Chessmaster Books

This book is not intended to teach any specific aspect of the game (opening, middle-game or ending), but to show how the plans and ideas develop during tournament play. The book is designed for intermediate and beginners that are new to tournament play, but already have a good knowledge of the fundamental concepts of chess play

This book presents 15 Grandmaster's games commented and described play by play, elaborating on the logic development of thinking needed to discover a good move. Is like having the grandmaster thinking aloud as they evaluate every position and play along the game.

An interesting and stimulating read for any serious player and anyone interested to enter tournament play and trying to improve his analytical skills for tournament play.

John Hilbert is a well-known writer of chess biographies. He is a meticulous researcher who will leave no stone untunrned finding the most about his subject. In this book, Hilbert--as usual--tells us everything that we could possibly wish to know anout William Ewart Napier--in his words, "son, brother, choir boy, chess phoenomenon, editor, columnist, international chess competitor, British champion, insurance company exeutive, husband, and father".

Hilbert tells us all there is to know about Napier in each of these roles. As far as the chess is concenred, he unearthed 321 Napier games (for comparison, Chessbase's enormous "magabase" database has 170), and provides us with a very detailed account of all of Napier's tournaments and chess career. Not all of those "Extra" 151 games are of sterling quality--they include many offhand games, for instance--but they are all interesting.

But Hilbert also tells us much about the connection between Napier and other chess figures--in particular, the millionaire Rice (the inventor of the Rice gambit) and Pillsbury; he also tells us much about Napier's childhood and, in a final chapter, about "the final 50 years"--why Napier quite chess early and what he had done afterwards. He is interested in the man, not just the chessplayer--and it shows.

Anyone interested at all in Napier--or anyone who wants to see how a chess biography should be written--will not regret getting this book. Forget the latest "winning with" or "how to play" opening manual and immerse yourself in the life--and games--of a brilliant, if relatively obscure, player.

The author has exposed for us an unusual man. Arguably one of the most intelligent men ever to occupy a cell at Alcatraz, Whitaker seems to be almost the archtype of the evil genius.

A man who came from a comfortable background, a lawyer and one of the best chess players in the United States, Whitaker seemed unable to avoid becoming involved in crimes ranging from the extremely petty and sleazy to the truly dangerous -- Norman Tweed Whitaker was actually a minor player in the Lindbergh kidnapping.

Hilbert writes amusingly about a man of almost unbelievable character, the sort of person who treads the pages of a Jim Thompson or Burnett crime noir novel; but Whitaker was real.

I hope you non-chess players give this book a shot.

I can't remember now how I found this staggeringly beautiful chess book detailing the 1948 world championship tournament involving Botvinnik, Keres, Smyslov, Reshevsky, and Euwe. The only bad thing about this book is the title, which led, no doubt, to its being virtually unknown today. It is one on my favorite chess books. The annotations are approximately half by Horowitz and half by Hans Kmoch, author of the famous "Pawn Power in Chess." I am a huge Kmoch fan, and am so pleased to have this book. His annotations in print are few and far between, and the ones here sound more like the author of "Pawn Power," than do those in another work of his, "Rubinstein's Chess Masterpieces." The present book contains all 50 games between the five superstars mentioned, deeply annotated (nearly all the games are d4-openings, plus several Frenches and Lopezes, with only one Sicilian). There are many great photos of the tournament, including one of Smyslov calmly strolling around on the stage while two games are in progress, biographies of each player, caricature drawings of each player with humorous captions (one drawing has Smyslov as a snail). And to top it all off, there is a 41-page treatise by Kmoch detailing the history of the opening in chess from Anderssen to Botvinnik. This part alone is worth the price of the book to me. Trust me, this book is a treasure, that is worth hunting down and buying. I surely will never part with my copy.