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For example, you can write about the World Champions, as a group, or individually. Then, you can write about them again: there’s always something new to be discovered. Witness, as just one example, The Unknown Capablanca, by Brandreth and Hooper, that came out in 1975; and then was revised and updated in 1993 – leap-frogging Capablanca: A Compendium of Games, Notes, Articles, Correspondence, Illustrations and Other Rare Archival Materials on the Cuban Chess Genius Jose Raul Capablanca, 1888-1942 (1989) by Edward Winter, that had come out in the meantime. There is so much that we do not know about what we do not know about those that we think that we know about...
Sure, we may be aware of the Albin Counter Gambit, 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e5!?, and maybe even know of the Albin-Alekhine-Chatard Attack in the French Defense, 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e5 Nfd7 6.h4. (Ah, but who knows about the Albin-Blackburne Variation in the Philidor Defense?) We may have come across Tomasz Lissowski’s article at the Chess Archeology website, “Adolf Albin: The Teacher of Nimzovich?” but know not much else about this creative and aggressive master. So what is the attraction of the recounting of three years of Albin’s adventures in turn-of-another-century America? Simply put: Chess. Lots of interesting chess, by lots of interesting people. Albin came to the Land of Morphy, “a new Mecca of the chess world,” like Gossip, Lasker, Mackenzie, Mason, Paulsen, Pollack, and Steinitz (among others). He brought a lot of new ideas with him, at one time referring to himself as the chess opening book he relied on. He circulated through the clubs. He played matches with some of the top Americans of the day – Delmar, Hodges and Showalter. He played in the New York International Tournament of 1893, the New York City Chess Club Tournament of 1893, the Staatz-Zeitung Cup of 1894 and the New York City Chess Club Tournament of 1894. After two years – Albin was gone. Urcan’s book moves through the New York chess scene like a camera in a Robert Altman film, following the Romanian master, but catching those around him as well. (As an aside, there are well over 100 illustrations, from Albin through Chigorin, Helms, Judd, Lipschutz, Marshall, Pillsbury and Tarrasch to John Young – just a few name amongst many.) Is that E.N. Olly there? W.H.K. Pollack? Samuel Lloyd? The author lingers, and fills us in on them all. Delmar, Baird, Hanham, Halpern… What happened to Nicolai Jasnogrodsky? Really?? Joe Friday reader-types who want Just the facts, M’am can bypass “Part I: Albin in America” and go on to “Part II: The Chess Games.” Warning, Sgt. Friday: the games are annotated with words, not Informant symbols – and those words further delve into Albin’s chess, and Albin the chessplayer. This is followed by Appendix A. “Adolf Albin: Master of Opening Innovation”; Appendix B. “Albin’s Results in America, July 1893 to June 1895 (Crosstables)”; and Appendix C. “Albin’s Lifetime Tournament and Match Record (Crosstables).” There is a Selected Bibliography, an Index of Players, an Index of Supplementary Games and Positions, an Index of Illustrations, an Index of Openings and a General Index. Add all this to a Foreword by Neil Brennan and the author’s Introduction and the panorama is complete. I found Adolf Albin in America to be a very warm, engaging, readable book, brimming with chess life. Upon reflection, it contains only two games by World Champions: one by Steinitz and one by Lasker, which may put some readers off (be advised). On the other hand, if you are interested in the genesis of an early …a6 in the Slav Defense… (For some background, or just some good reading on chess history, The Kenilworthian Chess Club has links to sixteen of Urcan’s essays, and is worth a visit, for that reason and many others. Their link to Chessville for an interview by Neil Brennan of Urcan works, and here's another to the Chess Journalists of America site.
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