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Chess Secrets: The Giants of Strategy by Neil McDonald,

2007 Everyman Chess, Softcover, Figurine Algebraic
Notation, 256pp., $24.95

This is a good book. It ought to be an important book.

I’ll explain that qualification as we go along. But while
I’m frustrated by certain aspects of the book – precisely
because it is so good – I want to start by qualifying my
own upcoming criticism: I like this book. I learned a lot
from it. And I think it will prove valuable – very valuable
– for two classes of players: those who have moved Tal-Botvinnik 1960
beyond the “hope chess” stage, have read a couple by Mikhail Tal
books in categories other than tactics or exercises, but
don’t really understand concepts like “the seventh rank,”
“pawn ram” or “blockade.” For these readers, I suspect
Chess Secrets: The Giants of Strategy will produce,
if they read it carefully, an “Ah-ha! Now I get it
reaction.” Another other class of player will also benefit
from a study of this book: those who know about the
strategic elements, such as an outpost or a pawn majority,
and have even made use of that knowledge in their games,
but who have not yet mastered them, have not yet made them
an integral part of their chess persona.

There is another group of players who will enjoy this book –

those who like chess history, who appreciate a grandmaster
who converses, who engages the reader with his passion,
as evidenced by the in-depth explanations. In other words, Topalov-Kramnik
those who appreciate finishing a reading session sure that 2006 World Chess Championship
Play through and download the games they actually understand the game they just reviewed. by Veselin Topalov &
from ChessCafe.com in the DGT Game
Zhivko Ginchev
Viewer.
Indeed, McDonald’s easy style makes the book more of a
genial lecture, or even conversation, than a how-to text to
The Complete labor over. And yet, as we shall see, one has to labor over
DGT Product Line the book.

Before I get into specifics, explaining why I allude to faults in

a book I found enjoyable, instructive and significant, I ask
your indulgence while I present the structure of the book.

● Introduction
● 1 The Seventh Rank
● 2 The Outpost and the Open File
● 3 Planning on a Grand Scale
● 4 Understanding Pawn Majorities
● 5 The Power of Pawn Breaks
● 6 How to Use the Pawn Ram Victor Bologan:
● 7 Restraint Selected Games
● 8 Blockade 1985-2004
● 9 Provocation and Prophylaxis by Victor Bologan

Read an excerpt here.

Let me dispose of the technical issues first. This book needs
an index and a copy editor! There are far too many typos
and grammatical errors, especially in a book from an author
and publisher noted, rightly, for the quality of their work. I
know production costs are up – but not to have an extra sheet
at the back of the book? Where is the “Recommended
Reading” for those who want to go further?

In many ways, the seemingly minor problem of typos and

a missing index illustrate why such a good book, such a very
good book, frustrates not just me, but itself. To understand what
I mean, I want to come back to the issue of audience.

On the one hand, McDonald clearly intends Chess Secrets:

The Giants of Strategy to be a treatise on the middlegame,
a kind of digest of strategic motifs as introduced and
developed over the last hundred years. That is, he
“translates” (to use a critical term from a different field)
the writings and praxis into a form that the “average,” or
“average class” player can understand. Thus, we get
Nimzovitch writ plain. And for those giant strategists who did
not articulate their ideas, but presented their strategic
arguments through their games, McDonald provides the words,
as a teacher might explain a critical but otherwise
inaccessible text.

Here is an example:

“White’s control of the

open file has reached
its apex. But what now?
The black bishop is
guarding against an
invasion of the seventh
rank; the a5-pawn is out
of the range of the
white rooks and is
soundly defended; and
there is no white pawn
that can be transmuted
by the magic of the open
file into a passed pawn.
Does the game therefore have to be given up as a draw as
White’s pressure along the c-file is merely symbolic?”

(Let me pause here. This passage and what follows occurs

in chapter 3, “Planning on a Grand Scale.” The position
above comes from McDonald’s discussion of Petrosian-
Unzicker, Hamburg 1960. As you’ll see from the entire
comment, it’s great stuff, worth reading over more than once.
And there are passages like that throughout the book.
McDonald goes at the game discussions with gusto. But here’s
the thing: This follows chapters 1 – “The Seventh Rank” and 2
– “The Outpost and the Open File.” You’ll notice that
McDonald mentions the strategic elements discussed earlier.
But he doesn’t quite tie them together, does he? That is,
unless you read very carefully – unless you’re already
aware that the strategic elements have a dynamic
inter-relationship, an awareness that comes only
from experience – you can easily miss how one factor
impacts and leads to another.

I doubt a book intended to be instructional would leave such

an important connection or transition unexplained. I can’t
see Silman or Alburt, for example, not walking the
student (reader) through the point, as patiently and slowly as
a sixth grade teacher.

