Rave - "The Immotal Game" Now in Paperback

I've blogged about David Shenk's excellent book "The Immortal Game" several times (here and here) and I'm happy to say it is now available in a paperback edition ($10.17 from Amazon). If you are looking for a very entertaining chess book you can read away from a chess board this is it. Mostly it is a history of chess, but it also examines why the game has fascinated so many millions over the past millennium or so. You don't even need an understanding of how to play chess to appreciate this book - just an interest. The most technical thing in the entire volume is an on-going examination (between chapters) of the famous "Immortal Game" a chess game played in 1851 by Adolf Anderssen (playing white) and Lionel Kieseritzky. There are plenty of diagrams and easy-to-understand explanations of what is happening in the game. This would be a great book to give someone that may have expressed an interest in chess but, for whatever reason, has been hesitant in taking up the game. Highly recommended!

Rook's Recommendations - Chess Articles at Wikipedia.com

There is a great wealth of chess material at Wikipedia that is worth exploring. Thanks to the "categories" feature you can explore areas of interest. Here are some of the categories I think you'll find useful and interesting:

• Chess books A short list of the most famous books on chess.


• Chess checkmates Links to articles on checkmate patterns that are so common they have names.


• Chess games A short list of the most famous games of chess.


• Chess magazines A list of chess magazines.


• Chess openings A comprehensive listing of the articles pertaining to chess openings.


• Chess organizations A list of the major chess organizations.


• Chess players A list of well-known chess players.


• Chess tactics A good summary list common chess tactics.


• Chess traps A list of the most notorious chess traps.


• Chess terms Links to articles covering a large variety of chess terms.


• Timeline of chess A fascinating chronological list of chess history.


• World records in chess Another interesting short list of chess records.

If you need a master index look here:

• List of chess topics Something in this list from the incredible amount of chess material at Wikipedia will catch your eye.

Wikipedia is a great chess resource - use it to learn and improve.

Rook's Rudimentary Resources - Correct Pronunciation of Chess Words

If you are new to chess you will start building a new vocabulary pretty quickly consisting not only of new terms but also names of famous chess players. Don't get in the bad habit of mispronouncing these words - learn how to pronounce them correctly from the start.

Fortunately there are some good resources to help you with correct pronunciation. For the more common chess terms you can visit the Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary site. At their site you can listen to correct pronunciation (and definitions of course) for the following chess terms:

• en passant
• en prise
• j'adoube

Correctly pronouncing the names of famous players presents a slightly more difficult problem - this is especially true when you hear players talk about chess openings. Here's a sampling:

• Alekhine - pronounced ahl-Yeck-een
• Giuoco Piano - pronounced Joke-o Pee-Ah-no
• Najdorf - pronounced NIGH-dorf
• Pirc - pronounced Peerts

For an exhaustive list see Pronounce that Chess Word by Bill Wall

And these last two are just plain fun to say:

• Zugzwang (TSOOKS-vahng) position in which the move makes a worse result
• Zwischenzug (TSVEYE-shun-tsook) in-between move

Finally, we have this excerpt of a poem from the Edinburgh University Chess Club:

A rather funny poem appeared in Chess Review in 1949 entitled "Pronunciation." Some excerpts:

Oh! she is the Tarrasch
Of this parish.
Tartakover
Is her
lover,
and Ragozin
is her cousin.

Will she, will she
Always Flohr me?
Will she never Phil-adore
me?
Will she never
Care a damn bit
For my Center
Counter
Gambit?

I will have to pull my neck in
For she dotes upon Alekhin.
I will have
to pull my oar in
For she dotes upon Tchigorin!

Yes --
An' what of
Kotov?

The full text may be found in "The Treasury of Chess Lore" by Fred Reinfeld.

Rook's Recommendations - Chess Tactics Server

No one will argue that a mastery of chess tactics is essential to improving your game. So one of my goals is to set aside time each day to practice tactics (see Chess Improvement Plan - Part One: Goals).

There are many chess puzzle books and chess tactic computer programs you can buy, but before spending too much money on those, Rook recommends (as always) looking for the most bang for your buck - and better yet - not parting with those bucks at all. Which brings us to today's recommendation: The fabulous (and free!) Chess Tactics Server website.

By working through the problems you establish a rating to track your progress and with 23,803 (!) tactical chess problems to solve ranging from novice to Master level you're not going to run out of challenges any time soon. The site registration is free so don't hesitate to try it out. With great Internet chess resources like this, improving your game has never been so easy - or so cheap ;-)

Rook Recommends - Chessmaster 10

NEWS FLASH! Two new versions of Chessmaster are on their way in October 2007 (the current version, Chessmaster 10, was released in 2004 - so we're long over due for an update). They are Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition for Windows PC and Chessmaster: The Art of Learning for the Nintendo DS.

Some highlights of the new edition:

• PC Version on DVD - presumably to facilitate the large chess instruction video files presented by Josh Waitzkin
• Annotated Famous Games: Players have access to 900 of the most important chess games, which are analyzed to provide key tactics
• An Additional Chess Game Database of 600,000 games
• Chess Variants:
• Dark Chess, in which the opponent’s pieces are invisible
• Extinction Chess, where the winner is the first player to capture all of the opponent’s pieces
• Losing Chess, a game that rewards the first player to lose all of his/her pieces!
• 6 "Mini Games"
• Minefield, in which chess pieces are used to locate mines hidden in the board
• Breaking the Lines, where the knight is moved to capture all of the pawns
• Fork My Fruit, a game that uses chess pieces to fork fruit of the same kind
• Wireless Play - The Nintendo DS version features wireless play with other DS owners

...Now back to Rook's Recommendations for Raising Ratings:

Today in our Thursday series, Rook takes a look at Chessmaster 10.

