Looks at Books / Stinking Bishops
Chess and Cheese
A self-published book on an arcane topic—but worth a look. By JOHN HARTMANN
Grishams of the publishing world. Still, most authors expect to make at least a little money on their books. Chess publishing remains a for-profit enterprise, subject to the laws of supply and demand. Cash, as the Wu-Tang Clan said, rules everything around me, and this is why there are always new opening and improvement books being published. They might sell! Imagine my delight, then, when I read
N
John Roycroft’s Stinking Bishops, an emi- nently uncommercial work if ever there was one! Stinking Bishops—named after a fetid English cheese that, when cut, resembles a bishop’s mitre—is an 84-page self-published book devoted to just two endgame positions. Both are presented here, and White is to move in both cases.
o one writes chess books to get rich. Sales figures for even the most famous of chess writers pale in comparison to the Franzens and
What’s so interesting about these two positions that they merit such attention? Each one represents the maximum length win for rook, bishop and pawn versus rook and bishop according to seven-man table- bases (exhaustive databases of endgame positions). It’s White to move and win in
It is easy to dismiss the importance of
the ‘oracle’—Roycroft’s honorific for the tablebase—from a practical perspective. What good is winning in 159 (or 184) moves when over-the-board endgames can be drawn in 50? (USCF Rule 14F, ‘The Fifty- Move Rule’) What’s the point of studying such endgames when no human can pos- sibly remember the exact sequence of moves needed to win? Roycroft pulls off a very neat trick in
Stinking Bishops. He takes the arcane moves given by the tablebase and goes some distance in discerning the hidden logic beneath them. Each position is first presented with a raw list of moves that lead to the forced win, and then Roycroft investigates dozens of the key moves and positions. His notes are witty and wordy, often addressed to an imagined interlocu- tor, and they effectively assist the reader in grasping the necessity of certain moves as White marches to victory. In his forward to the book, Chess Life’s
‘UNLIKE BISHOPS’
Roycroft, John. Stinking Bishops, 2014. ISBN: 978-1-869874-20-9. AN. 83 pages. (Available from
uscfsales.com, catalog number B0087OB, $19.95)
184 moves in the ‘like bishops’ diagram, and a ‘mere’ 159 moves to victory in the ‘unlike bishops’ position. I know what you’re thinking: “watching
‘LIKE BISHOPS’ * 14 July 2015 | Chess Life
paint dry would be more fun than reading this book.” Were this book written by just anyone, you might be right. But John Roy- croft is not just anyone, and this is not just any book. Roycroft is the former editor of EG, the world’s definitive endgame and study magazine, and an international judge of chess compositions. He is also familiar with the world of computing, having worked for IBM for many years.
own Daniel Naroditsky congratulates Roy- croft for his ability to explain the esoteric moves of the computer in very human ways, saying that he “was unable to put the book down” until he’d finished it! Not all of us are endgame columnists, of course, but Stinking Bishops really is a delightful romp through two (sometimes mind-numb- ingly complex) endings. I can’t imagine that this book will sell
well, given its topic and that there is no publisher to promote it. Still, I don’t think Roycroft will mind. This was a book written for love of the game, and it will—perhaps with the help of this review—find its way into the hands of those who will appreciate its many, many charms.
* Notice anything strange about the second diagram? The double check appears to be impossible, right? Not if (Black was to move) there was a black pawn on e2 that captured a white piece on d1 and promoted to a rook! Odd indeed—but not impossible. ~JH
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76