Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Winning Chess Tactics (2nd ed.) by Yasser Seirawan with Jeremy Silman,
Everyman Chess 2005, Figurine Algebraic Notation, Softcover, 240pp., $19.95
Winning Chess also happens to be what Yasser Seirawan decided to name his
series of instructional books for beginners. I remember the arrival of this series
several years ago because it occurred at a time when both chess and computers
started to make significant demands of my time, and it struck me as odd when I
saw a series of chess books with a Microsoft Press imprint. I assumed that this
probably had something do to with the fact that Seirawan and Microsoft both
make their home in the Seattle area, but beyond that I’ve never heard how this
curious partnership came about.
Alas, Microsoft seems not to have achieved quite the same success in the realm
of chess book publishing as they have in other endeavors, and the Winning Chess
series is now published by Everyman Chess, where it seems to have done quite
well. Everyman is now issuing a “fully revised and updated” edition of the series.
For those beginners who believe that “more words” will help them figure out
what’s happening in all those diagrams, Winning Chess Tactics by Yasser
Seirawan with Jeremy Silman is probably the book they seek. In fact, it’s hard to
imagine how a book on tactics could be any more verbose.
First, to dispense with the comparison of editions: apart from an altered layout
and a few minor elisions and emendations, the book is the same as it ever was (as
the lyric goes). While nothing significant has been lost (it is unlikely anyone will
miss the poorly-contrasted black-and-white photos in the “Great Tacticians”
section), there likewise is nothing new here. In fact, the new edition is some 20-
odd pages shorter than the previous edition due primarily to slightly smaller
diagrams and a more efficient use of space. The content itself is almost
completely unchanged. In this particular instance, “fully revised and updated”
seems to mean that the publisher has managed to rearrange things in order to
reduce the page count, presumably saving a few dollars on this printing. For
those of you who own a copy of the previous Everyman edition, there is no need
to upgrade.
Winning Chess Tactics is divided into three sections. Part 1, Tactics and
Combinations, comprises the main part of the book. This is where tactical terms
are defined and illustrated. Part 1 includes thirteen chapters:
● Definitions
● The Double Attack
● The Pin
● The Skewer
● King Tactics and Combinations
● Deflection
● Battery on an Open File or Diagonal
● The Power of Pawns
● The Decoy
● Clearance Sacrifice
● X-Rays and Windmills
● Zwischenzug
● Other Kinds of Draws
Clearance Sacrifice
DIAGRAM 99.
White to play.
Lisitsin – Zagoriansky
USSR, 1936
How can you force your opponent to capture the piece, even
though this action will lead to his doom? The best way is to check
your opponent’s King with the obstructing piece, which forces a
response. The next best way is to capture something with the
obstructing piece. If your opponent does not recapture, you will
have gained a material advantage.
At the end of each section in Part 1 there is a handful of test positions to reinforce
the tactical idea just discussed.
Part 2 of Winning Chess Tactics is Great Tacticians and Their Games, where one
or two complete games or game fragments from some of the game’s tactical
luminaries are presented and annotated. This section succeeds on a number of
levels. By showing how the most basic tactical motifs occur in the games of even
the immortals, students immediately gain a sense of the importance of mastering
tactical play. The inclusion of complete games also introduces readers to the idea
of studying great games of the past as a way to improve. And, finally, it gives
readers a taste of some of the classic games and combinations in the literature.
Spielmann – A. Flamberg
Mannheim, 1914
11…c6 12.Nxd5!
DIAGRAM 135.
Black to play
As Diagram 135 shows, this piece sacrifice opens up all the central
files to Black’s King.
Confused, Black makes a mistake and goes down fast. The best
defense, 13…Qc7, still gives White a winning attack after 14.Bb5+
because of his commanding lead in development.
14.Bc4
14…Qe4 15.Bxc5!
Part 3 of Winning Chess Tactics is dedicated to test questions and answers. Even
here, Seirawan does not merely give you the winning line in the answer, but lots
of verbal explanation to go with it.
TEST 98.
White to play.
Test 98: A hasty player might slide home with 1.c8=Q?? and
expect his opponent to give up. However, Black’s King would then
be stalemated and the shocking 1…Qxb2+!! would deliver both a
draw and a harsh dose of reality. White sees this possibility and
makes a point of freeing the Black King and stopping any
stalemates with 1.Rc4!. Then Black cannot prevent 2.c8=Q.
