Table Of ContentTable of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Bibliography
Preface
Introduction
I - According to the Rules of Shatranj (ninth - fifteenth centuries)
The Legend of Dilaram
How Would You Play?
Solutions
II - From Lucena to Greco (fifteenth - seventeenth centuries)
How Would You Play?
Solutions
III - From Stamma to Philidor (Eighteenth Century)
How Would You Play?
Solutions
IV - From Napoleon to Staunton (the first half of the nineteenth century)
How Would You Play?
Solutions
V - Anderssen and Morphy (1851 - 1860)
How Would You Play?
Solutions
VI - First Unofficial World Championship Match (1861 - 1870)
How Would You Play?
Solutions
VII - Zukertort and Chigorin (1871 - 1880)
How Would You Play?
Solutions
VIII - Steinitz - The First World Champion (1881 - 1890)
How Would You Play?
Solutions
IX - Lasker and Pillsbury (1891 - 1900)
How Would You Play?
Solutions
X - Matches of the Second World Champion (1901 - 1920)
How Would You Play?
Solutions
XI - Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe (1921 - 1940)
How Would You Play?
Solutions
XII - Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal (1941-1960)
How Would You Play?
Solutions
XIII - Petrosian, Spassky, Fischer (1961 - 1980)
How Would You Play?
Solutions
XIV - The Great Opposition: Karpov - Kasparov (1981 - 2000)
How Would You Play?
Solutions
Index of Players
© 2007 Igor Sukhin and Mongoose Press
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Bibliography
Botvinnik - Tal, Lev Abramov (Physical Education and Sports 1960)
Ten World Champions, Lev Abramov (Physical Education and Sports 1972)
New York International Chess Tournament 1924, Alexander Alekhine (Harding Simpole 2004)
Nottingham International Chess Tournament 1936, Alexander Alekhine (Harding Simpole 2002)
Journey to the Kingdom of Chess, Yuri Averbakh, Mikhail Beilin (Physical Education and Sports
1988)
The World Chess Championship: Karpov/Kasparov Moscow 85, Yuri Averbakh, Mark Taimanov
(Firebird Publications 1987)
Combinations in the middlegame, Igor Bondarevsky (Chess Player 1977)
Petrosian - Spassky, Isaac Boleslavsky, Igor Bondarevsky (Physical Education and Sports 1970)
Analytical and Critical Works (1923 - 1941), Mikhail Botvinnik (Physical Education and Sports 1984)
Analytical and Critical Works (1942 - 1956), Mikhail Botvinnik (Physical Education and Sports 1985)
Analytical and Critical Works (1957 - 1970), Mikhail Botvinnik (Physical Education and Sports 1986)
Championship Chess: Match Tournament for the Absolute Chess Championship of the USSR,
Leningrad-Moscow 1941, Mikhail Botvinnik (Macgibbon & Kee 1950)
Selected Games, Nineteen Sixty-Seven to Nineteen Seventy, Mikhail Botvinnik (Pergamon 1981)
Half a Century of Chess, Mikhail Botvinnik (Cadogan Books 1996)
Anatoly Karpov: His Road to the World Championship, Mikhail Botvinnik (Pergamon 1978)
200 Open Games, David Bronstein (Dover Publications 1991)
Modern Chess Self-Tutor, David Bronstein (Everyman Publishers 1996)
Selected Games, Fyodor Duz-Hotimirsky (Physical Education and Sports 1953)
Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, Bobby Fischer (Bantam Books 1992)
My 60 Memorable Games, Bobby Fischer (Batsford 1995)
Victory in Merano, Efim Geller (Voenizdat 1982)
Chigorin, His Life and Games, Nikolai Grekov (Physical Education and Sports 1939)
Selected Games 1969 - 1977, Anatoly Karpov (Physical Education and Sports 1978)
Miniatures From the World of Champions, Anatoly Karpov (Collier Books 1986)
My 300 Best Games, Anatoly Karpov (Russian Chess House 1997)
Unlimited Challenge, Garry Kasparov (Grove Press 1990)
Aron Nimzowitsch: A Reappraisal, Raymond Keene (Batsford 2003)
Grandmaster of Chess: The Complete Games of Paul Keres, Paul Keres (Arco Publications 1972)
The Last Check, Victor Khenkin (Physical Education and Sports 1979)
Lectures on Chess Startegy, Alexander Koblents (Physical Education and Sports 1983)
Think Like a Grandmaster, Alexander Kotov (Batsford 2003)
Chess Heritage of Alekhine, Alexander Kotov (Physical Education and Sports 1982)
Larsen’s Selected Games of Chess 1948-69, Bent Larsen (McKay 1970)
Common Sense in Chess, Emanuel Lasker (Dover Publications 1965)
Lasker’s Manual of Chess, Emanuel Lasker (Dover Publications 1960)
Capablanca in Russia, Isaac Linder (Soviet Russia 1988)
First Russian Masters, Isaac Linder (Physical Education and Sports 1979)
Esthetics of Chess, Isaac Linder (Soviet Russia 1981)
How to Beat Bobby Fischer, Edmar Mednis (Bantam Books 1975)
Queen sacrifice, Yakov Neishtadt (Pergamon 1999)
Siegbert Tarrasch, Yakov Neishtadt (Physical Education and Sports 1983)
Uncrowned champions, Yakov Neishtadt (Physical Education and Sports 1975)
