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Question I play in a chess club in Prague with players rated between 1600 and 1800. I usually play 1.e4 with White, and my opponents often choose to play the Sicilian. Although I know the first 5 or 6 "typical" moves in this opening, I'm not familiar with the strategic themes. I know it's an attacking defense. I see that Black usually has the open c-file and attacks on that side of the board, while white develops quickly and attacks on the opposite side. But otherwise I'm pretty much making it up as I go. Can you recommend a basic book on the Sicilian targeted at amateur level players like myself? Preferably one with fewer variations and more discussion of general themes and strategies. Patrick Pray, Czech Republic Answer Surely, there are a number of books, as well as chapters within books, that might help, in that they lay out Sicilian themes fairly clearly. Nonetheless, the bulk of books on the Sicilian Defense are narrow in scope, tending to treat specific variations. You might try a different strategy at first. Rather than turning to a single book or two, create a storehouse of well-annotated Sicilians from magazines and game collections. Try to accumulate between fifty and one hundred such games, and then play through them very carefully. After doing this you should come away with some discernment for the Sicilian's characteristics. You'll know which variations you find appealing, and you can track down related material if so desired. But if books are what you want, here are two. Start with Nikolai Minev's monograph The Sicilian Defense: The Last Decade. It contains short games, organized by variation, typically concluding in tactical forays, and analyzed by one of the best presenters of didactic information in the world. If you don't mind increasing the workload, you should also sample the riches of grandmaster Lev Polugaevsky's classic Sicilian Labyrinth, in two volumes, published by Pergamon Press. There's no way you can get through Polugaevsky's brilliant notes and observations without understanding a great deal about the Sicilian in particular, and chess in general. Two other things you could do. After determining which lines of the Sicilian engage you, try practicing them against a computer. You'll probably get a better sense for what these variations are like. Such practice should also help you navigate through these lines when encountered in actual over-the-board play. Finally, you might benefit from a few sessions with a competent player or teacher, where he or she could give you an overview of the subject to propel you on your way. Question I'm a Life Master who doesn't play much anymore (US Amateur Team mostly). It seems every time I stage a comeback of sorts I try studying
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tactics, strategy, openings, etc. I quickly hit a point where I seem to review information I had known and seen before. It seems most new literature is just a review of concepts, games gone before. Of course players like Shirov, Kasparov, Akopian and others and their games are fun to play over and have good content. I have a small notebook to keep key information probably should be larger so the basic information can be quickly reviewed. The question I have is: The knowledge acquisition process seems almost haphazard beyond a certain level and OTB play becomes almost a practice exercise of precise and exact execution with rather minimal new knowledge being added but rather a tuning of what is incorporated so where does someone like myself turn? The main alternatives seem to be intense analysis of annotated games, play tournaments with stronger players or get a tutor. I've actually tried all these, it seems intense analysis of annotated games seems to yield the best increase in new knowledge but it is labor intensive. (I consider the review and analysis of ones own tournament games, which should be done for every tournament game, as prerequisite for improvement. Games should be objectively reviewed for concepts, plans, mistakes, cool tactics, mental frame of mind and should be noted etc.) What are your thoughts? Paul Fielding, USA Answer I wish I could advise you, for then I could advise myself (I, too, keep a little pocket notebook). If I had to recommend something, however, I'd suggest turning to a powerful player, someone of at least IM strength, who also has a friendly demeanor and a supportive personality. (You may have done this already, but I still think it's the best way to go.) Get him or her to analyze your play, not so much by looking at past games, but rather by playing serious training games with you, to witness firsthand what you are really like as a competitor. The two of you should then tear these games analytically apart, trying to understand your strengths, problems, tendencies, and needs. Approach it in the same spirit that Euwe and Meiden did in those terrific collaborative books they put together (Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur among others). Even if this method has failed you before, it remains one of the most effective ways for a master to improve his play. But I have to believe you're already on top of the process. You're obviously versed on how to study chess reasonably well, for one doesn't become a Life Master without knowing a little something about this game. Question I am a chess teacher working in the public school system of a large metropolitan area. I am constantly going into classroom situations in which I am not familiar with the students or their abilities. A big problem for me is how to get control of these classes so that the kids will listen and I can accomplish something. I often find myself talking in a vacuum. Do you have any advice? Randy Morrison, USA Answer Chess classes given in public school systems usually are overseen by two people: a chess instructor and a licensed school teacher (there tends to be two adults even when the chess instructor is also licensed). If this is your situation, I suggest that you try working with the other teacher, to handle the class effectively and to learn about the students quickly. There is nothing wrong with utilizing your assets, and an experienced classroom teacher can be a great asset. But whether or not you work with another teacher, and regardless of whether you yourself are licensed, in my opinion the best thing a teacher can do to gain control of a class is to learn and use the names of the students as soon as possible. This is the seasoned teacher's secret. By repeatedly using the names of the students, right from the start, the teacher actually masters who each student is straightaway. The usage and repetition also forces a class to stay alert even a chess class which provides the teacher a means to assume control. It's natural to shy away from saying the names too hastily, to avoid making embarrassing mistakes. But it's better to bungle in the first session or two, rather than weeks into the course, when such errors might be much more injurious to a youngster's fragile ego. If you have trepidation, you could soften the negative impact of such miscues ahead of time by making a game of it from the beginning. For example, in the very first session, you might try

