Saturday, March 24, 2012

Bad book covers XXV


Horse Laffs: the humor of chess, Tykodi and Gufeld, Thinkers' Press, 2005


[Bad book covers index]

3 comments:

abdooss said...

Does it include the story of GM Gufeld pouring extra Knights onto a chess board being played by a WGM?

The cover - the Black Bishop is at the right place too - at GM Gufeld's name!

Niall said...

Don't know that one, Abdooss. Care to share?

abdooss said...

It's a long story, should require a diagram of a chess board, but I'll try to make it short;

"Gufeld was a coach for a young talented female chessplayer. In a chess game, she was White with 2 rooks + 2 knights versus 2 rooks + 2 bishops. Later she had an opportunity to fork the opponent's king and rook with her knight, thinking it was supported by a White pawn. Once she put it there on d6, her opponent took it with another rook. But White pawn could not take it, because it was actually pinned to White king by the first Black rook. Later, the second Black rook retreated. After thinking for a long time, White picked up the second Knight, heading towards d6 again.

All this while, Gufeld was watching at the sideline. He couldn't contain himself anymore and went to the other vacant tables. He collected the knights there, and poured all the knights onto the chess board being played.

Later he was asked, who was she? He just smiled and said ,"She is now a strong Woman Grandmaster!" "

Try to look for Gufeld's book "Searching for Mona Lisa" ! I can't find mine anymore. The above is from memory.