a chess player.

Many problems are ill-posed. Problem 2.20 involves an interesting piece dalled a “Destroyer”, but it never tells you that a Destroyer moves like a King. Why not use a King?

Problem 2.14 goes to great length explaining hos a “Beetle” moves, but it actually simply moves like a Bishop.

Chapter tnree gives a wonderful description of the Knight’s Tour problem. (A Knight is moved so that it lands on each of the 64 squares only once.), and it mentions that the famous mathematicien Euler was interested in this problem, but I am disappointed that his solution is not given.

Chapters four, five and six are all geometry and pencil and paper type problems and most of them can be solved by any avid puzzle fan, but the problems in chapter four require that you remember the formulas from geometry and trigonometry.

The solutions rarely give details of what mathematics is needed to reach them, and four problems have computer programs written in four different programming languages. These seem pointless because anyone who understands them will code them in Visual Basic, or C++, or some other currently fashionable platform.

Some of these problems may be interesting for players interested in Fairy chess with unusual pieces, and there is one fine Retrograde chess problem (2.2), but this book was clearly written for the mathematical enthusiast and not for chess players.

~ ~ ~

_ _ _ _ _ k _ _ 8
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 7
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 6
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 5
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 4
_ _ K _ _ _ _ _ 3
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2
_ Q _ _ _ _ _ _ 1
a b c d e f g h

Problem 2.3.
White checkmates without moving White King.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 9
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 8
_ _ _ _ _ Q _ _ _ 7
_ _ Q _ _ _ _ _ _ 6
_ _ _ _ Q _ _ _ _ 5
_ _ _ _ _ _ Q _ _ 4
_ _ _ Q _ _ _ _ _ 3
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 2
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 1
a b c d e f g h i

Problem. 2.6.
Five Queens command every square on a 9 x 9 board. Note that four Queens are a Knight’s move from the central Queen: A typical solution for that type of problem.

Copyright 2000 – David Davis – USA

“The Art of Checkmate” by George Renaud. and Victor Kahn, former champions of France, is yet another demonstration of how very suited the French literary tradition is to chess exposition. The close attention to the order and neatness of presentation makes study of most of the French chess writers a pleasure. In this case, a clumsy translation has succeeded in making merely delightful what could have been made super-delightful. It is a magnificent exposition of that vital department of chess skill, the mating combination.

The original was “L’Art de Faire Mat,” of which my copy—I don’t know if a nicer edition was printed— is on poor paper and very unattractive to the eye. Bells have produced an English edition in their usual style—well-nigh impossible to better as far as the appearance goes.

The excellence of the presentation is still there, too—the order, the neatness, and the pleasing system of classification according to names, which makes everything so easily remembered, e.g., Legal’s Pseudo-Sacrifice, Greco’s Mate, Anastasia’s Mate, Boden’s Mate, Blackburne’s Mate, Anderssèn’s Mate, Pillsbury’s Mate, Damiano’s Mate, Morphy’s Mate, the Arabian Mate, and so on. All these mates—the student discovers—are typical mates that occur daily. They are not ephemeral flights of genius recalled only in print, but part of the stock in trade of every expert player; but a book like this that codifies them so elegantly and interestingly gives even an expert a far better grip of them, so that his chances of scoring a vital extra point in a tournament are appreciably increased. Over and over again, the authors quote instances of forced mates missed by masters in the heat of battle. And for the average player, from now on we list this as a MUST book.

I am strongly opposed to the view that skill in chess can be attained only by hard work. I once studied a book on the differential calculus that was written quite flippantly, and yet gave a newcomer to the calculus a much better idea of its mysteries than the ponderous school texts I was supposed to be using. A chess book that is interesting and entertaining and yet has the subject all sewn up—that’s the ideal, and Renaud and Kahn have hit the jackpot.

They could, however, institute a lawsuit against the translator. I really must comment on this aspect in the hope that chess publishers may exercise more care in the selection of people for this work. Previously, I railed at some faults in translations of books by Botvinnik—faults that were obvious without knowing Russian. But the translation of Renaud’s and Kahn’s work reaches what I sincerely hope is an all-time low. I am no French scholar, but any fourth-former could fault this stuff.