Altogether, the test positions at the end of each chapter plus the additional test
positions in Part 3 total less than 200. For junior players, who tend to be
impatient with books, yet who also have an enviable ability to soak up
information like a sponge, this seems about the right number, and this may be the
only tactics book they will need for some time. For older beginners, Winning
Chess Tactics is an excellent starting point, but if they are serious about
improving their tactical ability they will likely need to supplement this book with
a more traditional type of tactics workbook with more positions and fewer words.
Another volume in Seirawan’s series that has been “fully revised and updated” is
Winning Chess Strategies. Like the tactics book, most of the revisions to this
book appear to be minor formatting changes designed to make more efficient use
of space on the page. The content, so far as I can tell, is unchanged but for a word
here or there. Again, if you own a previous edition of the book, there is no need
to invest in this latest edition.
Strategies is laid out much the same way as Tactics and the books compliment
each other perfectly. The bulk of Strategies identifies the fundamental strategic
elements of a chess game in the following chapters:
Like the other books in the series, the target audience of this book is beginners,
junior players, and those who have little or no experience with the strategic
elements of a chess game, and Seirawan does a solid job of laying out the
foundations of sound positional play. Each chapter begins with a brief discussion
of the strategy in question, followed by full games or game fragments illustrating
how such a strategy is employed in an actual game. A fair number of classic
examples are used, such as Damjanovic – Fischer, Buenos Aires, 1970; or
Botvinnik – Alekhine, AVRO, 1938 – but most of the examples are from either
Seirawan’s or Silman’s own oeuvre. In the chapter Superior Minor Pieces,
Seirawan uses the following fragment to illustrate how a Knight can dominate a
Bishop.
DIAGRAM 60.
Black to play.
Karpov – Seirawan
Mar del Plata, 1982
You can see that I am winning this position against the World
Champion because my Knight completely blocks his pawns on c3
and c2, covers several squares deep in the White camp (a3, b2, d2,
and e3), and only gives the White King one square (e2) to run to.
The prospect of gaining a fine support point for your Knight should
excite you. When it can work from a secure base, your horse
becomes and extremely powerful piece.
Scattered throughout the book at the end of major topics are problems, twenty-six
in all, to quiz the reader on material that has just been covered. Strategy problems
are by their nature much more slippery than tactics problems, and even readers
who have carefully worked through the text may have some difficulty applying
the lessons to real-world positions. In the answers to the problems, provided in
the final chapter of the book, Seirawan makes an effort to explain clearly and
thoroughly the strategic ideas in the problem, so that each problem is a miniature
lesson in itself. In the chapter The Creation of Targets, Seirawan discusses
various methods of inducing and exploiting pawn weaknesses in your opponent’s
position. He finishes the section with the admonition that “weak pawns don’t just
magically appear; you must create them,” and offers this problem:
Wood – Seirawan
Seattle, 1994
And just as Winning Chess Tactics included a section which introduced the
reader to some of the great tacticians of the game, so does Winning Chess
Strategies devote a section to some of the players considered to be great
positional geniuses, including Steinitz, Rubinstein, Capablanca, Nimzovich,
Finally, it should be noted that despite trimming some fat in both the Tactics and
the Strategies volumes, Everyman has retained the glossary and the index from
the previous editions. Too often editors view an index as a luxury, but every
chess book worth owning should have one.
Taken together, Winning Chess Tactics and Winning Chess Strategies provide
about as complete an introduction to fundamental chess ideas one could wish for
in two volumes.
I would like to emphasize the word introduction. For players who are new to the
game but who have little appreciation for the tactical complexities or strategic
depth to be found in a game of chess, these books will go a long way toward
building such an appreciation. Similarly, advanced beginners who are not quite
ready to spend months working through a book of tactical diagrams or trying to
absorb Nimzovich’s My System may find these books a useful stepping stone to
more advanced texts. Chess is a big game, and Seirawan covers a lot of ideas, but
it’s only the tip of the iceberg. Readers will not come away from reading these
books and realize an immediate 400-point jump in their rating. However, this
accessible and entertaining series of books is an easy way for beginning players
to broaden the foundation of their chess knowledge.