101 Brilliant Chess Miniatures

by John Nunn

One of the world's finest writers on chess presents his selection of brilliant modern games of 25 moves or fewer. Much can be learned from these sparkling miniatures. John Nunn examines both how the loser might have avoided disaster, and explains how the winner managed to punch home his advantage so effectively. An innovative format, with three diagrams per page, enables the book to be read without a chess set, making it ideal for readers looking for an entertaining book to dip into.

Genres: Chess

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

John Denis Martin Nunn is an English chess grandmaster, a three-time world champion in chess problem solving, a chess writer and publisher, and a mathematician. He is one of England's strongest chess players and once was in the world's top ten.

Reviews

[TrumanCoyote · Rating 4 out of 5]

That rating is mainly for the games themselves, which are indeed quite entertaining throughout. Nunn though has some decided limitations as a chess writer (as opposed to annotator). His rather style-less style wears pretty thin after a while, and the barrage-of-variations method with which he seems to approach everything similarly gets a bit tedious. Contrast this with Jon Speelman, who (in his book about the best games of the 1970s) also throws a veritable kitchen sink's worth of moves at you and yet manages to keep it all entertaining and flowing along at the same time.

Two more things become ever more wearisome over time: Nunn's overuse (not to mention misuse) of "accurate/inaccurate," which he unfortunately applies in the same vague way that engines use the terms nowadays (and not in their stricter and more meaningful sense); and--especially--his reliance on the term "unclear," which really says absolutely nothing and which he continues to invoke as though it does. It's like using the phrase "je ne sais quoi" as though you're expressing something actual and specific (when really it's just an admission that you don't quite know what the heck you're talking about). ;)

[M. Suhaimi Ramly · Rating 4 out of 5]

You will not learn chess theory by reading this, but you'll learn how to:
1. avoid opening mistakes
2. swiftly capitalize on opening mistakes
3. (for writers) write analysis that can be followed by casual readers - not too deep!

I am no chess student, and I left casual chess 20 years ago, but it is a nice little book that you can take with you to the beach or during a flight.