STEVE MARTIN AND THE CHESS CATALOG

"The new phone book is out... the new phone book is out!" Thus spake Navin Johnson in The Jerk.

In this case the revised chess catalog from G&L CHESS is here. It also previews the new logo I will be using,

Lazaro Munoz says, "Your price and description of Russian Silhouettes is wrong. Great catalog otherwise." It turns out the price is fine (the number of pages isn't) but the name of the book doesn't match the photograph of the cover. I have since fixed this. Will wait to see if there are any other issues, fix them all, and resend.

Lots of pictures this time as when I did a trial run I was surprised I was able to keep the size of the email to 1.5 Mb. Will add some more pics next time too.

The cover is a Big departure from my usual having a snazzy piece of art or photography. It's hopefully designed to explain what the catalog is about and why other people order from it. It's an attempt to be humorous, let's see how that works. I must've had 5 pages of notes in writing this up and one can never be sure.

Anyway, it's out. I remember the "old days" when I would issue a catalog and eventually the orders would come in. Same way now. I wonder why I can spend 4 days honing all the parts and it takes weeks for people to respond. In the "old" days there were fanatics and I was always trying to placate them (or lose their business). Nowadays the pace is a tad slower.

However:

Another game from Topalov and Anand today.

New in Chess' 25 Years Anniversary issue, the 400+ page book, has been a great read (in bed, the john, on the landing in my house...) Giddins, the editor, did a great job of selecting the material. The distributor in the USA was put out of the loop on this one and so we had to import a few copies. Gary W. was the inspiration for this and he got the first one. The theatrics (Kasparov, the whining (Kasparov), and the play (Kasparov, Anand, ...) really makes it as well as some interviews I had forgotten. Probably the most memorable for me was the interview with Rustam Kasimdzhanov (and another with Bronstein). After he won the FIDE world championship he was ignored. No invites, lots of excuses. In spite of what RK says, I think he was ignored because he was a Muslim... even though he doesn't wear that on his sleeve. He's one helluva player. His DVDs are among the best ChessBase has produced. I would love to have him write for Thinkers' Press and I hope that comes to pass. He's very intellectual, intelligent, and a good predictor of bad human behavior... but, in my opinion, he handled it indifferently and that hurt him. However, I've always thought that many European chess organizers are very "catty" people. These people would have peed all over themselves to get Fischer in spite of his antics, but their secularist "tones" prevent themselves from inviting a truly great chess player to their events. Kasim says he doesn't go for PR, so then that is his fault. Being "true to your school" has its downsides.

bob@thinkerspressinc.com

THE MEDIA ARE DOING IT AGAIN!

As some of you know, Anand won yesterday against Topalov and the score is now 2-1 in Anand's favor.

What does the media do? They remind us of things our teeny little brains can't seem to comprehend:

1. The pressure is on Topalov. Will he have to change his match strategy?

2. Sleepless nights in Bulgaria. He's down one point for crying out loud.

And it goes on like this. Topalov was crushed, humiliated. And so was Anand in his first game. These news people never seem to think that the players, and their teams, are most likely a lot more prepared and smarter than all the rest of us. Who are "we" to be giving advice?

There could be, should be, some jitters early on but their poker faces are fine. Aren't they?

The news media (chess and others) have NO, absolutely none, idea of what each camp is doing, how well prepared they are, if they have secret "team" members, etc.

There was ONE thing I "learned" that was interesting and new: Anand is playing using Kramnik's openings (the Catalan) against Topalov. Recall, Kramnik edged out Topalov in the last world chess championship. But, Anand has played Catalans before too. Whether Topalov has I do not know.

Topalov made a mistake yesterday and the tiger from Madras ate him up. "A" mistake.

What should the press say? Good question. How about something new? Remember football games or baseball games where the headset guys would say things you could see for yourself. If you want to get their commentary while doing something else, why not listen to the radio, that's what my Dad used to do?

People seem to like stats. They could use more of that maybe. Or better yet, give chess a boost and talk (write) about former world champions and weave it into coverage. That's what Paul Hoffman said he did on ESPN (from his book King's Gambit.)

I've seen a little commentary by Ian Rogers... he's kind of interesting.

I've read many books on world championship matches, as no doubt some of you have, and I recall how guys like Lasker would lose the first game in a match or a tournament (quite often). It's like he was a taking a "first strike" as we see in baseball. Warming up. Looking for weaknesses.

When Kramnik won his first game over Kasparov how many of us realized he would win the match with only one more win and Kasparov, the "world's strongest player of all time" (which I repeatedly read from ChessBase and New in Chess) had ZERO wins! The last time that happened was in 1921 when Capablanca had 4 wins to Lasker's none. 79 years earlier.

So... enough of the hyperbole, fear, and hoopla. Give me more on the looks on their faces, how much time do they spend at the board, whether Danailov is pacing around in the press area. Instead we find that by Sofia Rules (which Anand didn't agree to) Topalov was in the uncomfortable position of offering a draw in Game three to Anand through the arbiter only to have Anand decide to play on. It looks as if Topalov was hoist by his own petard and that may damage him more than anything else.

Let's realize one thing: Anand still has his work cut out for him against Topalov. If he makes the slightest error, Topalov will be all over him just as if it were the other way around. THIS will be exciting chess.

Unfortunately, the only place which has exploded with chess fervor is in India. Did you see the photos of the playing hall? There was hardly anyone in there. What? 30 people, a few more. THAT is news. Lots of reporters and photographers, maybe more than spectators. You don't see this at Wimbledon.

bob@thinkerspressinc.com

THERE ARE SURPRISES WHICH ARE PLEASANT IN CHESS

Today I got a batch of books from Everyman Chess. I was more than happily surprised by one.

I had known in the past that now GM Danny Gormally had a temper, and that the GM title seemed to elude him forever as he would fade or crash in the penultimate OR final round of an event. He finally made it, congratulations Danny. Your book is great despite the insipid cover design.

I saw this book title Play Chess like the PROs and as soon as I looked inside I realized I should have ordered more of them. While there are just 36 annotated games, the back of the book contains combinational material as well as solutions to exercises. The CREAM of the book is Gormally's opinions on things and fellow GMs before and during the games! He writes about Grinders and Gamblers (opposites) and what you need to do to win more games. It's only $26.95 (retail) for a little over 200 pages, but would easily be one of the most fun books to spend a weekend with.

Okay, that impressed me, but so did the following:

1. Chess Secrets: Heroes of Classical Chess. (At first I saw the "o" in Heroes as a "p" and wondered if Everyman had gone mad!) by Craig Pritchett. More in the Chess Secrets series and one of the bets-selling series I have had in a while. Ret. $26.95.

2. Chess Secrets: The Giants of Power Play by Neil McDonald. I've had this before but I had to get more. Ret. $24.95. Killers: Topalov, Geller, Bronstein, Alekhine, and Morphy!

3. Alekhine Alert! by Tim Taylor. For some reason, at least it seems so for me, Taylor's books have bombed big-time. Was it his article on Hungarian bawdiness in Chess Life years back, too many of his own games, or too much potatoes and not enough meat? I don't know (do you?). In this book he sticks to opening theory and games other than his own (he about 5 of his from a big selection of others). Almost 400 pages, $27.95 retail. I think Taylor is woefully under-rated as an author despite some of the dumb things he wrote earlier in CL.

4. Practical Endgame Play--mastering the basics by GM E. Grivas. Did I miss the boat on this book? I never got a review copy and twice when I ordered it I never received it. It has a 2008 copyright date on it. I bought a bunch of them so I hope this wasn't fatal! 32o pages, $25.95 retail. Excellent practical material. Will be reviewed in The Chess Reports as will be

5. Practical Endgame Play--beyond the basics by Glenn Flear. 544 pages!! A retail of $40.00. If anyone loved the endgame more than John Nunn or Karsten Mueller it might be Glenn Flear as he proves in this super book. His definition of the endgame is very much like Purdy's (one or two pieces for each side). Same story on this book. It was copyrighted 2007 but I had never seen it before. In the US there is a stigma against expensive books (except for Kasparov's and he got away with that because his last 8 books have been in hardcover). It was just reprinted.

Yes, I enjoy chess, and I play chess, but I have to make a living too. So these titles will be included in the new mini-catalog which will be out today or tomorrow. If you are not on my email list please contact me. I rather enjoyed putting this one together but all the Photoshop work was killing me!

Draw yesterday between Topalov and Anand. Tomorrow Anand has White and I suspect he will make Topalov work for his supper. When Anand jumped out of the chute against Kramnik it did a lot for his play and later confidence (which was needed as Kramnik tried to rally like he did against Leko--clearly that strategy no longer works).

bob@thinkerspressinc.com

ONE MORE TO GO TO #100

I can't believe the time has gone so fast... even faster than my grass growing.

Today is Game three between the world champion and his challenger. The Game has started and I could find a LIVE service somewhere, but I am working on this May mini-catalog--this time, replete with photos.

