Even more of the people, places and stories behind the chess openings and their names When we play chess, the first few moves define the game . You may know the names the Italian Game, the Cambridge Springs Defense, the Smith-Morra Gambit, the Max Lange Attack, the Colle System, the Blackmar-Diemer Gambit, the Paulsen Variation, the Damiano Defense, and so on.But most chess players don't know WHY the openings are called what they are.In this entertaining book, bestselling author Nathan Rose lays out the origins of over more 50 chess openings and their names. This second volume of Chess Opening Names dives deeper into the history of the lesser-known openings, because the stories behind the lesser-known chess opening names are every bit as interesting as the better-known ones. The names of the chess openings tell the history of chess.You will meet seminal chess figures such as Anatoly Karpov, Judit Polgár, Tigran Petrosian, Emanuel Lasker, Saviely Tartakower, José Raúl Capablanca, Mikhail Botvinnik, and Viktor Korchnoi. Some of them won their fame in the world chess championship, while some gained renown for reasons other than their ability to play chess.
You will also travel through the places and events that defined chess in the early years. As David Shenk showed in "The Immortal Game", the history of chess has often mirrored the history of society. There's the 1972 world chess championship that pitted the Soviet Union's Boris Spassky against America's irascible Bobby Fischer in the "Match of the Century". The 1939 chess olympiad in Argentina which coincided with the outbreak of World War II. The unveiling of the "Mechanical Turk" chess-playing contraption in 18th-century Vienna. And let's not forget the triumph of Deep Blue over Garry Kasparov.Over 50 standard chess openings and variations.The 19th Century &
This would be an excellent book without the opening chess moves! That is the joy of Nathan Rose. His insights and history of the players makes this volume a pleasure to indulge in. It is one thing to provide some insight into a player's life, but to find the quirks and idiosyncrasies, to milk a laugh or two, that is the trick here. His dry sense of humor along with his ability to seek out the relevant moments of a life in a few pages, that is what makes this book a joy to read!
Following from volume one, this is a collection of lesser known (Frankenstein and Dracula variation?) but equally entertaining opening moves that are discussed. The author mentions at the beginning that lots of admirers of his first book wrote in to say, "What about ...?" Volume two addresses this. We get some terrific ideas and some flubs but it is how they came about that provides the grist here. One important fact that he discusses is that almost every opening move is named after a man! I was brought to this realization with a start as this is yet another area where women were excluded for years. However, he does address a Hungarian family that set out to reverse this trend and I must say, that anecdote was perhaps my favorite entry.
This was a worthy follow on to the first book and I enjoyed it greatly. I only hope that Mr. Rose will continue with more in the same vein. Perhaps discussing some great matches or even some of the great names in the game. I would buy it.