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Chess Secrets: Great Attackers: Learn from Kasparov, Tal and Stein (Everyman Chess)
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$ 21.02
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$ 26.95 |
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$ 5.93 (22%) |
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| Item Number |
726423 |
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Item Description...
Product Description
Colin Crouch studies his favorite attacking players, and highlights all the important themes of one of the most crucial elements of the game.
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Item Specifications...
Pages 272
Dimensions: Length: 8.98" Width: 5.98" Height: 0.71"
Weight: 0.93 lbs.
Binding Softcover
Release Date Apr 1, 2009
ISBN 1857445791
EAN 9781857445794
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Availability 2 units.
Availability accurate as of Feb 07, 2012 03:49.
Usually ships within one to two business days from Momence, IL.
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Reviews - What do our customers think?
 | Much analysis, little explanation Aug 6, 2009 |
It is always fun to read about the wins of great attacking players, and this book does the job fairly well. It gives plenty of comments and analysis, as well as showing the limelight on a great, but relatively unknown player in Leonard Stein. My chief complaint with this book is that the analysis is far too complicated for anyone who is not a master to understand. Often, Crouch will show a line in which white loses a piece for no visible compensation and end with '...and white is better.' Sure we could call up our friend Joe Grandmaster and analyze the entire book with him, or we could go to Rybka and be even more mystified with its evaluation of the position, but most people don't personally know a grandmaster and some don't have Rybka (not that it would help much). This is a good book if you want to see some games of Stein, which is fun, but it is not necessary reading, and is very difficult if you are below 2000 USCF.
| | |  | WORTHLESS!!!! Jul 1, 2009 |
| The reason I bought this book was because the Previous edition in the Chess Secrets Series was really good. That copy authored by Neil McDonald covering Chess Strategy following Nimzo, Capa, Petrosion, and Kramminik led me to beleive the next issue on attacking chess wouldn't dissapoint. Collin Grouch did a great job of dissapointing. Despite the countless typos the games chosen aren't really interesting two to three are acttually good choices but most aren't that entertaining. Maybe Im wrong or its the authors writting that does them no justice. He decide to choose games by peroids of time mostly the 1970's wich voids earlier Tal and more recent Kasparov matches. He probably did this because he didn't want to duplicate other works by other authors from everyman chess but seriously weakened his choice of games. He even shows a game where Stein lost a match to Karpov. I guess there is merrit to show a faltering attack but I didn't pay good money to see one of the chosen heroes lose Im sure he could of found a better game. Another problem in his annotations he copiess other authors notes or chess magazines and makes alot of moves by Fritz wich when all put together will end up boring the reader. Youre probbably better off reading the books in his biblioraphy its the same thing minus Fritz. No instructional value whatsoever he just strings along long variations with comments like white is slightly better or he should of tired 25 Bb7 with another 30 move variation. He never highlights any key attacking themes like the backcover promises. Waste of money. | | |  | A different take on the attack May 29, 2009 |
This book follows Neil McDonald's Giants of Strategy in the Chess Secrets series. Subtitled "Learn from Kasparov, Tal, and Stein," the book focuses on three attacking players with very different styles of attack, focusing on games from the 1970's to develop a broader understanding of the attack.
Two things make this book worthwhile. First, Crouch examines 31 attacking games to develop his idea that there are three different ideas of how to play for the attack, based on the amount of speculation the player prefers. He likens this to playing poker. For example, he demonstrates that Tal was almost eager to sacrifice pieces on pure speculation. He analyzes a win against Spassky where the latter ducks a sacrifice that was, in fact, losing -- hardly a novel win in Tal's career! Tal was always very ready to enter complicated attacks in which neither he nor his opponent could tell whether it was a bluff. By contrast, he shows that early in his career, Kasparov was just as committed to the attack as Tal, but focused instead on sacrificing pawns for clear piece mobility. Rarely did Kasparov invest a piece unless he could essentially calculate his way to a win. And Stein's style was even more conservative -- if this can be said of any attacking player. Stein's method was to develop a superior position and then break it wide open, usually without a sacrifice at all. All three players were known as ferocious attackers, but of three very different kinds, based on their willingness to gamble.
Second, this book complements McDonald's book. McDonald's focus on strategy develops themes that mostly involve play with pawns and rooks. Indeed, play with pawns and rooks seems to exemplify strategic and positional play. By contrast, Crouch's book naturally focuses on active minor piece play complemented by queen activity. Between the two of them, they give the student an excellent overview of the middlegame.
Colin Crouch's last book was on the art of defense, focusing on games by Lasker and Petrosian, and is without doubt the best book ever written on defense. While not up to the previous standard (perhaps because attack has received more attention from other writers), "Great Attackers" is a worthwhile book to study.
For further study and mastery of the attack, the following are also excellent.
1) Mihail Marin's Secrets of Attacking Chess, which focuses on the trade-offs between material and development, and draws out a lot of original ideas.
2) Jacob Aagaard's Attacking Manual, which develops several common attacking themes that together would suffice to strengthen the attacking play of any amateur; this is the most comprehensive single-volume work on the attack since Vukovic.
3) Dunnington's Understanding the Sacrifice, which, in addition to covering various types of sacrifice, offers the best overview yet of the use of color complexes in the attack.
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