Kotov - Science of Strategy

Konstantinopolsky - Obsession : A Chess Biography of Vsevolod Rauzer. Vsevolod Rauzer, born in Kiev in 1908, was one of the world’s leading chess opening theoreticians and thinkers in the 1930s. As a player, he was an uncompromising attacker, trying to avoid draws as well as to prove that 1.e4 wins by force. According to Mikhail Botvinnik, “His opening research…with linked middlegame plans, gives us every reason to place V. Rauzer among the founders of the Soviet chess school.”

Awarded the Master of Sport title in 1929, Rauzer’s best tournament performances included joint eighth place in the 1931 Soviet Championship, sixth in 1933 and eighth in 1937. According to Chessmetrics, he was ranked in the world’s top 30 for several years.
He made big contributions to theory in the Sicilian, French and Caro-Kann defenses among others. The book’s introductory articles contain deep dives into Rauzer’s opening laboratory and shed light on the historical development of key variations.

The present work contains 96 games, nearly all of them played by Rauzer. Opponents include Botvinnik, Fine, Levenfish, Lilienthal, Romanovsky, the author and other leading pre-War Soviet players. Many games come with Rauzer’s own annotations together with analysis by Konstantinopolsky, Botvinnik, Levenfish and others. The commentary has been updated by International Master Grigory Bogdanovich using the latest engines. Ultimately, Rauzer’s story was a sad one. Chess, and especially opening analysis, was an obsession for him: he once told Panov: “Unfortunately, I just can’t make myself work on theory of the game for more than 16 hours a day! My head can’t endure more.” This obsession eventually drove him mentally ill and he spent much of his final period in care. Vsevolod Rauzer lived largely in poverty and tragically died in the Siege of Leningrad. 237 pages

Deuxième volume, toujours uniquement sur les lignes avec 6.Fg5 : variante principale (...Fe7-Dc7-Cbd7), variante """"Gelfand"""" (7...Cbd7 - appellation non contrôlée, mais il en est le principal partisan) et variante Polougaevsky (7...b5, pour ceux qui ont oublié). Toujours quelques éléments intéressants (forcément), mais au final assez peu de matière...

Rudolf Spielmann was one of the strongest chess players in the world in the first half of the 20th century. Following his shared second place at the Carlsbad tournament in 1929 with Capablanca, half a point behind Nimzowitsch, he was considered one of the world's top five. His career spread over four decades and included a host of tournament and match victories, such as defeating Bogoljubov over ten games in 1932.

Often known as the Last Romantic in chess with his predilection for the King's Gambit and Vienna Game and love of sacrifices, he bequeathed a rich legacy of ideas and techniques. These combinational and positional master classes are examined here in 213 instructional games and fragments, organized thematically in a way similar to Grigory Bogdanovich's previous volumes on Bogoljubov.

Detailed commentary is provided on games against leading contemporaries. Opponents in this work include five world champions Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe, and Botvinnik, as well as Marshall, Janowski, Tarrasch, Tartakower, Nimzowitsch, Reti, Rubinstein, Romanovsky, Bogoljubov, and many others. Bogdanovich's commentary is richly supplemented by that of stars of the epoch and, above all, of Spielmann himself.

The book further contains a biographical sketch and is supplemented by a large number of tournament photographs and portraits. Spielmann's life was ultimately tragic - a lonely death in Sweden aged just 59 as a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany following the demise three years earlier of his sponsor, while several family members failed to escape the Holocaust.

Additional materials in the book include a detailed table of tournaments and matches from his career, as well as a translation of Spielmann's fascinating article dating to 1923 called "From the Sickbed of the King's Gambit". 460 pages

Swedish chess Grandmaster Axel Smith returns with a sequel to his colossal bestseller, The Woodpecker Method, which was on the tactics of the World Champions. For The Woodpecker Method 2, he has found 1002 foundational positional exercises and prepared them for ‘woodpecking’ – solve the puzzles repeatedly, and boost your positional intuition.

The quick explanation of the Woodpecker Method is that you need to solve a large number of puzzles in a row; then solve the same puzzles again and again, only faster. It’s not a lazy shortcut to success – hard work is required. But the reward can be re-programming your unconscious mind. 383 pages

Ce livre se compose de 9 sections et de 64 problèmes. Son but? Vous évaluer. Les problèmes sont progressifs et explorent toutes les facettes concrètes du jeu tel que les amateurs le jouent. Chaque section se termine par une évaluation de vos compétences. Un livre bienveillant destiné aux débutants éclairés et joueurs amateurs. 149 pages