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bxc4) 30. dxc4 Bc7 31. Qa4 Bb6 32. Rb1 Kh7 33. b5 “with advantage to White.” (19) This ignores at least three improve- ments for Black, including 30. ... d5! which overturns the evaluation of the line. The computer, for what it’s worth, suggests that White has only a slight advantage after the game continuation.


Or take the very first moves from the next example in Chess Training for post-beginners:


book, and nearly (if my German can be trusted) verbatim. Some of the analysis has been updated, but some has not. I have no problem with a trainer using his trusted material in writing a book, but care should be taken with older analysis in the age of the silicon beasts. Some editorial care, too, should have been applied. I noted three typos just in the first chapter.


It might seem that I am down on Srokovski’s book, and in truth I think it needlessly sloppy. That’s not to say that it’s simply a bad book. Most of the examples shed light on the positional themes in question, and the exercises after each chapter are useful. But the analytical flaws, combined with the editorial lapses, under- cut the pedagogical value of the work.


Here, in Areschenko-Johannessen from the Bundesliga in 2006/7, White played 17. a4—a move awarded an exclamation point by Srokovski. Because White has a space advantage and because Black has a bad bishop on a7, White should try to limit Black’s pawn breaks. 17. a4 prevents Black from playing … b7-b5 and … c5- c4, giving White (on Srokovski’s account) a “stable advantage.” (20)


Johannessen played 17. ... f5, and after 18. Bc2 he could have played 18. ... c4!, lib- erating the dark-squared bishop. After 18. ... c4, Srokovski analyzes 19. Qd2 Bxe3 20. fxe3 Nh5 21. exf5 Ng3+ 22. Kg1 Nxf5 and “Black is no worse.” (20) How is it that White’s “stable advantage” can evap- orate over the course of two moves? Perhaps White was no better in the first place, and perhaps 17. a4 was not an exclam-move after all.


Such analytical oversights or omissions are far too common in Chess Training for post-beginners. I began to wonder, in fact, whether Srokovski had checked analysis with a modern engine. One of the lessons taught by the computer is that concrete play trumps all. Positional weaknesses are only weak if they can be exploited, and anti-positional moves, repugnant to our human sensibilities, are often dynam- ically sufficient to warrant consideration.


There is some evidence to suggest that Srokovski might not have done his due diligence. The website is no longer active, but I discovered via the ‘Wayback Machine’ —a service from archive.org that saves websites for posterity—that a slew of the examples in Chess Training for post-begin- ners were originally given as web lessons in the early 2000s.2


Some of these examples reappear in the


I have no such worries about John Nunn’s Chess Course. Nunn is an author who is well-versed in the world of chess engines, and his works are among the most analyt- ically precise in print. The book is fantastic, but fantastic for whom remains a real ques- tion. Let me try to explain what I mean.


The full title of Nunn’s book reads John Nunn’s Chess Course: A complete chess education based on the games of World Champion Lasker. This is a fair represen- tation of the book’s content. Nunn aims to “cover the most important chess themes, but although the book deals with many purely technical issues, there is a strong emphasis on thought-processes and deci- sion-making.” (6) The games of Emanuel Lasker, the second world champion, are the lens through which this proceeds.


There has been a resurgence of interest in Lasker’s games in recent years, with authors like Dvoretsky and Soltis sub- jecting his games to deep analysis, and with a particular focus on their psycho- logical features. Such interest is in no small part due to the play of Magnus Carlsen, our current (at the time of writ- ing!) world champion. Carlsen, like Lasker, seems to conjure wins from drawn posi- tions and salvage draws from lost ones, and like Lasker, he has an uncanny ability to play the moves his opponent will find most unpleasant.


It thus seems eminently reasonable that Nunn would turn to Lasker’s games in a book devoted to explaining “thought- processes and decision-making.” But there are some tradeoffs involved in this deci- sion, not the least of which is the fact that there exist less than 1,200 of Lasker’s games, only half of which were played in matches or tournaments. Nunn has given himself a very small garden from which to harvest instructive examples, and I think it shows in the text.


The isolated queen’s pawn, or IQP, is as difficult a positional scheme to master as it is important. Nunn devotes 11 pages of


his book to this theme, analyzing four games (Burn-Lasker, Hastings, 1895; Lasker-Janowski, Hastings 1895; Lasker- Maroczy, Paris, 1900; and Janowski- Lasker, St. Petersburg prelim, 1914) in the process. While each game involves the IQP, perhaps one (Lasker-Maroczy) can be said to be a typical IQP position. The self- imposed restriction of games forces Nunn, in my opinion, to sometimes work with imperfect exemplars.


Nunn, like many contemporary chess authors, can sometimes throw too much analysis at his readers. This book is no exception. Some analysis is necessary, but too much—especially in a book that is osten- sibly instructive in nature—can present a real barrier to the reader. In the Lasker- Maroczy game, for example, Nunn includes a note to move 15 (100) that runs for 54 lines of text. Some of the note is prose, but the majority is simply raw analysis, lines and lines of moves with few landmarks beyond terminal evaluations. This is not an isolated case—see move 28 of Chekhover- Lasker (146), move 19 of Tartakower-Lasker (262), and the whole of Lasker-Lasker (203- 207), where Nunn’s analysis of a 33 move endgame runs for five pages.


Let me be clear. I believe, especially in the age of the computer, that good chess writ- ing must be concrete and analytically driven. But sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. While he does try to leaven his book with explanatory prose, Nunn’s analytic verbosity only serves to intimidate the improving player. And by restricting himself to just Lasker’s games, Nunn is severely hamstrung in his choice of appropriate examples.


As an instructional work, I think John Nunn’s Chess Course overshoots its mark. As a collection of Lasker’s games, however, I think it truly outstanding. Lasker’s games are fun and instructive, and Nunn is a sure guide. Players rated over 2000 will get the most out of the book, while Lasker fans and readers unfazed by reams of analysis will also enjoy it.


1 This according to Arthur Bisguier in his lovely The Art of Bisguier: Selected Games 1961-2003. (Milford: Rus- sell Enterprises, 2008.) The quote is given on p.196.


2 http://web.archive.org/web/20040407144206/ http://chessgate.de/training/training_srokowski/ training_srokowski.html


Other training manuals available at uscfsales.com:


The Game Of Chess: Lessons in Classical Chess From the Greatest Teacher of All Time by Dr. Siegbert Tarrasch (catalog number B0006HY, $19.95)


Move First, Think Later - 3rd EDITION: Sense and Nonsense in Improving Your Chess by IM Willy Hendriks (catalog number B0111NIC, $23.95)


www.uschess.org 15


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