Some of you may know that I've done a bit of workeditingandtypesetting
for Hardinge
Simpole, and my first project for them was pulling together
everything I could find about the tournament in London
I've just come across two splendid swipes at Irving
Chernev.
Here is John Nunn, in the introduction to his Grandmaster Chess, Move by Move. He
quotes a very illuminating annotation by Alekhin, and then goes on to
say:
"Lesser annotators are often fond of propounding grand
general
principles, but these are often totally misleading. A typical
example occurs in Logical Chess,
Move by Move (Simon and Schuster, 1957) by Irving Chernev (I
have converted the descriptive notation to algebraic). His Game 3
...
This is a most enjoyable little book. Miniatures are the most
tempting of chess fare, tasty without being too rich, and
MacDonald's collection includes a splendid variety. I imagine, in
this database age, it's quite easy to collect and scan through
umpteen miniatures, the added value coming only in the selection
and commentary. Here MacDonald shines: he is keen to enthuse about
"It is not always the games with the best chess that leave
behind the strongest memories (...) This selection of 80 games
gives a picture of the fighting chess I have always
championed."
This is simply a collection of annotated games, some of
Among the cream of chess literature have always been game
collections: those of Alekhin, Fischer and our own John Nunn are
among my (and surely others') favourites. There can be few more
pleasurable experiences than reading well-annotated GM games. Mark
Book review: Winning with the
Nimzo-Indian by Raymond Keene. Batsford. 1991, 79+xv.
I think I've bought my last book by Keene. The title that
has prompted this decision is the subject of this review. It
exemplified perfectly Phil Crocker's criticism of chess publishing
in Kingpin No.22, to which Batsford, for some
reason, felt the need to respond in No.23. As I remember, Phil's
main gripes were: