MARK RUBERY CHESS

One of the best books on chess studies published is ‘Secrets of Spectacular Chess’ by the English GM Jon Levitt and former SA Champion, David Friedgood – now a FIDE Master and an International Master of chess problem solving. Some 40 years ago Friedgood was South Africa’s strongest player, having won a number of SA Closed tournaments as well as holding down the top board when representing this country at the Olympiads.

The purpose of the book is to gently erode the scepticism that tournament players have to such ‘artificial construction’ by way of lucid explanations of the themes involved in chess studies coupled with spectacular examples illustrating this art. The book even tackles that eternal chessical question-what is beauty?

The second edition of this book was released to great acclaim containing mesmerising examples of games, studies and problems, and revisits previous material to explain how the theory has been developed over recent years.

Whilst the bulk of the book comprises of studies the following position taken from an actual game evoked great admiration from the authors.

Topalov,Veselin (2740) – Shirov,Alexei (2710) [D85]

Linares (10) 1998 ‘There are chances for a draw with opposite-coloured bishops, especially if White can set up a blockade on the dark squares. However, there are no chances to draw if you are facing an opponent without preconception and has a pure ability to calculate the position to a forced win in the way Alexei Shirov did.’

47 ... Bh3!! (‘The motivation for this deep and superbly paradoxical move is dynamic. The more normal 47 … Be4 {also attacking the g2 pawn} blocks the e4 square for the black king. It would be difficult to prove that no other move than 47 … Bh3 wins since Black has a two pawn advantage, but it is quite clear that 47 … Bh3 does win once you have calculated clearly and thus it is quite a superb move. The aesthetic evaluation does depend to a significant extent as to whether there is an alternative, perhaps more prosaic win.’) 48.gxh3 Kf5 49.Kf2 Ke4! 50.Bxf6 (If White does not take this pawn it will soon advance and Black will have three passed pawns – too many to be dealt with) … d4 51.Be7 Kd3 52.Bc5 Kc4 53.Be7 Kb3 0-1 (Black cannot be stopped from playing a combination of … Kc2, … d3 and afterwards … a3 to deflect the bishop)

Chess, music and mathematics are self-contained systems that require no experience of life to master. (John Nunn)