tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37675897.post7902251824386094662..comments2023-12-28T02:11:22.501+00:00Comments on The Streatham & Brixton Chess Blog: Opening surpriseTom Chivershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09850710685193416732noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37675897.post-34766996051444545792007-01-19T21:29:00.000+00:002007-01-19T21:29:00.000+00:00The review copy of Deep Fritz for the blog never a...The review copy of Deep Fritz for the blog never arrived from Chessbase, however!Tom Chivershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09850710685193416732noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37675897.post-31832848552587827572007-01-19T21:26:00.000+00:002007-01-19T21:26:00.000+00:00Tom,
you might not be able to learn anything from...Tom,<br /><br />you might not be able to learn anything from chess books but you've clearly mastered the art of blagging from somewhere.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37675897.post-69939024313791218562007-01-19T12:28:00.000+00:002007-01-19T12:28:00.000+00:00I was playing in a rest of world match against 17t...I was playing in a rest of world match against 17th CC World Champ Ivar Bern. It went into a QID, and I emailed Gambit the details, and said if they sent the book it might help us, whilst also being pulicity for them.<br /><br />& indeed I quoted some analysis and evaluation from the book - & that put us off a speculative line we had intended . . . which unfortunately meant we transposed into the Bogo. So the books presence in the game was surprisingly short-lived but still useful.Tom Chivershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09850710685193416732noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37675897.post-90537346243750710212007-01-19T08:28:00.000+00:002007-01-19T08:28:00.000+00:00Btw, Gambit sent me Peter Wells's book on the QID ...<i>Btw, Gambit sent me Peter Wells's book on the QID for free a while back!</i><br /><br />Why?ejhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01582272075999298935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37675897.post-20305292123936546362007-01-19T00:04:00.000+00:002007-01-19T00:04:00.000+00:00Btw, Gambit sent me Peter Wells's book on the QID ...Btw, Gambit sent me Peter Wells's book on the QID for free a while back!<br /><br />He's not a brilliant prose stylist but makes his points pretty well I thought. I don't think it was very useful that the games were annotated to the end - because often all trace of the QID has gone by the end of the middlegame, so there was a lot of wasted space in this respect. On the other hand, the annotations remained interesting.<br /><br />Unfortunately I personally find it very hard to learn much from chess books - they nearly all leave me cold, or at the most with a superficial sense of what they're getting at. Not sure why this is, think it's something to do with the way I (don't learn.) So its instructional value I find hard to assess - I would say I learnt more from Wells's QID than from 'My System' for instance, but I would say from 'My System' I learnt almost nothing. Zurich 1953 leaves me cold as a corpse.<br /><br />I think, possibly, I am not an ideal chess book reviewer, you know . . .Tom Chivershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09850710685193416732noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37675897.post-62555184110503002572007-01-18T22:53:00.000+00:002007-01-18T22:53:00.000+00:00One of the nice things about being rubbish at ches...One of the nice things about being rubbish at chess is that you don't have to worry about what the hot theory is.... or indeed any theory at all really.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37675897.post-15692457590720313442007-01-18T13:48:00.000+00:002007-01-18T13:48:00.000+00:00It's my chess claim to fame. When writing to Mr Wa...It's my chess claim to fame. When writing to Mr Watson I didn't bother telling him that both variations were found by a computer program.<br /><br />Those books are quite good but I've hardly read an Everyman book without an incorrect diagram, a wrongly reproduced variation, even reference to games elsewhere in the book which do not actually appear. Their production values are very poor.<br /><br />Incidentally, the hot line in the QID is 5.Qc2 - thought harmless until very recently - 5...Bb7 6.Bg2 c5 7.d5! Even as I write this variation is on the board at Wijk Aan Zee in the Aronian-Carlsen game.ejhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01582272075999298935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37675897.post-74566077616908446982007-01-18T13:40:00.000+00:002007-01-18T13:40:00.000+00:00RE: EVERYMAN chess
I don't know about their books...RE: EVERYMAN chess<br /><br />I don't know about their books in general but I thought Sadler's "queen's gambit declined" from a couple of years ago was pretty good - mainly because it has a stab at explaining principles rather than just listing variations. In full 'disgusted of Streatham' mode, however, I am rather cross that they don't use capital letters for the title.<br /><br />Also, EVERYMAN (again their choice of use of capitals) published the 3rd edition of Play the French - well ptf actually butI refuse to follow them down the road to anarchy. Of course that book was great before it got to them.<br /><br />Worth pointing out that analysing a moderately obscure sub variation of the Exchange, page 78 contains a suggestion attributed to a certain "Justin Horton". Curiously he becomes the rather more formal "J. Horton" on page 79.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37675897.post-88146631944001443412007-01-18T11:47:00.000+00:002007-01-18T11:47:00.000+00:00Whatever makes the story work, works!
So he does ...Whatever makes the story work, works!<br /><br />So he does the books primarily as a hack job then?<br /><br />Isn't he the one who did ' Excelling at Technical Chess ' - I thought that had a good reputation?!Tom Chivershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09850710685193416732noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37675897.post-37242706788096914772007-01-18T11:00:00.000+00:002007-01-18T11:00:00.000+00:00Yes he did! It was a tough Breyer Variation: he ha...Yes he did! It was a tough Breyer Variation: he had to sacrifice just before the time control and at very least I should have drawn. But I didn't. In the post mortem - apart from slagging off most of the books he's written - he suggested that I panicked. At the time, I demurred, but in retrospect he could have been right.<br /><br />Curiously, though (or not that curiously when you're past forty) my memory is at variance with the <a href="http://www.chessscotland.com/event2005/11th_Oban_Congress_-_Open.html">facts</a>. I played Aagaard in the second round, having won with Black in the first!ejhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01582272075999298935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37675897.post-29980218657077575332007-01-18T10:15:00.000+00:002007-01-18T10:15:00.000+00:00And did he then play 1. e4?And did he then play 1. e4?Tom Chivershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09850710685193416732noreply@blogger.com