Books of the Month by Ben Graff

The best new writing and the greatest classics under one roof … in association with Forward Chess

‘I always urge players to study composed problems and endgames.’
Pal Benkő

This month we leave behind the world of the tournament hall to focus on three books that explore chess endgames and more abstract compositions.

The seminal The Pawn Study Composer’s Manual by Mikhail Zinar was a sensation in its day. Now updated, it provides a wealth of fresh insight, not only on pawn studies, but also on how to approach the art of composition. Battle of Endgames, by Ray Cannon, covers a variety of practical puzzles that are guaranteed to interest any player. Our classic, The Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes, by Raymond M. Smullyan, takes us into the world of ‘retrograde analysis’, a fiendishly difficult place for even the finest of minds such as Holmes’s.

Chess compositions have a long and distinguished history stretching back over 1000 years. Perhaps conventional over the board players are like novelists who toil away for hours on end, while those who create studies are the poets, often gripped by fleeting moments of inspiration. For me, composers are artists who take abstract fragments from our game and turn them into something magical. They have an imagination and creativity, a spark about them – and the problems they create can inspire, entertain, and educate the rest of us.

Marcel Duchamp once remarked, ‘I always loved complexity. With chess, one creates beautiful problems.’ Yet we will see (particularly in The Pawn Study Composer’s Manual) that very often beauty on the chess board is derived from an apparently impossible simplicity…

When we consider more practical endgame studies, the benefit of study is even more obvious. José Capablanca once remarked, ‘In order to improve your game you must study the endgame before anything else.’ Just about every other World Champion has echoed this advice to club players. Another strong player, Edmar Mendis, wrote: ‘After a bad opening, there is hope for the middle game. After a bad middle game, there is hope for the endgame. But once you are in the endgame, the moment of truth has arrived.’

Our ‘moment of truth’ is now upon us. It is time to delve into these works, with their wonderful combination of the practical and the miraculous.

The Pawn Study Composer’s Manual
by Mikhail Zinar (updated and edited by Sergei Tkachenko) – Elk and Ruby

‘Everything ingenious is simple.’
Mikhail Zinar

There are many books on offer that are filled with endgame studies. What makes this one different is that, as well as containing over 400 compositions, Zinar also teaches the readers how to create studies of their own. First published over thirty years ago and now updated, this is a highly original and innovative work that is worthy of serious examination.

Zinar led a fascinating life. He started out as an aeronautical engineer before his passion for chess composition led him to focus on the game. He took up the post of trainer at a youth sports school, and it appears for a while that his circumstances were such that, in the evening, he would clear away the chess tables and sleep on the floor. Zinar would build a reputation as one of the finest composers in the world, revered both by his peers in the field and by the more general Soviet chess-playing public.

In 1987 the USSR would award Zinar the Master of Sports title, but around 1990 he disappeared, and rumours abounded that he was dead. Fortunately, this proved not to be the case, but Zinar’s talent appeared to bring him little in the way of material gains. He was still working as a teacher on very poor money and told Siegfried Hornecker that the cost of postage to submit his work was beyond him, lamenting ‘Who needs our illusionary art nowadays?’

A renaissance would follow, during which much new work would be created, and Zinar won a bronze medal in the 3^rd FIDE World Cup in Composing, in 2013. He would be involved in the discussions regarding the update of this book, but sadly, ‘an inveterate smoker,’ he would pass away for real before this project came to fruition.

Zinar highlights that the formal requirements of a study are ‘legality, solvability, and uniqueness of solution’. The key artistic obligations are: ‘(1) Expressiveness of the idea – the clear identification of the main line, which explains the very purpose of the main line… (2) Efficiency of the form… The author’s idea should be executed with the minimal possible means… (3) The Beauty of the solution. The hardest possible idea to explain… Nobody is stopping you from constructing unwieldy, obviously artificial structures, and if an unusual position is won by unusual moves, then so be it. However, when “miracles” start to happen in a simple-looking position, it looks much more spectacular!’

What I particularly liked was the way in which the chapters of The Pawn Study Composer’s Manual are structured to step through the formal and artistic requirements of composition in a way that builds logically. The sections cover in turn: ‘Basic Tactics, Study Ideas, Artistic Requirements for Endgame Studies, The Practice of Study Composition and Composition Tests.’

Concepts analysed within these segments include basic manoeuvres, the tortoise move, roundabout way, feint, and the double king threat.  Richard Réti’s contribution to the genre is also explored. Zinar says of Réti’s double-threat composition (white king h8, white pawn c6, black king a6, black pawn h5 – White to play and draw): ‘The creation of this masterpiece was built on top of the entire history of chess composition… The idea that Richard Réti used as the foundation of his immortal study, as with any other idea in life, spreads its threads both into the past and into the future. It had a long pedigree and served as a source of inspiration for many copiers and followers.’

This single puzzle seems to defy logic and is worthy of deep study if you are not already familiar with it. Zinar notes that the ‘miracle’ of the draw occurs because ‘We are accustomed to the notion that the shortest way between two points is a straight line. However, on the chess board, the shortest way need not be straight.’

Not only was The Pawn Study Composer’s Manual originally published in Ukraine, but Tkachenko notes also that the update was created ‘…in conditions of war, with my city [Odesa] being regularly bombed, which considerably slowed progress!’ So this effort must stand as another tribute to the creativity and resilience of the Ukrainian people, who continue to produce first-rate art in the face of war and oppression.

