| The last thirty years England has been the center of chessbook publishing and that trend continues today with Gambit, Batsford and Everyman all producing high quality books. Batsford Chess Ltd. (www.batsford.com) has two new books out by Eduard Gufeld. The Search for Mona Lisa (2001, 256 pages, paperback, figurine algebraic, $16.99 English Pounds) and Exploiting Small Advantages (2001, 144 pages, paperback, figurine algebraic, 15.99 English Pounds) draw heavily on previous work by the noted chess troubadour. The Search for Mona Lisa is an expanded version of My Life in Chess, a collection of Gufeld�s best games that was published by International Chess Enterprises in 1994. This book offers more recent material, but is also lacking some of the games that appear in the earlier work. A version of Exploiting Small Advantages was originally published in Russian about twenty years ago. At least one position can be found in both books. Check out the game Honfi-Gufeld, Kislovodsk 1968, (pages 126-27 in ESA and pages 215-17 in Mona Lisa) for an instructive look at realizing a small advantage that shows how chess culture has suffered from the elimination of adjournments. Interestingly the notes are different; reflecting recent insights by the Los Angeles based Grandmaster. Both books could benefit from more careful proofreading, but there can be little doubt that there is much useful material to be gleaned. If you don�t have earlier editions of these books you will want to add them to your library. The Latvian Gambit Lives! (2001, 224 pages, paperback, figurine algebraic, 15.99 English Pounds) by Tony Kosten is a greatly expanded version of his earlier work on the subject (The Latvian Gambit 1995). Before Kosten�s pioneering effort the Latvian was confined to that special group of openings that attract die-hard support at the amateur level, but finds no following among top players. The Latvian Gambit generated a great deal of controversy with fellow English GM John Nunn singling it out in his Secrets of Practical Chess (and later in Nunn�s Chess Openings) as an example of a good book on a bad opening. Nunn�s position was that 2�f5 is simply a bad move that weakens Black�s king position and does nothing for his development. This is still the view held by 99.9 percent of the grandmasters in the world. Having said this it is still quite impressive to see the amount of work that Kosten has put into The Latvian Gambit Lives! The first starting point must to examine his response to the refutation that Nunn has offered. He concurs that after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f5 3.Nxe5 Nc6 Black truly has no adequate route to a playable position after 4.d4. Much more important is GM Kosten�s assessment of the position after 3�Qf6 4.Nc4 fxe4 5.Nc3 Qf7 6.Ne3 c6 7.Nxe4 d5 8.Ng5 Qf6 9.Nf3 Bd6 10. d4 Ne7 11.c4 0-0 12.Qb3 Be6 13.c5 Bf4 14.Qxb7 Nd7 15.Qb3 (!. Nunn and NCO) 15�g5 16.h3 h5 17.Qc2 Rf7! (German theoretician Stefan Bucker�s significant improvement to bolster the Latvian) 18.Bd2 g4 19.hxg4 hxg4 20.Ng1 Be5!! (Bucker) which he deems quite playable for Black. Kosten is an author with integrity and to his credit he points out that White has a better and more practical choice in 7.d3! This move, which is attributed to Budovskis, makes a lot sense. Instead of playing for material gain White concentrates on rapid development. Black is hurting after 7�exd3 8.Bxd3 d5 9.0-0 with the natural moves 9�Bc5 and 9�Bd6 both failing to give Black equality. Kosten suggests some other tries for Black (9�Be6 and 8�Bb4) as deserving of investigation, but definitely the onus is on Black to come up with something concrete. Tony Kosten is English and has lived in France for many years, but I think the Latvian government should give him honorary citizenship in recognition of his valiant efforts to resurrect this opening. If you play the Latvian this book is required reading. Georgian GM Lasha Janjgava has just produced his second book for Gambit Publications Ltd. ([email protected]). His work The Petroff , (2001, 240 pages, paperback, figurine algebraic, $21.95) is a very detailed look at this rock-solid opening which adds to earlier books by Cafferty, Forintos & Haag and Yusupov. The Petroff not only covers all developments after 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Nxe5 and 3.d4, plus also looks at less common lines like 3.Bc4, 3.Nc3 and 3.d3. This book is well organized and offers ample prose to explain the key ideas for both sides. If you play the Petroff or are looking for a solid, straightforward answer to 1.e4, this is a must purchase. Croatian Grandmaster Drazen Marovic, long-time editor of the late Sahovski Glasnik, is known as a noted pedagogue. Marovic�s earlier work for Gambit, Understanding Pawn Play in Chess, dealt with static pawn formations while his new book, Dynamic Pawn Play in Chess (2001, 256 pages, paperback, figurine algebraic, $21.95) principally deals with more fluid positions. The book starts with a short historical survey covering the development of chess strategy the past 150 years and then moves on to The Open Center, The Closed Center, Pawn- Majorities and Minority Attacks plus the Dynamic Center. The book is a middle game guide to the Sicilian there are so many examples with this opening. Interspersed with the well-annotated games are interesting anecdotes by Marovic who has been a well-known figure on the world chess scene for close to forty years. Recommended. Gambit has recently issued a new World Champion Edition of Vishy Anand: My Best Games of Chess (2001, 336 pages, paperback, figurine notation, $24.95) taking his carrer all the way up to game four of his World Championship match with Alexey Shirov in Teheran at the end of 2000. The reader gets 57 extremely well-annotated games, with an emphasis on concrete variations over more general prose observations. Anand is primarily a 1.e4 player so there are lots of games featuring the Sicilian and Ruy Lopez. Following the game section the reader is offered the opportunity to try to solve 30 combinations from Anand�s play. The reader will not find any crosstables or summary of all the events that Anand has played in. Instead results in major tournaments are incorporated into the biographical narrative that is placed in between games throughout the book. There are also no pictures except for the cover. Considering the considerable bulk of the book this is understandable, though regrettable. Vishy Anand: My Best Games of Chess will not be placed in the pantheon of all time great game collections occupied by Fischer�s Sixty Memorable Games, Kasparov�s Test of Time and Alekhine�s works, but the collaboration between Anand and John Nunn has produced a very solid and professional work. |