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Chessville
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How to Calculate Chess Tactics Reviewed by Rick Kennedy
Chips and dip make a wonderful, almost irresistible snack – I am reminded of the old Lays potato chips challenge “Bet you can’t eat just one!” Still, there are times when we must attend to something a bit more substantial, i.e. pawnpushers do not live by junk food alone…* Luckily “Chef” Valeri Beim – otherwise known as Grandmaster, professional trainer and author of four previously well-received books (Understanding the Leningrad Dutch (2002), Chess Recipes from the Grandmaster's Kitchen (2002), Lessons in Chess Strategy (2003), and How to Play Dynamic Chess (2004)) – has emerged from his Grandmaster Kitchen with a hearty platter of red meat (or a savory lentil stew, for our vegetarian readers) for the aspiring chess player with a lean and hungry look. The intention is to look at how Grandmasters think, how Grandmasters think they think (i.e. Kotov’s Think Like a Grandmaster), and what this Grandmaster thinks about how they think they think. (Uh, that didn’t come out so good; maybe I’ll go back to the food metaphors…) In How to Calculate Chess Tactics, Beim combines games and game positions, tosses in some problems and studies, and stirs them up with well-seasoned insights and substantial advice. He tops it all off with a hundred chewy Exercises. The Menu is enticing (read it closely):
Part 1: Tactics in Chess That Beim takes his task seriously is shown by, among other things, his entry, early in the book, into the “what is a combination?” cook-off – it seems everybody has to take Botvinnik’s recipe and tweak it a bit (like chili). He goes on to examine, refine, and ultimately reject Kotov’s model for chess thinking, burning the “tree of variations” like so much mesquite. What he leaves in its place is quite filling. Beim has plenty of advice on when to follow a recipe slavishly – the use of logic in choosing a move – and when to switch to a dollop of this and a pinch of that, instead – the use of intuition. How to Calculate Chess Tactics is a very substantial entry into the “how to think in chess” field. If you have not read my review of Beim’s earlier How to Play Dynamic Chess, please take a minute to do so, as my appreciation of the Grandmaster’s serious commitment to improving his student’s / reader’s chess remains unabated – if anything, it is enhanced by the current text. The production values are, as ever, true Gambit, providing the essential proper ingredients – good use of text, diagrams & space, as well as fonts, bolding and italics. As I wrote (and you can fairly well substitute “How to Calculate Chess Tactics” for “How to Play Dynamic Chess” in the following, without losing the flavor of the selection ):
For all who are willing to do the work necessary
to properly savor Valeri Beim’s latest creation, I can only add: Bon
Appetit! *However, if you still prefer the yummy over the good-for-you, then Peter Reuter (savethewhalenow@yahoo.com) has an announcement sure to set your mouth watering: years 3 through 6 of Rainer Schlenker’s mind-bending German language magazine Randspringer – trailblazer of unusual opening ideas, a contemporary of the legendary Myers’ Openings Bulletin, predecessor to the Unorthodox Openings Newsletter – are available in book form. But wait – there’s more! Peter’s complete message can be found here, but here is a synopsis: Handbuch der Unregelmaessigen Schacheroeffnungen, Bd. 3 bis 6 [Manual of Unorthodox Chess Openings, vol. 3 to 6]. Reprinted Randspringer volumes 1984 to 1987, 4 paperbacks, 700 densely packed pages with off beat theory and unorthodox openings of the eighties! If you order these titles, Peter will throw in:
(1)
Randspringer #78.
Trossinger Partie 1 e4 & 2 Lc4 auf alles [1 e4 & Bc4 versus (almost)
everything, e.g. 1 e4 c6, 2 Bc4!? d5, 3 Bb3 de4:, 4 Qh5! g6, 5 Qh4] (August
2006, 42 pages). Also, those who order will be sent along a free copy of the 1997 book: Franco-Polnisch 1 e4 e6, 2 d4 b5 u.a. [and others] (paperback, 96 pages). With plenty of games and analysis, Randspringer can certainly be enjoyed by those (like myself) whose first language is not German. These 1050+ pages are not lost to the ages – I bought mine, postpaid, for $50 (PayPal).
I was also able to track down the book version of the first year of
Randspringer, but discovered that for some reason there was no bound
version of year two. Peter was industrious enough to offer me
photocopies – an offer I could hardly refuse!
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