For only $20 (here at Amazon.com) it's hard not to recommend this program. There are plenty of other chess playing programs Fritz, Hiarcs, Junior, Shredder, but it would be a mistake to turn down one's nose at this consumer product - especially if you are novice.

Now, I'm not a fan of playing chess against the computer (see Why I Hate Playing Computer Chess!) so my reason for recommending Chessmaster is mostly for it's educational value. In particular you get the following useful tools:

• Chessmaster Academy: Josh Waitzkin's Academy. This is the featured (and largest) tutorial.
• Chessmaster Academy: Larry Christiansen Attacking Chess. Annotated games of "classic chess battles."
• Chessmaster Academy: Chessmaster Series. Some of the many topics:
• Beginning Strategy by Yasser Seirawan
• Opening Moves by Bruce Pandolfini
• Basic Themes by Bruce Pandolfini
• Larry Evans Endgame Quiz
• Diagnostic Rating Exam by Bruce Pandolfini
• Match the Masters by Bruce Pandolfini
• John Nunn's Favorite Puzzles
• Opening Practice

Many of the introductory lesson are narrated. This is especially useful to new or younger players as they hear the correct pronunciations of terms like en passant, FIDE, Ruy Lopez, etc. I could have used that kind of help when I was a kid as I had no adult chess players to learn from.

Of course, you can play chess with this program too - both against the computer and online - although I would recommend other online chess playing sites like the ICC or FICS over what Chessmaster offers.

All-in-all, I think this is the best $20 a novice could spend on chess software.

NOTE: If you look at the average review rating at Amazon you might think this was only an average program with a 3-star rating. However, the reason for the low score is primarily due to the obnoxious copy-protection the original release had (weed out the reviews complaining about that and the program is more like a 4 or 5 star rating) Fortunately, Ubisoft has redeemed themselves by removing the copy-protection when you install the latest patch for the game.

Chess Blogging in Search of Improvement

Today's entry in my weekly series, Rook's Recommendations for Raising Ratings, concerns using one of the best resources on the web for improving your game - personal chess improvement blogs.

When I decided to get back into chess last year, naturally I searched the Internet to find advice on how to improve my game. Lucky for me I came across this:

The Chess Of Edwin ‘dutchdefence’ Meyer
Checks, captures, threats, combinations… Weblog of an amateur chess player determined to improve.

Part of the appeal Edwin Meyer's website was that he, like me, was taking on the task of improving his game later in his life - having first learned to play chess between the age of 29 and 30.

I read several of his blog entries. They were really interesting and very helpful - so helpful in fact that I went back to his very first entry (and to his original blog And Then There Was Chess) and read everything from the beginning!

There was (and is) a tremendous amount of useful information at both his blogs. I can give it no higher recommendation than to say it served as an inspiration for my own.

Since then I have come across several other excellent personal improvement chess blogs. Here are some other great ones:

• Begin Chess - A beginner's journey into the complex world of chess... A superbly designed and organized web site - everything is categorized so it is easy to explore a topic of interest. Like Edwin Meyer's blog, this was one of the first to catch my eye - since the writer of it is on a journey very similar to that of yours truly, Rook Van Winkle. If you too have decided it's time to give chess a try I think you'll find a lot of interesting reading here and lots links to good information.


• Confessions of a Chess Novice - Chess is too serious to enjoy, and too frivolous to take seriously. Eric Thomson is a member of the Knights Errant, a group of chess enthusiasts blogging about their quest to improve at the game. He started playing chess in 2005 and says "After six weeks of playing chess, I entered a tournament in Raleigh, North Carolina and lost 3/4 games, ending up with a provisional rating of 900. That puts me in the F class, which is the bottom 10% of all rated chess players." Form there Eric chronicles his chess improvement with an astounding amount of thoughtful and very useful chess improvement material that could keep you occupied for weeks!


• Steve Learns Chess - Never enough time, but trying to improve my chess game anyway! Steve Eddins says "I’m a borderline class C / D player with a USCF rating fluctuating around 1400. I’m an adult player who’s trying to study and improve my game in between devoting time to my family and my job." That sounds familiar to must of us! This is a good blog to visit once your chess improvement plan is under way to see what life is like in the trenches.


• SquirrelChess.com - A journey into the world of chess. Squirrel says "This website is about learning to play chess, random things I discover on the long way to chess mastery, and the game of chess itself." Another must see site with all kinds of content: articles, reviews, annotated games, a chess glossary, and more.


• Chess Tales - Chess, chess players and tournaments worldwide, online and in the media. Roger, by his own admission is "probably quite a good player" and there is a lot of interesting material on his site. In particular, for advice on improving your chess, start with his Chess Improvement Tips
  
  Finally, although not a personal chess blog, I want to end this post with an absolutely essential resource for the chess novice:
  
  
• Dan Heisman's Chess Page. Dan is a National Master, full-time chess instructor, hosts a regular chess broadcast as "Phillytutor" on the Internet Chess Club and (best of all) is the award-winning Novice Nook columnist over at the Chess Cafe. Whew! I've mentioned Dan before in my blog (here and here) and I cannot recommend highly enough the fabulous advice he has for the chess beginner and novice.

I'll end with this bit of advice: "When in the same boat we should all pull together." :-) Thanks to the great chess improvement blogs out there, we are "pulling together"!