Battle of Endgames – 1066 Stratagems For You To Conquer
by Ray Cannon

‘The endgame is a prime arena for the emergence of error through lack of practice, and even elite grandmasters can miss the unsuspected anti-initiative resource that would have secured the rescue draw or shock win.’
Julian Simpole – quoted in ‘Battle of Endgames’

Ray Cannon has been a regular presence on the tournament circuit for many years. As a well-respected coach at Richmond Junior Chess Club for over a decade, his love of the game and desire to educate others runs deep.

Ray’s passion for practical endgame stratagems is long-standing, and the positions he has identified for study have captured the imagination of solvers for many years. As far back as the Karpov vs Kasparov world title match in 1986, Ray noted that he was ‘… surprised to see that photocopied sheets of puzzle positions that I had produced were being used in special competitions laid  on for spectators.’ It could be argued that his book has been a long time coming, and it is definitely worth the wait.

Battle of Endgames takes positions from various sources including newspaper cuttings, books, and magazines, in some instances simplified and modified by Ray, along with several original compositions. The studies are quite practical in nature, and this is the sort of book that you could happily work through on a train or a bus without the need of a chessboard. Without question, doing so will inevitably improve the reader’s endgame play, as well as giving many hours of entertainment.

Books must ultimately be judged on their substance, rather than their form, and I think this is an instance where the content is superior to the presentation. The puzzles themselves are compelling, and Ray sets the solutions out very lucidly. However, I think co-ordinates on the diagrams would have been helpful, and I’m not sure that it necessarily makes it easier for the reader that half the puzzles are for Black, with the black pieces at the bottom of the page. The 1066 theme does not really extend beyond the title, and it is possible that Ray could have done more (or perhaps less) with this.

However, these are minor quibbles. This is still a nicely presented book which any chess player will enjoy. In the age of the computer, Ray has demonstrated the enduring power of an endgame problem on the printed page. This is a great opportunity to enter the world of a true practitioner and coach, and to learn with him. I would recommend Battle of Endgames to anyone who wants to either consciously improve their endgame play or to simply have fun with a host of interesting endgame positions.

The Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes
by Raymond M. Smullyan - (Alfred. A. Knopf, Inc)

‘Holmes’s expression grew grave. “Logic,” he replied, “is a most delicate – a most fragile – thing. Powerful as it is when used correctly, the least deviation from strict reasoning can produce the most disastrous consequences.”’
Dr Watson

It should come as little surprise to learn that Sherlock Holmes had a keen interest in chess. Who could have guessed, though, that the conventional game was not entirely to his taste? Rather, he focused his attention on ‘retrograde analysis’ – problems concerning the history of the encounter.

In other words, ‘…you might exhibit a position in which one of the pieces is dropped … and the problem is to figure out what piece it is… It is even possible … to prove that White has mate in two moves from a certain position, while at the same time, it is impossible to show the mate! Unbelievable as this may sound, it is true.’ It is difficult to argue with Holmes’s view that such problems ‘live on the borderline between logic and chess’.

I had not previously heard of Raymond Smullyan’s book, but my interest was piqued by a discussion on the English Chess Forum, and I very much enjoyed reading this over the holiday period. Raymond Smullyan was a renowned mathematician who wrote more than thirty works, many of which focused on recreational mathematics – The Chess Mysteries of the Arabian Knights is his other chess offering. Smullyan was also a philosopher, musician, and historian, who lived to the age of ninety-seven and has undoubtedly left an impressive legacy behind. The Chess Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes is not a traditional problem book, but is very enjoyable, nonetheless.

Narrated by Dr Watson, Smullyan nicely captures the tone of Conan Doyle. Many problems are solved in gentlemen’s clubs or the grand libraries of country houses over port and cigars, and the writing style is excellent. The story culminates in a sea voyage to recover stolen treasure, which is nicely done and will most likely make the reader smile. In terms of the actual chess, consisting of fifty retrograde puzzles, this is the sort of book that it is easy to dip in and out of, and it certainly had me scratching my head.

I was not alone on this front. Dr Watson, when faced with one particularly difficult puzzle, remarked: ‘Really, Holmes, this is the most remarkable problem you have shown me yet! Who invented this masterpiece? “Moriarty,” was the thunderously unexpected reply. “Good God, no!” I gasped. “Oh yes, Watson! And it is hardly surprising, you know. The problem has the sort of diabolical simplicity which was so much a part of Moriarty’s nature.”’

The retrograde problems span scenarios where the solver is invited to establish the direction of travel, the last move, the square a captured piece was on, and challenges where no piece has moved from a white square to a black square (or vice versa), which are known as monochromatic problems. In addition, questions as to whether a player can legally castle, and about ambiguously placed pawns and promotion are also explored.

How much the reader will get from a book like this really depends on your level of fascination with the more abstract possibilities inherent in our game. I must confess, as someone who struggles enough with normal chess, that there were various problems that I half-looked at and was happy enough to then jump to Holmes’s very eloquent answer. While some readers will undoubtedly care more about the puzzles than others, it seems likely that a thorough study of these challenges would most likely sharpen up any over-the-board player.

I did have a quibble with the Dover edition reprint of the original Alfred. A. Knopf, Inc publication that I purchased,  namely that the diagrams are not of great quality. There are several positions where if a white piece is on a black square, it is not always easy to immediately ascertain that it is in fact a white chess piece. It is no huge issue if you take the time to look carefully or are working through the problems with an actual chessboard, but it could be more of a challenge for those analysing the problems straight from the page.

That said, this is a delightful and intriguing book, well outside the mainstream and all the better for its sheer quirkiness and originality. At one point Holmes suggests to Watson that they take ‘another stroll to the chess club?’ Watson replies, ‘Why, certainly’ … ‘delighted with the possibility of another little adventure.’ There are many such little adventures to be had in the company of Holmes and Watson within the pages of this fascinating work.