Sunday, March 25, 2012

Upcoming book by Alexander Shashin


In the past, we offered links dealing with Shashin’s work:
Now it is official that Mongoose press will publish Shashin’s book in 2012 in English language. The preliminary title of the book "Best Play: A new method to find the the Strongest Move".
This is a Russian link, containing a brief preview of a chapter (in russian language):
And this is the English Google Translation:
To conclude, following this link you can learn Shashin's theories in a condensed but clear way and the Vitruvius chess engine's handling of the opening.
I am really curious to read more on Shashin's work.
My appreciation goes to IM Welling for the inspiration offered.
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Jan. 26th 2013 update:
At  http://mongoosepress.com/ 
I just saw that the publication of the book has been postponed to April 2013 :-((

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Old...but not forgotten: "Simple chess" by GM Michael Stean


Originally published in 1978, this is a magnificent basic middle game treatise! Almost everyhing a player rated between 1400 - 1700 needs to know about strategic chess: Outposts, weak pawns, open files, half open file & the minority attack, Black squares & white squares. All these subjects packed in 176 pages! But beware, this new algebraic edition has a weak point: a few typos. Here's a list of them as highlighted by a Amazon's reviewer. See all Amazon's reviews here
Highly instructive and therefore recommended to the improving player.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Old but..not forgotten "My best games of chess" by S. G. Tartakower

 About 450 pages!!
 Wikipedia's Link: Savielly Tartakower
See Amazon's Readers Reviews
While reading this book, I was with Tartakower in the early 20th century smoky tournament halls. I also admired his great variety of openings: from 1.b4 to 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Be2!? & 1.e4 c5 2.b4  and many others.
I love this excellent book. Period.