In almost every page one finds sentences that are not translations at all, or even paraphrases. They contain as much of the original as the pathetic skull of Yorick contained of the soul of that lively jester, and the bones are padded out not with the thoughts of Renaud and Kahn but, rather, thoughts of the translator’s own which he seems—for no valid reason—to prefer.

For example, after saying that Tartakover’s most famous work is “The Hypermodern Game of Chess” —this already commits one of the worst offences in the criminal code of translation, namely, the rendering of a book-title in a language into which the book has not been translated—the translator was faced with the simple task of giving the authors’ comment on the work—”La vivacite de see notes et commentaires en font une lecture agreable”—sorry we can’t print accents. A fair stab would be, “The liveliness of his notes and comments makes it enjoyable reading”— for “pleasant” in this context is a shade weak, and “delightful” a little strong. The translator says, “His brilliant style adds to the joy of his comments.” The authors did not mention a brilliant style, nor did they say the comments were joyous. Their remark was grammatically loose, but not hysterical.

The authors are made to appear offensive and patronising where they were really their normal urbane selves—yes, urbanity is their hallmark, especially of Georges Renaud, who has written many charming essays on various aspects of the game. The translator makes them say, “The following game was played between two second-rate players who, nevertheless, seem to be pretty well versed in the opening theory (‘the’ should be omitted, of course, a typical bit of slovenliness, this), as the first sixteen moves will show.”

“Second-rate” is always offensive. The authors said, “. . . Amateurs of the second rank—but amateurs of some erudition, for, as we are about to see, White’s first sixteen moves are all ‘book.’” The translator has made no attempt to preserve the little echo between “erudition” and “book.”

Again we are told that Taubenhaus was a “second-rate” master,” which in English is a contradiction in terms, in view of the slight implied in “second-rate.” The authors wrote “maitre de deuxieme plan,” which you can translate as “second-rank master” or, better, to conform to English usage, “minor master.”

The translator also tells us that Fred Lazard “was the most all-round master in France.” A school pupil who perpetrated that would have it read out to the class to draw a laugh. You cannot be more all-round or most all-round. The authors said Lazard was “the most complete of French players,” and incidentally, “in France” does not necessarily mean “French.” The context shows that “most versatile of all French players” would be a fair rendering.

These are only a few samples—no need to pile on the agony.

by Gabriel Velasco; Russell Enterprises; published 2000; 301 pp; limp cover; excellent printing and diagrams.

More than 103 games in figurine algebraic notation but too many are poorly played and/or horrible exhibition games.

Born November 23, 1904 in Merida, Yucatan province, Mexico, his family moved to New Orleans when he was eleven years old and that’s where he read The Principles of Chess by James Mason (a great book that should be re-printed) and The Art of Chess by Mason (a book of combinations).

There is a lot of worthless “analysis” and Velasco is a very poor writer who insults the reader with his “explanations” and advice. Even worse he is an “apologist” who makes inane comments: “Skeptical readers might say ‘True, but Karpov had played many games as good or better.’” So I use, for the first time: COMPARISONS ARE ODIOUS. To make it worse, Velasco is WRONG! Karpov never played a game such as Torre – Banks, Chicago 1926, because White had Queen, Rook and Knight while Black had Queen, Rook and Bishop. Velasco is a self-appointed critic who is so dense he can’t see that Karpov almost never combined with Knights.

Velasco makes it interesting by adding historical comments: “Boris Verlinsky (1888 – 1950) Victories in the 1928 Moscow and 1929 Soviet Championship made him the first to receive the title: Grandmaster of Chess of the USSR. He was later stripped of it so that Botvinnik would officially be the ‘first’. Soltis only says: ‘The title was temporarily abolished 1931 – 1935.’ Nearly deaf, Verlinsky understood speech by lip-reading, but attended the symphony and played the violin.“

“Yakov Rokhlin (1905 – 1996) In illogical but true Marxist style wrote: ‘Chess is a true weapon and living piece of propaganda against religious delusions.’” That is WRONG. Religion teaches people to act without thinking, but chess teaches them to think before acting. You can quote me!

Torre had great aptitude and quickly improved by playing at the Manhattan and Marshall Chess Clubs in New York City. His style is universal and he tried everything and anything but is famous for his “Torre Attack” — 1 PQ4 NKB3; 2 NKB3 PK3; 3 BN5, and he continued with PK3, PQB3, etc.

