A romp among my chess books - IM Josh Waitzkin

Very rarely, when I find some peace and quiet, I will pull out one of my books from my chess library, and settle down often without a board. The most interesting books are about historical matches, game anthologies of world champions, and miscellaneous high quality game annotations of tournaments. The didactic value of these books varies greatly. What do I, a 1500-1600 player hope to get from reading an annotated game collection of Karpov-Kasparov. I used to think a lot. Practical play has taught me that very little translates directly. Me and my low rated opponent are more likely to overlook in turn, mates in three than to execute a brilliant coup. So, are tactics trainers the answer? There are excellent anthologies from master games to train on tactics, positions where you find the knockout blow. The logic of chess is beautiful, but then you castigate yourself when you fail to spot a tactical shot in your own game.

Separately, many of us club players flounder plan-less or embark on the wrong plan in the middle game. Having literally played over tens of thousands of master games with notes over the decades helps a little, but does not develop your sense of position, or your nose for detail. For this, you read a work like IM Silman's How to Reassess Your Chess, or its companion volume, an elementary buildup of analysis of imbalances in the position as guideposts for active plans. Good coaching for those who can afford it may be a plan in this department.

But, after all the club blunders are done, and you want faith once more in the magic of the game, there are few types of books that speak to a club player. IM Waitzkin's "Attacking Chess" suitable for players from 1250 to 1900 is one such.

The amazing thing about this book is that all games are tactical, it focuses on basic themes like double attack skewer, pins, loading up on pins and provides examples from his own games as a kid. But it does not stop there. It shows positions of increasing complication where you calculate precisely from branching variations to see if you can afford an all-out attack. Examples are too numerous to cite here. But in one case, a white queen must decide whether to leave her king on b1 while going off to set up a mate threat on g7 with pawn and queen. What you have to calculate is a maze of variations where Black brings your b1 king out into the open via a bishop, rook checking kamikaze and chases you around with his Queen. You do not want to allow a perpetual. This is real chess and it is exciting. Multiple examples of Waitzkin are about sac, sac and mate, not in stereotypical positions, but ones where it is vital to see the second wave or third wave of attack. For those who want to hone up on tactics visually while having fun, the entire book can be skimmed by a strong player in about an hour. A strong player would skip over the earlier chapters

By interspersing the personal (for example, after an amazing triple wave of sac attack he won his IM norm, and it was late and his father and he did not want to wake up the sleeping family to share the news. They went on a hunt in the wintry night to find a homeless person and give him 20 dollars to mark the occasion), Josh maintains a connection with the reader. He talks about kids not taking risks. He talks about rating points. He talks about the need to keep learning and to play without pressure, letting it all hang out. When the wins start coming, he says, they will come in a rush and you will go from 2000 to 2200.

In the next post, I will talk about Bent Larsen's famous annotations in his exciting book.