I just noticed last night I hadn't made a "big deal" out of New in Chess Yearbook #93, which may have been one of the best Yearbooks in many years. I'll check off the headlines: Short's 1.e4 c6 2.Ne2 wins quickly (lots of White wins, 3-4 draws, and a loss by all those who have tried this); Nakamura goes crazy in the Classical King's Indian (perhaps this headline is a little overstated); Jonny Hector sacs a pawn to turn around a Slav variation; and someone thinks, after many years of study, he may have a "bust" to the bust of the King's Gambit (a la Fischer). I wonder if there has been a new editor (though I don't see a new name listed) because everything seems to have more verve and excitement in the writing (as well as the topics).

In case you don't know, I have begun the automated shipping of New in Chess Yearbooks once again (autoships) in case you are interested. You get a favorable price and I ship within a couple days of receiving them. #94 will be next, probably already available in Europe.

Several new DVD titles from ChessBase:

ChessBase Magazine #135 (I am starting to keep these in stock). This one is a great issue.

Andrew Martin on the O'Kelly Sicilian.

Shirov on the Sicilian Najdorf 6.Bg5;

Nigel Short's Greatest Hits Vol. 1 (I don't have this one yet)

The Squeeze as part of Danny King's powerplay series (I don't have this one yet either);

and a newly announced one on the Slav and Semi-Slav Revisited by Shirov (not here yet).

On the ones I don't have I can take pre-orders and ship when they get here, but just want you to know that ChessBase usually lags 10-14 days behind their online announcement.

Correspondent James Breeden has commented to me about Chess Assistant CDs as having a variety of problems in recent years and wanted to know if I would be carrying them. Iffy. I have both a Windows 7 and an XP machine here to test, but not a Vista System (thank God). I'm sure they would send me review copies but that's a time consumer when it comes to pinpointing problems and deciding which ones can take public use and which ones are a nightmare, but I might try it anyway. He seems to think some of these CDs are released without proper QA testing, and in the past I would have to agree on certain products. Others are repackaged, he says, of something you might already own--which is outright flim-flam unless clearly noted. What this paragraph is about is to ask "others" if they have noticed problems such as the ones mentioned, and if so, how did they handle it (tons of "patches?").

Back to the catalog.

bob@thinkerspressinc.com

TOPALOV AND ANAND CHESS MATCH

Saturday Topalov won a fairly quick game.

Sunday Anand won a very enterprising positional game.

Yet, I've read a bunch of comments from around the blogosphere and it seems clear to me that many of these people do not understand what a champion is. Champions do not fold after their first loss. What would be the point of them showing up and playing the other eleven games?

I heard the oddsmakers are back with Anand. But Saturday they still, pretty much still were. The oddsmaking business is about making money and they are more serious. Yet on Sunday you would swear that Saturday the oddsmakers were giving up on Anand, but I hadn't read that.

Grandmasters should know better.

I read GM Anish Giri's notes on the ChessBase website and it is fair to say "he is still a kid," because, he is! He didn't understand some of Anand's moves and preferred his own (playing "perfectly" may not get you what you want). But Anand knows something or two: he knows how to PROVOKE Topalov (and probably many others). When Toppy gets frustrated be will try to grab something, even if it is away from the action. But he is cunning too (and a heckuva calculator). We all found out in the Kramnik-Anand match that Anand can be cunning too.

At the end of Giri's notes he thinks maybe Anand is a psychological genius! I think so.

We can't write Topalov off yet, but if Anand avoids stuff like on the first day, Topalov is going to have his work cut out. I think Anand has a very good team if Kasimdzhanov and P Heine Nielsen are still on it. I haven't seen mentioned who is on Topalov's team.

What is rather "fine" (enterprising) about the game on Sunday was Anand's capture from the b-file to the a-file and how near the end of the game, the pawns were straightened out and Anand won. GM Ian Rogers said as far as he could tell, Topalov didn't think it was a bad move either while others were questioning it, such as Giri. Sir, this is why Anand became the world champion, several times. He's rather intelligent. He does dig into his opponent's past.

Perhaps later today I will mention several new DVDVs and books in stock.

bob@thinkerspressinc.com

PP CHESS MANUFACTURING

Yesterday I received a very fine book, by Artur Yusupov. It, as you can see, is called Boost Your Chess The Fundamentals 1. It's from Quality Chess in Scotland.

Also pictured is Build Up Your Chess The Fundamentals 1. Notice the similarities.

Although publishers tend to defend stupid choices, certain things never seem to stand out to them:

1. Same or similar colors (see ChessBase DVDs for really great examples of PP manufacturing).

2. Similar titles (Boost and Build), Subtitles are the same, the indicia (1) is the same.

3. The graphic design really went overboard putting a square on the recent book's cover and a circle on the previous books cover! But the same photograph!

4. The inside Preface from Anand and the Introduction by Yusupov are the same!! No real reason for what this new book is except a very brief note on the back cover!

After that first visual introduction the books veer off into two different volumes, yet, they are part of a series.