Concerning the game Torre – Lasker, Moscow 1925, Velasco makes the mistake of repeating the idiotic excuse of Hannak: “Lasker received a telegram with good news.” Another game that Lasker lost Hannak said: “Lasker received a telegram with bad news.” When Lasker received a telegram with no good or bad news he offered a draw! That’sa joke!

Torre’s weakness was that he was a coward who feared losing, so he offered draws when he had an advantage. Some persons offer the excuse that he was an “artist” who played for beauty instead of points, but that doesn’t make any sense. Bronstein, Santasiere and others who were artists did NOT offer draws but continued playing, for art’s sake, and didn’t fear losing.

Torre offered the feeble excuse that he offered draws when he was winning because he was “inexperienced”. However, he did suffer from chronic illness and probably felt very tired after a few hours of play.

Torre played in four international tournaments: W25 L11 D31, winning from Grunfeld, Yates, Reti, Opocensky, Lasker, Marshall and Maroczy, among others, but it is ridiculous to speak of him as a “future world champion”. “He who does not take risks does not drink champagne.”

book review by James Schroeder

What a delight! 220 PACKED pages. Includes 18 page chapter written 2001. Superb format: long-algebraic, bold type for game moves; short-algebraic, light type for analysis. Perfect diagrams.

There are three types of gambits by Black: those which are theoretically sound, those which are risky but worth trying, and those which are inspirations over the board. The fourth type are garbage, such as the Greco Gambit: 1 PK4 PK4; 2 NKB3 PKB4?? Harding doesn’t make the mistake of trying to prove that all gambits are good, or safe. He gives his truthful opinions and gives many games where Black loses. Not all of his analysis is correct, but that’s not important. You must always do your own analysis.

There are 75 complete games in long algebraic and many more complete games in analysis.

1 e4 e5; 2 Nf3 d6; 3 d4 Bg4; 4 PxP Nd7. Harding says that was played in Pollock – Blackburne, Hastings 1895, but does NOT say it was played in van Vliet – Lasker, Amsterdam 1889.

1 e4 e5; 2 Nf3 Nc6; 3 Nc3 Nf6; 4 BB5 Nd4. Harding says this is the “Rubinstein Variation”, and then says it was “the idea of Frank Marshall, who played it against Tarrasch at Monte Carlo 1903.” UNFORGIVABLE MISTAKE! It was played by James Mason at Nuremberg 1883.

Enthusiastically recommended! Please buy this book from me. MINIMUM ORDER $20.00. See Dover list with reviews HERE.

Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur

by Max Euwe and Walter Meiden

Dover price $10. Please order from me – MINIMUM ORDER $20. See Dover list with reviews HERE.

Mostly a good book but Euwe made the worst possible mistake, saying 1 PK4 PQ4; 2 PxP PQB3?; 3 PxP NxP is playable, when it is actually a forced win for White. The master had Black and he won. Even worse, some other suspicious openings in the book, but I don’t have it on hand. Euwe some times lacked common sense, e.g., stating that the Gioco Piano, 1 PK4 PK4; 2 NKB3 NQB3; 3 BB4, sas as good for White as the Ruy Lopez, 1 PK4 PK4; 2 NKB3 NQB3; 3 BN5. As has been proven in master play for more than one hundred years, that is completely wrong. 3 BB4 is so weak it is seldom played by masters.

“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 July 10, 1884 in New Orleans Paul took a long walk and became over-heated. “Pronounced dead at 2:30 P.M. from congestion of the brain caused by entering the cold water while very warm after his walk.” – PAUL MORPHY by David Lawson.

Dunne reprints those monstrosities: Morphy vs. Duke of Brunswick and the mis-named “Immortal Game” by Anderssen. Other than examples of atrocious play by the loser they are dull and worthless.

Dunne gives a King’s Gambit where Nigel Short beat Kasparov in fifteen moves and says it was the 23rd game of the 1993 World Championship Match. That is an unforgivable mistake. It was an exhibition game played after Kasparov had won the match, and the moves 1 PK4 PK4; 2 PKB4 PxP; 3 BB4 QR5ch; 4 KB1 PQN4 were selected by the audience. Kasparov, to his shame, made no attempt to play good moves. He is notorious for lack of ethics and integrity.