Of course, McDonald can argue, rightly, that Chess Secrets:

The Giants of Strategy is not an instructional book, not even
an intermediate level instructional book, and that as
chessplayers have to work over the board, they should work a
little bit when learning about the game.

True enough. And if Chess Secrets: The Giants of

Strategy was only a collection of some sixty well-
annotated games, plus a number of equally well
analyzed fragments, the issue I raise would be moot. After all,
an annotator or commentator can’t annotate or comment
on everything, and has the right to choose what to highlight.
And far better a discourse than a mass of variations.

But McDonald sets himself a loftier goal, as he states in

the introduction: “The aim of this book is to reveal genuine
secrets of strategy; for despite the huge rise in chess
knowledge over the last decades, there are areas of
technique which are still at best only vaguely understood by
the chess public.”

Indeed. And so McDonald should subsume everything – even if

it means going beyond the conversational tone or leaving
out some of the editorials – to revealing those secrets
and clarifying them for the chess public.

So, yes, McDonald does get distracted, although to be fair I

think the framework of the book in a way creates that distraction.

But let’s finish looking at his analysis of the position,

because McDonald really does do an excellent job of
presenting the strategic elements:

“No; White’s advantage on the c-file cannot be exploited

directly, but it is more than symbolic as it transmits its
power to the other side of the board.
“The superior mobility of the white pieces somehow rubs off
on their monarch. Or putting it less mystically, White’s
stranglehold on the queenside allows his king to cross the board
to a2 with impunity.

“Once his king is safely tucked away on the queenside, White

can advance pawns to open lines against the black king, who
has of course to stay put on the kingside...”

“And there we have it. “Planning on a Grand Scale”: because

of superior mobility, conferred by “earlier” strategic
elements (control of the open file, which allows White to
threaten the seventh rank), White can switch the field of battle
– go from one side of the board to the other – the “grand scale.”

There are times when McDonald will pick up a game in mid-

battle, because that’s the best place to begin his analysis.
For example, in chapter 8, “Blockade,” he has a section titled,
“The Power of a Blockading Knight” and starts with this
position from Sultan Khan-Nimzowitsch, Liege 1930:

For over a page he

discusses the
position, comparing
the placement of the
white and black pieces.

But whether he’s giving

the opening moves of
a game or picking it up in
the midst of battle, he
always presents –
and annotates! – the
game to its finish.
Often, therefore,
McDonald will analyze an endgame that seemingly has no
direct relationship to the strategic concept or element
under discussion. Yet by seeing the whole game – more,
by analyzing the whole game – McDonald shows us, at
least indirectly, how the elements of a middlegame strategy
impact the endgame. I give McDonald a great deal of credit
for doing this.

I said earlier that the framework of the book led to distractions,

or diversions from the theme and goal. These distractions,
while often helping to make the book very readable, as if
we’re having a friendly conversation with a grandmaster all
too happy to share his insights with us, can also lead to
some meandering, a kind of laziness that occurs when
transferring dialogue to print.

This brings me back to the issue of audience and the source

of frustration. Sprinkled throughout the book are what amounts
to arguments and declarations about chess history. For
example (from the Petrosian-Unzicker game mentioned
above: “Wolfgang Unzicker, who was born in 1925, was the
best player to emerge in West Germany between the end of
the Second World War and the appearance of Robert Hübner
in the late 1960s.”

So far so good; a little historical insight gives us context

and enriches the purely chessic discussion. And while many
“class” or “average” players over let’s say forty, or even
thirty, would surely know the names of Unzicker and Hübner,
how much about either would they know? And do the
younger players of today, the up-and-coming both in age
and rating, know the history of the game? So McDonald tries
to implement a declaration of Kramnik’s that he
approvingly quotes on page 1: “If you want to reach the
heights, you should study the entire history of chess. I can’t
give an clear logical explanation for it, but I think it is
absolutely essential to soak up the whole of chess history.”

And so we get the passage quoted above, which continues: “If

he [Unzicker] had been part of the Soviet School of Chess
[ah, dear reader – do you know what that is? Should
McDonald take it for granted that you do, but you don’t know
who Unzicker and Hübner are?], errors like 9...cxd5 would
have been drummed out of him in his early youth. Alas, for
all their unquestionable talent, players from the West such
as Unzicker, Ivkov and Najdorf never quite managed to
perfect their style to mount a serious challenge for the
World Crown, which in the 1950s and 1960s was very much
the private property of an empire ruled from Moscow.”

OK. Nothing much here. If we already know our chess history,

this is pleasant enough, and if we don’t, we get a
harmless introduction, one that might stimulate our curiosity to
do more. (Although, I can do without phrases like “an empire
ruled from Moscow.”) But then we get this:

“Only in 1972 did the super-brain Bobby Fischer break the

mould, and it is worth remarking that Fischer himself
greatly benefited from the teachings of the Soviet training
system: from the age of 15 he was being ‘educated’ by all the
top Soviet players in tough games at World
Championship qualifying tournaments.”