calling on students while looking away from them, say, with your back to the class, or even while staring at another student, as if focused on the wrong one. Then, with a friendly smile, suddenly turn and look at the right student. Don't be surprised if they are. It's your insurance against future slips, since thereafter the class will never really be sure whether you've made a mistake or merely injected another one of your playful tricks. They'll have to give you the benefit of the doubt, and this should strengthen your ability to direct the class. To students, practically nothing seems worse than a teacher who doesn't know who they are, and probably nothing lifts them higher than a teacher who shows real interest. I'm not saying all this name-calling will make you a Jean Brodie, but it should facilitate greater control while making everyone feel more comfortable. Then you can really teach chess. Question In your formative years of playing chess, which books influenced your chess skills? Barbara Spannheimer, USA Answer This is hard to say, for initially I liked almost every chess book I opened, so practically all of them influenced me to play chess. It would be hard to allege that any of them induced me to teach chess, however, for prior to the recent epoch no one ever wrote a book about the wonders of tutoring the game, and the notion never occurred to me. As a profession, chess teaching didn't exist before the 1972 Fischer-Spassky Match (the few who did teach the game for a "living" barely scraped by). I had no idea that chess books existed when as an adolescent I first came upon them at a branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. What serendipity. Each one was a treasure trove. It seemed that their diagrams were art and their stories about famous players were literature. With something like thirty volumes to choose from, I couldn't decide which to read first. So I made a plan. I decided to take them all out. But somehow the library's limit per visit would have to be circumvented, which meant returning a number of times in order to clear out the entire shelf. This is what happened, and for the next month I stayed home from school and did nothing but devour the world of chess. In those days the diversity of chess books wasn't as great as it is now. Many of the books then were written by either Fred Reinfeld, Irving Chernev, I.A. Horowitz, Edward Lasker, Eugene Znosko-Borovsky, or Reuben Fine. There were books by other authors, of course, but this group (at least at my library) dominated, and virtually none of the books published in that period were in algebraic notation. I think there were one or two by Milton Hanauer, which weren't bad, but everything else was in descriptive notation. If I remember correctly (in Gore Vidal's Palimpsest, he suggests that it's not so important what really happened, but what we think did), I was particularly fond of several books in the beginning, though to what extent these titles affected the development of my game I can't say. Nothing, not even a book, can account for the woeful state of my play. If memory serves me, Irving Chernev's Winning Chess Traps was one of the first books that caught my attention. (I'm going to talk about all of these volumes in the past tense, for I'm not sure which are still in print.) It was a collection of 300 opening shots, arranged one per page, with some underlying analysis of key variations. I liked the format of offering just one trap on every page, and even though some of the traps were dubious, most had instructional value and were great for building confidence, especially if given the chance to use them in chessic combat (I think I got to win one or two games this way). I also liked Milton Finkelstein's Self-Taught Chess. This book was a smartly organized collection of games, with material arranged for easy scanning. There were well-defined themes, highlighted principles, instructional comments, and plenty of inspiring words. Mr. Finkelstein was a real teacher (actually a public school principal), and he was able to package all his experience and craft at teaching, as well as his zeal for the game, into a splendid textbook. I believe he also produced a number of successful high school texts, in different subjects, so he was versed in methods to convey information.