NOTHING is more insulting than to say “the shortest decisive game between two World Champions” and then give a skittles game: Alekhin – Euwe. Dunne says Euwe resigned on move twelve, but he is a piece ahead and winning. Thus, this “game” cannot be real. No intelligent person pays attention to skittles games, or simultaneous games, etc.

“William Lombardy turned down his induction into the U.S. Hall of Fame because of conflict with his priesthood duties.” WRONG! Lombardy refused to be inducted because the U.S. Chess Federation would not pay his travelling expenses to the induction ceremonies.

Dunne says: “Capablanca lost a piece on move nine and resigned on move sixty-nine, and almost had a draw.” NONSENSE! Saemisch took his time because it was a blocked position and the win was assured. Capablanca never came close to a draw.

“Alino Markowski won the 1956 Ohio State Championship.” NO! The best score she ever made was 4 – 3. She had the highest score among women players.

“The Game and Play of Chess by Jacobus is the second book published in English.” WRONG! It was the second book printed on the press invented by Gutenberg, the first being the BIBLE.

“It is not well-known that blindfold checkers is a more difficult game than blindfold chess.” NOT TRUE! Checkers is much easier.

Hundreds of inane comments such as: “… forces Martin to turn his King over.”

Most of Dunne’s attempts at “humor” are disgustingly infantile. “And Black throws a single rock after which the lights go out.”

“Two Knights is insufficient mating material.” WRONG!.

Dunne prints many silly anecdotes as if they are true, but they are NOT, they are fiction.

As usual with books printed by Bob Long there are many WRONG diagrams.

Don’t even begin to think of reading this junk. I burned my copy.

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 evidence of his inanity is more pronounced and appears to be caused by his failure to become World Champion (in addition to other emotional problems which one can infer from his autobiographical writings). This book contains 92 pages of preliminary “history” and Fine’s absurd deductions about the psychological motives of Fischer, Spassky and a few other Masters. Don’t believe anything you read. Then follows 200 pages to analyze the 21 games of the match, and to give more nonsensical “reasons” for the players’ errors. Fine’s analysis of the games is very poor. In Game One he overlooks that Fischer has four distinct ways of drawing after 29 … BxKRP. The simplest begins with 37 … P-QR3! Fine grossly overestimates White’s position in Game Five and claims Spassky could have drawn with 27 Q-N1. Black’s superiority is so great at that time that the win is a matter of technique. Fine makes, and repeats several times, the ridiculous claim that: “Spassky’s preparations for the match was superb, far superior to Fischer’s. It was he who introduced the opening variations which will stick.” The exact opposite is true and Spassky was not prepared when Fischer played 1 P-QB4, or when Fischer played Alekhin’s Defense (1 P-K4 N-KB3), or when Fischer played several other openings he had not previously played. It is a serious mistake to believe that superior preparation manifests itself in the opening. QUITE THE CONTRARY. It is precisely in the middle-game and the endgame that superior preparation becomes apparent. During his career Fine was, and still is, lacking an understanding of the subjective factors in chess. Fine accuses Petrosian of “lacking imagination”, which is impossible. He confuses “imagination” with aggressive play, but defensive play can also be “imaginative”, as proven by Steinitz, Lasker, Reshevsky, Botvinnik, etc. All chess matches between equal, or nearly equal players, have been decided by subjective factors. Fischer’s superior preparation was proved by his ability to play very rapidly in the openings and the manner in which Spassky was induced to make mistakes. Many ignorant writers have referred to Spassky’s “uncharacteristic blunders”. That is exactly what proves that Fischer’s preparations were superior. If Spassky had made only characteristic mistakes he would have won the match. Spassky used far too much time in the openings and this caused him to make mistakes later, because he was short of time.

Fine writes: “Fischer was lost in eight games.” “No games of really notable stature were recorded.” WRONG. The epic games were THREE (but Fischer missed an easy win by not playing 26 … QR-QB1!), FOUR, FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, TEN, ELEVEN, THIRTEEN, FIFTEEN, EIGHTEEN, NINETEEN, TWENTY-ONE. Most of the games are great struggles and utterly fascinating.