First world champion, Yakov Neishtadt (Physical Education and Sports 1971)
Catastrophe in the Opening, Yakov Neishtadt (Pergamon 1979)
Test Your Tactical Ability, Yakov Neishtadt (Trafalgar Square Publishing 1992)
Chess before Steinitz, Yakov Neishtadt (Physical Education and Sports 1961)
My System, Aron Nimzowitsch (McKay 1973)
Opening Course, Vasily Panov and Yakov Estrin (Physical Education and Sports 1980)
Chess Middlegames, Laszlo Polgar (Konemann Verlagsgesellschaft 1998)
Six-Hundred Endings, Lajos Portisch (Pergamon Press 1981)
Peter Romanovsky, Igor Romanov (Physical Education and Sports 1984)
Sacrifice in Chess, Leonid Shamkovich (Alfred Kalnajs & Son 1972)
The Art of Sacrifice in Chess, Rudolf Spielmann (Dover Publications 1995)
Attack with Mikhail Tal, Yakov Damsky, Mikhail Tal (MacMillan Publishing Company 1995)
Three Hundred Chess Games, Siegbert Tarrasch (Hays Publishing 1999)
Carl Schlechter, Leonid Verhovsky (Physical Education and Sports 1984)
Draw, Leonid Verhovsky (Physical Education and Sports 1979)
David Janowski, Sergey Voronkov, Dmitry Plisetsky (Physical Education and Sports 1987)
Stories About Chess, Mikhail Yudovich (Physical Education and Sports 1959)
Preface
The book you have in your hands contains more than 1,000 combinations from games played over the
last two millennia. Many are classics, an important part of chess education for beginners and
intermediate players. Some examples, like Anderssen-Kieseritsky, are so famous that practically any
chess player has seen them. Yet there are many more. Huge chunks of chess history from the
nineteenth century are omitted from textbooks. This book was designed to fill the gap. While it is hard
to determine which games are the most famous, let alone the best, Chess Gems contains many
beautiful combinations that have amazed and delighted chess fans.
When amateurs talk about sharp combinative play, they often refer to the greats of the past:
Anderssen, Morphy, Chigorin, etc. Others have more contemporary heroes: Tal or Fischer. Many
people from my generation could be called “Tal’s children”. I grew up on his games; in my childhood
I tried to copy his style. There is a perception that today somehow professional chess has become dry
and boring.
The way chess is played at the top level has changed quite a bit in the last few years. There are a lot
more tactics involved, and the positions are much more complicated - that’s not a coincidence.
Nowadays, thanks to computers, to get an advantage out of the opening, one has to go for complicated
positions. It is much harder to win a game without taking risks; one cannot just slowly grind down an
opponent, “playing for two possible outcomes”: win or draw. A lot of recent wins at high-level
tournaments are achieved through enormous complications and tactics. In fact, in a future edition of
this book covering the twenty-first century, I am sure quite a few recent games will be worth
including.
No discussion of recent changes in chess can ignore the elephant in the room: computers. Here I
want to dispel a popular myth: computers will make (or have already made) “human” chess less
popular.
Cars can go much faster than the 100-meter world record holder, and farther than the best
marathoner. Yet that hasn’t diminished interest in track and field. If anything, computers make chess
more accessible to a broad circle of chess fans. They allow amateurs to spot errors of top professionals
in real time, to explore all sorts of “what-if” scenarios, and to provide an instant (though imperfect)
assessment of the game being played. One cannot ignore the benefits of training with a chess program
at all levels. All in all, while computers make the life of a chess professional harder, their overall
contribution to the game is positive.
I suppose one can distinguish between “computer chess” and “human chess.” Playing computer
chess (really the only way to play against a computer nowadays) involves watching extremely
carefully for your own mistakes. There is no psychology involved, no tactics based on intuition. One
small error will bring your demise at the hands of the “silicon monster”; whereas against a human
opponent, a mistake occasionally results in an interesting and entertaining twist. To me, chess has
always been about competition between two people, with all their human emotions and blunders. Not
surprisingly, only human games bring about spectacular intuitive sacrifices and memorable
combinations.
One thing is clear: for as long as people play chess, for as long as there is appreciation of art,
beauty, and logic, this book will not become obsolete.
Vladimir Kramnik
May 2007
