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Daniel Lowinger makes a good case for an intriguing line of the Scandinavian (1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.Nc3 Qd8), a favourite of GMs Josif Dorfman, Nikola Djukic and David Garcia. He argues that White’s knight is, or may easily become, misplaced on c3 and will probably have to move later. Therefore the loss of time involved in retreating the queen to its original square will be recuperated.
Twelve chapters, each devoted to a particular positional element: the open file, strong and weak squares, the passed pawn, good knight versus bad bishop (and vice versa), etc. A few classic examples, naturally, but modern games predominate. Yaroslav Srokovski’s annotations are instructive, not least because they are refreshingly objective for textbooks of this sort.
We learn many things about him that we did not know but might well have guessed. For example, that he did his own ironing and was a demon declutterer. He had no qualms about throwing things away if he hadn’t used them for a period of years, reasoning that he didn’t really need them. ‘He couldn’t abide disorder,’ says his daughter. ‘His home had to be clean and everything in its place.’
The Benko Gambit gives Black early pressure on the queenside and an initiative that often persists well into the endgame, a practical advantage being that Black’s position is generally easier to play. On the whole, the investment of a pawn represents good value.
Fred Reinfeld’s venerable book, consisting of 1001 checkmate puzzles arranged by theme, has been edited and recast into algebraic notation by Bruce Albertson. Themes include the queen sacrifice, discovered check and double check, and pawn promotion; and only the last chapter, a collection of composed problems, seems out of place. What you have got otherwise are positions taken from actual games that are of, at most, a medium level of difficulty.
It is a satisfying thriller with a diverse range of well-drawn characters, not least the Kid, Stafford’s autistic son. There are surprises right up to the end, the prose crisp and effective throughout. You learn something about finance along the way. And altogether it feels fresh and cliche-free.
This is an excellent tournament book, which gives a genuine flavour of the chess milieu of the time. All the games are annotated, the vast majority by Robert Sherwood, though some by Alekhine, Nimzowitsch and other players and contemporary commentators.
Autoethnographic is a difficult read. Though the poems are deceptively prosaic, they don’t yield their messages easily, and are unsettlingly dark, disjointed, and at times, so self-referential that they feel like a chaotic nightmare. But once you let go of the desire for linearity and meaning and instead open up to the linguistic subtleties, to new modes of perception, and to the revelations which are decidedly non-linear, the work becomes quite special.