You might call the new one "more information," or "more subjects" in a similar vein. Indeed, the material is good. The choice of presenting the books was terrible, and this from a company who has "Quality" in their name! It's like the USPS. The last "S" stands for service and one certainly doesn't get that when waiting in long lines at the counter day after day because the local postmaster is too preoccupied to care.

When looking the new book over last night at a coffee shop, at first I wasn't sure I had grabbed the right book. I finally convinced myself I had gotten the right book, but still realized what a dumb job was done in marketing it. The other two books in the first "series" were other colors, I think blue and green. Are we going to get two more titles in this "new" series in blue and green too!

Whoever does the design work HAS to take into consideration:

a) pulling the correct stock from the shelves;

b) color-blind employees;

c) people filling orders who don't use barcodes (after all, customers don't use them!);

d) Getting the RIGHT title to customers who know what they are ordering (and who will be just as flummoxed when they get the wrong book). Time and postage as well as bookkeeping, wasted.

Most established companies do not make this mistake (ChessBase is established but they keep making this mistake).

It's time to get back to Design Basics 101, not "Design Basics (sort of) 101."

The retail on this 265 page book is $29.95. The G&L price is $25.50, and the Gold Card price is $22.50.

A review will appear in The Chess Reports.

bob@thinkerspressinc.com

CAN YOU LEARN CHESS TACTICS?

If you can't you are doomed to have mediocre results which, in the end, will beget dissatisfaction with this great game.

Most books, unfortunately, are a collection of quizzes, asking you to do something. Sure, they may explain what a "skewer" is, or a "pin," so that the vocabulary of chess will not overwhelm you. There are something like 16 types of tactics. That's a lot of "stuff" to keep track of.

But it gets trickier when one gets to that chapter where the quizzes are all mixed in and you don't know which tactic you are looking for, in order to solve. That's the author's attempt to show a REAL chess position except for one thing, and it is a big "one thing:" in the book you are studying you ARE aware there is a problem to be solved, but at the board everything may look innocent and you have no clue that you might finish the game off sooner rather than later--if you just RECOGNIZED there was a tactic present.

In John Nunn's Learn Chess Tactics he offers as a subheading the phrase: Discover the secrets of how to win chess games. If you haven't played much chess (you probably wouldn't be reading this post) then these "things" ARE secrets (a most overused word in the GAMBIT lexicon). And, wouldn't you WANT to win MORE games rather than just "win chess games?" You may already be winning through trial and error, but actually we all want to win more games than we were winning before.

In spite of that criticism about Nunn's work his book is actually one of the best out there in my opinion.

Nunn offers a longer intro to each chapter than most books on tactics and he gives great examples. Then at the end of the chapter he offers exercises to see what you have learned. The good parts are the nice variational twists.

Let me explain. I went to solve the exercises of Chapter 9, "Back rank mates," I have no idea why I picked that chapter. There were 12 such items. After I came up with my solutions (I haven't yet checked my answers against the back of the book), I began reading the introductory material, which was excellent. I have, again, no idea why I decided to choose that "backward" approach. Maybe it was because I was already familiar with the concept of the back row mate.

Then, I really liked this book. Why? Because I believe I solved all the problems (I was wrong on one). None of them were impossibly hard. A few were tougher than others, but each one required that "weird" eye for noticing something. That eye which wasn't quite happy with the solution because it seemed too easy. That eye attached to its brain relooked at the problem to discover the "trick." Then that solution seemed much more satisfying and gave one hope. Nunn's books on the endgame are like that too (and he has two new ones coming out).

I strongly suspect the other chapters are like #9 and that requires well-chosen selections, something which I think Nunn is particularly adept at doing. In fact, when I mentioned "variational twists" what I mean is that not all positions end in a back row mate BUT if you don't play your cards right they could. More explanation: sometimes to stave off a back row mate your opponent will have to give up material, and after that you "go on to win." (And there are tricky little beasts in some of these positions. (Beast is also a "mathematical" term, and Nunn is a mathematician as well as a grandmaster.))

If you are having trouble with tactics I strongly recommend this book. Besides the quality of everything in the book (and the fact you know a "win" is lurking somewhere on the board), you will get a feeling of accomplishment and that you don't have to be a member of Mensa to get that feeling. It is often in the art of accomplishment that "passion" rises to the top.

That is, do this kind of study repeatedly and all of a sudden "inspiration" will begin to form in your brain when you see other quizzes OR something similar (such as a technique) in an actual game (such as your own). THAT to me offers GREAT value. It's like advanced show and tell.

For everyone up through 2100; it's only $19.95. If you are interested in purchasing one, let me know.

Finally, a good book on tactics for 95% of us.

bob@thinkerspressinc.com