Fine’s attempt at psychoanalysis of the players can be exposed as worthless by giving one example: “In annotating the games I was struck by two considerations: The frequency with which Fischer made dubious moves to the edge of the board, and his preferred method of counterattacking against the center from the side.” Were this not so pathetic it would be humorous. During the match I mentioned to the audience that every time Spassky was in a bad position he advanced one of his Rook-Pawns. That drew a big laugh, which is what this book is worth, lotsa laughs.

Post-script. Anatoly Karpov, World Champion 1975 – 1985 was wrongly accused by Tal, and others, of lacking in “imagination” and not being “creative”. Karpov had a generic deficiency of not being able to use Knights, or defend against attacks by Knights. He was great with Bishops and the best endgame player of his time. Given that handicap he was imaginative and creative as much as he could possibly be.

Copyright © 2006 James Schroeder Vancouver, WA

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 just as Bobby Fischer returned to chess.”

There is no tragedy involved when Spassky or any other champion lost his title. It bothered Spassky so much that he won the 1974 USSR Championship (that’s sarcasm). Fischer did not play after 1972 and there was nothing to prevent Spassky from becoming world champion again, had he been good enough.

“The Soviets lost 1-3 to the Americans and finished second, before an embarrassed crowd in Leningrad.” Typical gratuitous insult by Soltis. Why make a derogatory comment? Why should the spectators be embarrassed?

There’s nothing more dull and worthless than “war stories” and Soltis fills this book with such junk. Who needs a blow-by-blow account of how each Soviet died during the war? One is enough. What good is it to relate death and starvation, ad nauseum? That is NOT Soviet chess, that is NON-CHESS.

This book is filled with useless trivia: “The Swedish chess union invited a team from Leningrad to play a double-round 12 board match in Stockholm in the fall of 1926, but two or three days before the match Rokhlin was told that no passports would be available without special instructions from Moscow.”

So he got the permits and they played. Who cares how they got there? Multiply that by one hundred and you see that there is a lot of wasted ink.

Soltis: “The Soviets created an excellent training program for young players but this system arose in the final years of the USSR.”

That is an atrocious mistake. Many years earlier boys who showed aptitude for chess were sent to special schools and received instruction from chess masters.

Soltis writes: “Abraham Yanofsky”, but there is no such person. Daniel Yanofsky was a grandmaster and his second name is Abraham.

After 1 PK4 PK4; 2 NKB3 NQB3; 3 BN5 PQR3; 4 BxN QPxB; 5 NB3 BQB4, Soltis says: “White can play 6 NxP favorably”, but what if 6 … BxPch?

“Bibliography” lists only three books by Botvinnik, but he wrote several others which were translated into English. This is important because in there are Botvinnik’s claims that he unethically tried to have Paul Keres barred from playing chess. Botvinnik said he wrote to the Soviet Chess Federation and said: “The next World Chess Champion should be a Soviet, like me, and not an Estonian, like Paul Keres.” And this was after Keres had won the tournament of AVRO 1938 (where Botvinnik finished third) to become the official challenger to World Champion Alexander Alekhin. Botvinnik prevented Keres from playing in the tournament of Groningen 1946 because if Keres had won, which is likely, it would have been almost impossible to stop him from becoming world champion. It wasn’t until 1955 that Keres was permitted to play in a tournament outside of Russian control.

In 1933 Botvinnik played a 12 game match with Salo Flohr, then one of the best players in the world. Flohr won games one and six and then surprisingly lost games nine and ten. After game eleven was a draw Botvinnik said: “Flohr came to my room the day before the last game and proposed a draw.” Soltis did NOT relate that story. Several persons said Flohr was bribed to let Botvinnik tie the match. Bronstein’s version: “Goldberg helped Flohr find a shop where he could buy a beautiful fur coat very cheaply.”

Very poor writer: “In late 1918 Alexander Fyorodovich Ilyin-Genevsky was 24 years old …”; instead of: “Alexander Ilyin, born November 28, 1894 in St. Petersburg, lived in Geneva, Switzerland for many years and adopted the name Ilyin-Genevsky.”

