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Chessville
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Chess Fundamentals Reviewed by Rick Kennedy
Some chess books never seem to go out of fashion. If they’re written by the best of the best and contain a high level of wisdom or excitement, they continue to hold players’ interest across the decades. Witness the outrageous prices that people on e-Bay still ask for – and get – for Bobby Fischer’s My 60 Memorable Games. Or consider the continuing popularity of Capablanca’s Chess Fundamentals, published almost 85 years ago and still going strong. As the text on the back of the David McKay printing of the book pointed out:
Not too long ago, the book was brought up-to-date for the computer generation by Tim Sawyer, who translated it to ChessBase format for Chess Central. The Index tells the story:
Capablanca in e-book format is impressive. Reading Chess Fundamentals it is as easy as using the database program, ChessBase or chess-playing programs like Fritz. You have Capa’s words in front of you, you have his examples and games – but, in addition, as you’re playing through the moves you always have a diagram in front of you. If you doubt or question any line that the grandmaster suggests, you can always fire up your analysis engine and double-check. As with their other titles (see Chess Lessons for Beginners, Chess Openings for Beginners, and the Discart – Bonetti Chess Match, 1863) you download Chess Fundamentals from the ChessCentral website, bypassing a wait for the USPS mail carrier. Go to Chess Central, look under the "Chess by Format" title, click on "Chess E-Books," search for Chess Fundamentals, and then follow the directions. It arrives in your computer as an executable file that, when clicked on, produces a ChessBase file in .cbv format. Some chess players may prefer to stick with paper-and-ink books – it’s still hard to tuck a lap-top into your coat pocket or purse, and there are some rooms in the house you that shouldn’t set your computer up in. Even so, developing players and beginning club players would benefit from a paperback or used copy of Capablanca’s gem. Those who are familiar with computer chess software, however, should think seriously about jumping to the e-book format. Please note: if you are really, really interested in
Capablanca, and have a little bit more money on hand, you might want to read
what the Chess Central site has to say about their CD The Chess Machine:
Jose Raul Capablanca by Tim Sawyer and Sid Pickard. For $29.95 it
contains 3 e-books (The Capablanca-Lasker Match, 1921; My Chess
Career; and Chess Fundamentals); 1,214 games played by Capablanca
(80 annotated by him); and lots of biography and recollections about
Capablanca. If you have a truckload of resources ($98.95), and you
like the golden oldies, you might look into The Classic Chess Sampler I
CD by Pickard & Son, Publishers, which includes Bird’s Chess Masterpieces;
Blake’s Chess Endings for Beginners; Capablanca’s Chess
Fundamentals, M y Chess Career and The Capablanca-Lasker
Match, 1921; Graham’s Mr. Blackburne's Games at Chess;
Lasker’s Common Sense in Chess and St. Petersburg 1909; Reti’s
Modern Ideas in Chess, and Sergeant’s Morphy's Games of Chess
(as well as H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds and Suz Tzu’s Art of
War).
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