People always ask me what I think constitutes a good instructional book. Of course, there is no obvious answer here. It goes without saying that the information should be correct and useful, but also important is the presentation, especially in today's world of fast pace and overload. Even books concealing great thoughts may be discarded if their pages can't be scanned for content. Who wants to spend all day who has all day to size up what's there? Purists will counter that such considerations are trivial, and that sincere students should be concerned only with the author's ideas. But this is patently ridiculous. If we're talking about an original scientific paper, a profound philosophical treatise, an innovative work on chess openings, a collection of award-winning endgame studies, or any equivalent intellectual production, then presentation clearly takes a back seat. But these are written for the enlightened. If we're talking about an instructional book, however, one presumably written for a wide audience, then presentation becomes critical. An author can't claim to be desirous of reaching the public if he doesn't make his product understandable and usable. Rather it suggests that the worth of his material is comparable to that of his presentation, and accordingly the potential reader is advised to turn elsewhere. A small book I remember relishing was Fred Reinfeld's Chess Mastery by Question and Answer. This was a terrific read, and I played through the games and their questions and answers with great excitement. Reinfeld had a way of adding drama to the analysis of a chess game, and he could truly make the personalities of the chess masters come alive. The book I think he does this the best in was the Human Side of Chess, which I still consider to be one of the finest chess books ever written. His descriptions of players and events were exhilarating. He even made Vidmar seem exciting. (Marczy I could see, but not Vidmar.) Serious chessplayers tend to put Reinfeld down, saying that he was a "weak player," who wrote books mainly for beginners and inexpert players, which isn't true, nor is it so terrible. (It always gets me how some ordinary chessplayers will classify masters, and even grandmasters, as being "weak.") Reinfeld wasn't a bad player at all. Years ago, when I was an assistant to Reuben Fine, I asked him about his collaboration with Reinfeld on a book of Emanual Lasker's games that I happened to admire. Fine confessed that he knew Reinfeld was a fairly strong master who, on a given day, could beat anyone. Moreover, though he felt that a few of Reinfeld's introductory books were of questionable value, and that some of his comments were cursory ("Castles Queenside!"), Fine also believed that Reinfeld had greatly benefited chess by characterizing it as noble, glorious, and uplifting to the human spirit. Fine had to admit, which wasn't easy for him to do, considering his own place in the chess pantheon, that Reinfeld's oeurve had inspired thousands, if not millions, of people to play chess. During those early years I was also impressed by Larry Evans's New Ideas in Chess, which I still think is a first-rate chess book. From its layout, to its organization, to its examples, to its overall philosophy, I found it to be a gem. My tattered copy, signed by Evans, remains one of my most prized possessions. (At his height, Larry Evans, like Yasser Seirawan during the past decade, was probably America's top chess professional, in that he excelled at most aspects of chess professionalism, including as a player, writer, journalist, teacher, and performer.) In no special order, these five or so were the first books that really garnered my attention, but as I got more into the game, others (also in no memorable sequence) became consequential to me, including Jose Capablanca's Last Lectures, Chess Fundamentals, and My Chess Career, Emanual Lasker's Manual of Chess, Dr. Siegbert Tarrasch's The Game of Chess, Hans Kmoch's Pawn Power in Chess, Alexander Alekhine's My Best Games of Chess (both volumes), Mikhail Botvinnik's 100 Selected Games and Absolute Championship of the Soviet Union, Aron Nimzovich's My System and Chess Praxis, of course MCO, and last, but not truly last, Bobby Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games. I can't say that any of these books in particular made a profound mark on my understanding of the game. Perhaps they all did, about equally, but whatever

their contribution to my playing skill, as feeble as it may be, they did afford me untold hours of diversion and pleasure. I wish I could experience all that once more, reading each one again as if it were the first time. I can't. But what I can do is take a poll. Readers are invited to submit their own list of favorite chess books to the Q & A column. The results will be tallied and published sometime in the future, along with any neat or relevant comments.

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This article first appeared at ChessCafe.com in January 2000.

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