Ilyin-Genevsky defeated Capablanca in the tournament of Moscow 1925. Soltis: “Capablanca got a bit of revenge by winning an exhibition game from Ilyin in 1936.” Only an imbecile would think that winning a simultaneous game is “revenge”.

Grigory Levenfish tied for first in the 1935 USSR Championship, and won in 1937. Botvinnik had not played in either event, so he appealed to the Soviet Chess Federation, which ordered Levenfish to play a match with him.

Soltis: “The player that wins six games wins the match,” but “the match ended in a draw, 5 wins each and 8 draws, when Levenfish won the last game.” STOP! That is NOT “six wins”. WHY did they stop? Soltis doesn’t say.

Botvinnik acted unethically and asked the Soviet Chess Federation to let him play in the tournament of AVRO 1938, instead of Levenfish, who had been invited and deserved to play because he was the Chess Champion of the USSR.

Botvinnik tried the same “trick” after the 1940 USSR Championship where he tied for fifth with Boleslavsky, behind Bondarevsky, Lilienthal, Smyslov and Keres. The Soviet Chess Federation then ordered the infamous “Absolute Championship of the USSR” in 1941, which Botvinnik won.

On Friday, November 20, 1925, a simultaneous exhibition was played where Capablanca lost to Botvinnik. Several anecdotes have been published: “Capablanca said – ‘That boy will become a Master’ or ‘That boy will become World Champion.” The LEAST credible is Botvinnik’s version: “Capablanca was very angry and threw the pieces off the board.” That is a LIE and is typical of how Botvinnik, his entire life, tried to demean other masters by telling the most outrageous lies. Capablanca had been playing simultaneous exhibitions since 1908 and by all accounts was a gentleman. He certainly NEVER attached any importance to a simultaneous game.

Boris Verlinsky, a deaf mute who won a tournament game from Capablanca, became the first grandmaster of chess of the USSR, but his title was erased several years later so that Botvinnik could officially become the first grandmaster of chess of the USSR.

When the USSR was preparing to send a team for the first time to the FIDE Team Tournament the leading players voted to send Keres, Smyslov, Geller, Boleslavsky, Bronstein and Kotov. Soltis’s account of how this happened is woefully inadequate and incompetent. He does NOT say there was a training tournament first where Botvinnik performed poorly and some players (Kotov and others who hated Botvinnik) went to the Soviet Chess Federation and suggested that Botvinnik should not be on the team. Botvinnik was irate and humiliated because, as he said, the training tournament was not serious chess, it was supposed to be a mental exercise where the players were not concerned with winning or losing. The team of Botvinnik, Keres, Smyslov, Geller, Bronstein and Boleslavsky would have been much better than the one that played, where Kotov replaced Botvinnik. Keres scored only 6-1/2 – 5-1/2 on board one, by far his worst result in many FIDE Team Tournaments, and Kotov played only three games, scoring 2 – 1, but the team very easily won first prize, ahead of Argentina, Yugoslavia and 22 other teams.

In the 1952 USSR Championship the rule was that players could not agree to a draw until 30 moves had been played. Botvinnik said he tried to cheat by offering a draw to Taimanov at move 22 and they agreed to continue until move 30. Surprisingly, according to Botvinnik, move 30 came and went and Taimanov continued playing and eventually won the game.

How sad it is when a liar, cheat and swindler like Botvinnik finds he cannot trust someone! They tied for first but Botvinnik won the play-off match 3-1/2 – 2-1/2.

With all the thousands of great games he could use, instead Soltis prints worthless practice games between Botvinnik and Ragozin.

Soltis is wrong in saying that Fischer had the best result at the FIDE Team Tournament, Havana 1966. He scored 88.2% while Petrosian had 88.5%.

Soltis is ridiculous when he calls chess “murderous” and “brutal”.

After Fischer defeated Taimanov and Larsen in Candidates Matches by 6 – 0 each, he was supposed to meet the winner of a match between Petrosian and Korchnoi. Soltis does not say the Soviet Chess Federation asked them if they could defeat Fischer. Korchnoi said no one could defeat Fischer, but Petrosian said he thought he could win, so Korchnoi was ordered to let Petrosian win their match.

