Edward Winter
From Books about Leading Modern Chessplayers:
Our feature article’s cut-off point was 17 January 2020.
The parents of a youngster who has developed a passion for the game decide that a first chess book will make a surprise treat. They go to Amazon.com and, in the title field, type the name of the only chessplayer they know, Magnus Carlsen. Amazon.com offers this.
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12 of the many ...
‘In January 2004, I called Magnus Carlsen the Mozart of chess for the first time. It was a spontaneous, last-minute decision to meet a deadline for my column in the Washington Post. The name was picked up immediately and spread around quickly. It was used, misused, overused.’
Lubomir Kavalek, article dated 23 February 2012.
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From page 16 of Wonderboy by Simen Agdestein (Alkmaar, 2004):
‘Magnus impressed in this Gausdal tournament [in 2000] even if he had just been actively playing tournament chess for half a year. The previous autumn Magnus and his father had sat and read Bent Larsen’s “Find the Plan”, one of the many good books written by the old Danish world-beater. The book consists of lots of diagrams that pose the task: Find the plan! Simple and effective.
At Gausdal it was obvious that Magnus knew a bit about the opening. His father had some old chess biographies lying around, and Magnus had “thumbed through” them. His first opening book was “The Complete Dragon” by grandmaster Eduard Gufeld [and Oleg Stetsko], a comprehensive work in English reckoned more for grandmasters than small boys who had just learned how to play.’
In the 2013 edition, this passage (stylistically unimproved) is on page 20.
Page 19 of the Italian translation (Rome, 2006) of Agdestein’s original book suggested clearly that the Larsen book was in English (‘L’autunno precedente insiema [insieme] a suo padre aveva letto il libro di Bent Larsen Find the Plan ...’), but no such book exists. Larsen’s work was published in Danish as volume two in his series of four booklets, Bent Larsens Skak Skole, the title being Find planen (Samlerens Forlag, Copenhagen, 1975):
We also have the Swedish translation, Du måste ha en plan (Stockholm, 1977). The four parts of the Skak Skole series were brought together in an English edition entitled Bent Larsen’s Good Move Guide (Oxford, 1982).
The English book, in turn, was translated into French as Les coups de maître aux échecs (Paris, 1989).
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Per Skjoldager (Fredericia, Denmark) notes that although only volumes 1-4 of Skak Skole were included in the English and French compilations of Bent Larsen’s booklets, there were further Danish volumes. The series (1975-85) was:
1. Find kombinationen (Find the combination)
2. Find planen (Find the plan)
3. Find mestertrækkene (Find the master moves)
4. Praktiske slutspil (Practical endgames)
5. Solide åbninger (Solid openings)
6. Skarpe åbninger (Sharp openings)
7. Flere mestertræk (Further master moves).
The back cover of the first booklet (Copenhagen, 1975):
Mr Skjoldager adds that volumes 1-6 have been translated into Norwegian.
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See also Bent Larsen (1935-2010).
A new book about the world champion is Magnus Carlsen Nappulasta kuninkaaksi by H. Torkkola (Helsinki, 2014):
The front cover has prompted us to produce a feature article, Chess Silhouettes.
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Above are pages 128-129 of Magnus Carlsen – Viswanathan Anand 2014 Re-Match for the World Chess Championship by Raymond Keene (Bronx, 2014).
The book has well over 100 similar diagrams.
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From Chess Diagrams:
A bonus example, from page 190:
Much of the book duplicates (except that 116 diagrams in that section are now dominated by black knights) what had already appeared in Raymond Keene’s book from the same ‘publisher’, Ishi Press International, on the 2013 match between Carlsen and Anand. Below, for instance, is the entire chess content on, respectively, pages 225 and 157 of the books on the 2013 and 2014 matches:
From Leonard Barden (London):
‘In an interview after his match against Anand, Carlsen said that he had no on-site seconds in Chennai, although he was in contact via Skype with Jon Ludvig Hammer, Norway’s number two player.
When was the last time that a player had no strong assistant at a world championship match? I am referring to assistants of master level capable of providing technical help, and not “seconds” who were effectively managers dealing with match rules and similar matters.’