What? “super-brain?” And Hübner, et al, didn’t play in the

World Championshp qualifying tournaments? They didn’t
learn from the Soviets they played?

This kind of thing occurs throughout the book and is

just annoying. When explaining why players made certain
moves, when playing chess psychologist, sometimes
McDonald struggles to get the point out; for instance, in
discussing why Nimzovitch chose to enter an endgame with
a minimal advantage against an “endgame wizard” like
Lasker who, “if there was even the slightest chance to draw …
was sure to find it,” McDonald first says “It may be
that Nimzowitsch had worked everything out for himself over
the board...or was hoping for the best based on his
general endgame knowledge,” before concluding that “…
more likely his courage and assurance came from having a
specific model to follow [a Capablanca game from twenty-
three years earlier].”

See, here’s another place where some editing or revision

would have tied this very salient point quite explicitly to
the Kramnik quote. That would better encourage readers to
learn chess history than relying on, or solely on,
psychological speculation.

There are times, of course, when McDonald is “spot on” (to

use the British idiom) in his comments, as in this observation
to Leko’s fifth move (5…Bd7) in the fourteenth game of his
match with Kramnik for the World Championship (Brissgo
2004): “A rather strange retreat, but Leko doesn’t want to
risk being hit by a disruptive pawn sacrifice as might
have occurred after 5…Bh7, with 6 e6!? fxe6 7 Bd3 etc. The
bishop on f8 would then be boxed in. It should be
remembered that Leko only needed to draw this game to
become World Champion, so his overly cautious play is
perfectly understandable.”

This brings me to the last point I want to discuss:

unexplained choices. In the introduction McDonald states
“The strategic ideas will be discussed using the games of
five superb chess masters: four World Champions and one
crown prince.” Now, let’s give McDonald credit; he does
an excellent job of presenting brief biographies and descriptions
of the players’ styles. In six pages anyone unfamiliar
with Nimzovitch, Capablanca, Petrosian, Karpov or Kramnik will
get a good thumbnail sketch or overview.

But anyone who is familiar with them won’t find much beyond
the familiar. Even the discussion of style remains a bit
too abstract. Only within the text, and there only in a few
places, does McDonald actually differentiate the style – in
position x Capablanca would have played this way, while
Karpov played that way.

And while a case can be made that the five players have
an interlocking heritage: “Petrosian took the ideas of restraint
and prophylaxis (prevention) from Nimzowitsch and greatly
refined them.” (He even slept with a Nimzovitch book,
according to McDonald.) Capablanca won “because he was
far more sensitive to the needs of the pawn structure,”
and Karpov, supposedly the most Capablanca-like modern
player, “gently” probes “his opponent’s pawn structure from a
safe distance until it suddenly falls to pieces.” And Capablanca
and Nimzovitch articulated the modern strategical concepts
their successors refined, while Kramnik appears to be the
synthesis of them all.

So the choice of these five makes sense. And yet. When we

speak of chess strategy, what about Steinitz, Tarrasch,
Rubinstein, Botvinnik, etc.? While one can construct a “family
tree” of these five, others could find their way in just as easily.
The question arises, then, is this book a history about a
particular phase or style of play? Do we look at these “giants
of chess strategy” in a biographical sense, learning chess
history as Kramnik urges, but doing so in a discrete “course
of study”: The History of Strategic Play, as exemplified by its
five principal proponents. (But what of Rubinstein, for example?).

Not really. This is a book about chess strategy. And – let

us assume that the nine elements listed are, if not the
only elements, at least the major elements – that being the
case, why can we not learn about the seventh rank
from Rubinstein? Or planning on a grand scale from Pillsbury
or Lasker? Or pawn structures, majorities, rams, etc.
from Botvinnik? In other words, if the focus is on the elements
of strategy, then other grandmasters might serve as well. If
the focus is on the history of a style – we would not include Tal
in this list, though surely he played many games that
illustrate these strategic concepts, or even, say Smyslov – then
are there not other aspects of the play of these five that
better interconnect them?

Enough. I’ve gone through Chess Secrets: The Giants

of Strategy in great detail for one reason: it’s a book I intend
to re-read. It’s a book that clarified concepts I’ve long known
and often used. It’s a book rich in insights, and a book
whose annotations consistently achieve the difficult – making
the ideas and struggle of a game comprehensible and exciting.

Such a valuable book deserves the most far-reaching

critique, which I hope I’ve provided. Such a valuable book
also deserves the most far-reaching audience. Or, rather,
the chess reading public deserves such a valuable book.

Be prepared to re-read it, though. You’ll want to.

Now, about that index. And editor.

Order Chess Secrets: The Giants of Strategy

by Neil McDonald

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