After Fischer defeated Spassky in the 1972 match, Baturinsky said that a Soviet official named Schlelokov said: “How could Spassky have lost to an American? If I had my way everyone who was with Spassky in Reykjavik should be shot!” Soltis omits the punch line: “I WASN’T THERE!”

Copyright © 2006 James Schroeder, Vancouver, WA

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 intended to publish the tournament book in 1986. But many of the game scores were missing so I quit. Several years later John Donaldson mentioned that some persons were going to publish the tournament book so I sent him my box of game scores.

Because of the Great Depression the U.S. had many great players in the 1930′s. As Arnold Denker wrote (The Bobby Fischer I Knew and Other Stories) there wasn’t any work available but Masters could make some dimes and quarters by playing chess. As a result the U.S. won the International Team Tournaments in 1931, 1933 and 1935 with Isaac Kashdan, Frank Marshall, Arthur Dake, Israel Horowitz, Herman Steiner, Reuben Fine, Abraham Kupchik and Albert Simonson. Samuel Reshevsky played first board as they won again 1937.

In 1907 Marshall claimed the title of U.S. Chess Champion and this was accepted because no one else cared. He defended his “title” once, winning from Edward Lasker in 1923 with five wins, four losses, nine draws.

Marshall accepted a challenge from Kashdan in 1933 but they couldn’t find enough sponsors to donate enough money, so the match wasn’t held. Marshall then agreed to play in a tournament for the title, but later decided to retire “undefeated”.

In addition to the seeded players: Kashdan, Horowitz, Steiner, Fine, Kupchik, Alexander Kevitz, Dake and Samuel Reshevsky, four qualifying tournaments were held in New York City from which came Simonson and Samuel Factor; Denker and Weaver Adams; George Treysman and Sidney Bernstein; Harold Morton and Milton Hanauer.

Kashdan started with wins over Simonson, Bernstein, Horowitz and Denker. As White vs. Simonson: 1 e4 e5; 2 Nf3 Nc6; 3 Bb5 a6; 4 Ba4 Nf6; 5 0-0 Be7; 6 Qe2 b5; 7 Bb3 0-0; 8 c3 d5; 9 exd5 Nxd5; 10 Nxe5 Nf4?; 11 Qe4 Nxe5; 12 d4! (And not 12 QxR?. I believe this is old analysis and 12 d4 was played by Carl Schlechter.) Instead of losing a Pawn without compensation Simonson tried the desperate 12 … Nh3ch; 13 gxh3 Ng6; 14 QxR and White won in twenty-three moves.

Hanauer had lost four games and had Black against Kashdan in round five. They began with the same moves but then Kashdan played 9 d3? WHY? Probably because he had found something good for Black after 9 exd5 Bg4; 10 dxc6 e4. This is better but White should still win. Kashdan must have mis-analyzed the position. After 9 … Bg4 Kashdan foolishly played to win material. 10 h3 Bh5; 11 g4? Bg6; 12 g5? dxe4; 13 gxf6 exd3; 14 Qe3 bxf6 and was properly crushed. 15 Nbd2 Qd7; 16 Kg2 Rad8; 17 Ne4 Be7; 18 Bd2 Kh8; 19 Rae1 f5; 20 Nc5 Qd6; 21 Ne6 f4; 22 Nxf4 exf4; 23 Qe6 QxQ; 24 RxQ Bd6. Not known why Kashdan played on in an utterly hopeless position, two Pawns and then three Pawns behind, until move sixty. Hanauer won and finished in 14th place, with 4-1/2 – 10-1/2. Kashdan lost to Reshevsky, Fine and Treysman and finished fifth with 10 – 5.

After losing to Bernstein in round three and Horowitz in round four, Reshevsky had only 1-1/2 points. Chess Review said the New York Times published the round four game and said: “The game that cost Reshevsky the U.S. Championship.” Reshevsky then had nine wins and two draws to win the tournament with 11-1/2 – 3-1/2. Simonson, only 21 years old, was second with 11 – 4, but never again played so well. According to Denker he was wealthy and really not much interested in chess. Fine and Treysman tied for third with 10-1/2 – 4-1/2. Treysman was a coffee-house player who, at age fifty-five “went thirty-two games without a defeat – a skein that began with the Rice-Progressive Chess Club Championship, continued through the qualifying tournament, and ended in round 10 of the final” (Denker). Except it wasn’t round ten, but round five, where he lost to Simonson, who played the Budapest Gambit: 1 d4 Nf6; 2 c4 e5; 3 dxe5 Ng4; 4 e4 h5. Treysman was a superb endgame player, which is very important. After one knows all the tricks it still requires technique to win a won game.