For details, see Chess Seconds.
From our collection:
Magnus Carlsen
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On page 9 of Carlsen move by move (London, 2014) the vastly over-published Cyrus Lakdawala even quoted Wikipedia on matters of opinion:
‘Wikipedia says of Carlsen’s opening play: “He does not focus on opening preparation as much as other top players, and plays a variety of openings, making it harder for opponents to prepare against him.”’
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To which magazines or websites can a reader turn when wishing to buy a book about Magnus Carlsen and seeking dependable, objective guidance on which ones are excellent, good, bad and awful from among the dozen or so titles available?
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From Olimpiu G. Urcan (Singapore):
‘This picture, which originated on an anonymous Twitter account on 30 November 2016, has been widely published on the Internet, and notably in a Huffington Post article the following day.It is an obvious concoction from a 2011 photograph. Such compositions are easy to make, and it took me just a few minutes to adapt the same original picture to include the fake Alekhine v Capablanca photograph:’
Hoaxers exploit ignorance, haste, laziness and wishful thinking, which makes the chess world a natural target.
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See Chess Hoaxes.
Noting another novel featuring the 1972 world championship match, Åttenderaden by Arne Danielsen (Oslo, 2002 and 2014), Aðalsteinn Thorarensen (Reykjavik) comments:
‘The main character is Herold, who grows up in Oslo, and there is a great deal of chess content (at school and in junior tournaments). Herold follows Bobby Fischer’s career and by chance is in Iceland for a club event during the Spassky v Fischer world title match.’
The original hardback edition (2002)
Danielsen is also the author of Mesteren Magnus Carlsen og sjakkspillet (Oslo, 2010). From the dust-jacket:
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See also Chess in Fiction.
Olimpiu G. Urcan draws our attention to his review of the e-book Carlsen v Caruana: FIDE World Chess Championship, London 2018 by Raymond Keene and Byron Jacobs (London, 2018) and sends us half a dozen lines from the book’s ‘History of the World Championship’ section:
We offer a few comments:
Even without primary sources, a quick glance at, for instance, The Oxford Companion to Chess by D. Hooper and K. Whyld (Oxford, 1992) would have sufficed to avoid all these elementary blunders.
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An excerpt from C.N. 11142:
In addition to its many factual errors, Carlsen v Caruana: FIDE World Chess Championship, London 2018 by Raymond Keene and Byron Jacobs has much copying from other works by Mr Keene. A note at the end of Mr Urcan’s review mentioned in C.N. 11126 observes:
‘About 90% of the biographies of Lasker, Capablanca and Alekhine is a direct copy from Keene’s book on the 2000 world championship.’
From Cuttings:
On 18 May 2019 Olimpiu G. Urcan informed us that his review of the 2018 Carlsen v Caruana match book had prompted an 11-page article by Jimmy Adams in the May 2019 BCM (pages 297-307) which attempted to defend Raymond Keene – incompetently, with, for instance, 23 occurrences of the misspelling ‘Olympiu’.
As early as 21 April 2019 Raymond Keene was somehow able to announce on his now defunct ‘times chess’ Twitter page that ‘an amazingly positive review’, by Jimmy Adams, would appear in the May 2019 BCM.
Jimmy Adams has an assured place on any list of chess writers who have discredited themselves by defending the indefensible.
In a blitz game on 6 September 2019 Magnus Carlsen played 3...g5 in the Ruy López, and Olimpiu G. Urcan asks whether we can offer a few historical jottings on the move.
It is commonly known as Brentano’s Defence, in view of a series of articles in the Wiener Schachzeitung by Franz Brentano under the title ‘Neue Vertheidigung der spanischen Partie’: April-May 1900, pages 97-104; February 1901, pages 38-45; January 1903, pages 7-14. Those articles can be viewed online, via the link to the magazine given in C.N. 7728.
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For further details, see the remainder of C.N. 11469.
Nathan Katz (Toronto, Canada) shows the following from his Chess Player Cards collection, which was discussed in C.N. 12243:
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