Which leads to, in my opinion, the best chess book published in 2000: New York 1936: The First Modern United States Chess Championship by John Hilbert and Peter Lahde. [Chess Archaeology Press.] Plastic cover. 202 pages. Algebraic notation. Excellent printing and binding. Good diagrams. Bold type for game moves and light type for analysis. In addition to the running commentary the tournament games are accompanied by contemporary notes and analysis – which means that they are not always correct.

That is all the authors can do, and much more than I could have done. You either hire a grandmaster to annotate the games properly or you do the best with what you have. Amateurs, and that includes me, don’t have the ability to annotate master games. They found 116 of the 120 tournament games and have added thirty-one games form the qualifying tournaments.

BUT they begin with sixty pages containing forty-four games by U.S. players in other tournaments along with a condensed “history” of U.S. chess.

While I don’t believe it is all historically accurate, it is interesting.

Unfortunately they waste FIFTEEN PAGES telling the utterly boring details of WHY a match between Marshall and Kashdan was NOT held.

They make the egregious error: “Willhelm Steinitz in 1891 …” WILLIAM Steinitz was a naturalized citizen of the U.S.A. by then and did NOT use “Wilhelm”.

MANY of their comments are worthless: “The one and only draw of the first round”; “Time never lets its victim escape in the end.” (“… in the end” adds insult to injury); “Winning the Marshall Chess Club Championship for the third time, no less.” (I don’t understand why horrible writers say “no less”.); “A treat for kibitzers.“; “No doubt Adams found the conclusion somewhat less amusing.” (A typical “smart-ass” comment. They can’t possibly know what Adams thought.)

“The American triumph at Warsaw reinforced the view in this country, rightly or wrongly, that the United States was the strongest chess playing nation. This belief would persist for another decade, until shortly after World War II, when the illusion was to be unequivocally shattered by the Soviet Union.” That U.S.S.R. was not a “nation”, it was a federation of MANY countries. I think there were thirty by then. How does losing to a federation of thirty nations in 1945 have any relevance to how strong the U.S.A. was in 1935? The U.S.A. won the FIDE Team Tournament in 1931, 1933, 1935, 1937 and every chess player in the world knew that the U.S.A. WAS “the strongest chess playing nation”. How foolish to write “rightly or wrongly”.

“As is well-known, in 1895 Pillsbury won the great tournament at Hastings.” NOT everyone knows that. Every year there are millions of new players who know nothing of chess history.

“… without any competition for bragging rights to the nation’s highest chess honor.” Very crude and senseless and insulting to the players who have been U.S. Chess Champions to use such derogatory slang.

“full point” instead of “point”.

After stating that the U.S. Championships were decided by matches until 1936, and tournaments most of the time after, they add the pretentious comment: “Whether one believes the latter system superior to the former is another issue.” It is NOT an “issue” at all, and only horrible writers abuse “former” and “latter” in such a grotesque manner.

“1 e4 e5; Nf3 Nc6; 3 d4 PxP; 4 NxP. The Scotch Gambit“. White has NOT played a “gambit”, that is the Scotch Game.

“1 d4 d5; 2 c4 e6; 3 Nc3 Nf6; 4 Nf3 c5. The Tarrasch Defense“. WRONG. Only 1 d4 d5; 2 c4 e6; 3 Nc3 c5! is the Tarrasch Defense.

Very poor format for cross-tables. The print is tiny and the space between the lines is greater than the size of the type.

Only last names are given in the cross-tables. OBVIOUSLY they should have given first names.

Highly recommended, even if one must suffer through horrid writing and inexact “history”.

It is very important to buy this book in order to support persons who spend an enormous amount of time creating books that are worth reading. Another great book is 1940 U.S. Chess Championship by Hilbert and Lahde.

This article copyright © 2006 James Schroeder, Vancouver, WA.