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True Combat Chess uses 27 annotated games, across six chapters – The Critical Move, Opening Preparation, The Endgame and the Clock, Winning the Won Game, Beating a Grandmaster, Underground Innovation – to address issues important to Taylor, and, by inference, his readers. Indeed, the chapters indicate that the target audience for True Combat Chess is strong and improving club players, up to Experts, if not master. Taylor makes the point that while many chess players can solve “find the winning move” problems, chess matches themselves do not have signs that indicate when in the game the “critical move” must be found – so it often is missed. He energetically examines some games (mostly his) to see how one can develop a sense of knowing when the time is right. Too, with the advent of large databases, online chess news services that regularly provide the latest master and grandmaster games, and analytical monsters like Fritz and Rybka, “opening preparation” means a whole lot more than just being sure about where your knights and bishops go – chances are that your opponent will have studied your games, will know your openings and defenses, and will have prepared something special to play against you (as you must, with him or her). Deal with that, young Padawan! On the subject of “openings” readers who like to wander a bit from the chessic mainstream will enjoy the fact that True Combat Chess has games with the following openings: Bird’s Opening, Budapest Gambit, Center Game, Danish Gambit, Dutch Defence, Nimzowitsch Defence and the Trompowsky Attack. Most chess tournaments no longer have adjournments, when play in a game is stopped when a certain number of moves have been reached, to be continued at a later time or date. Usually there is just a faster secondary time control – sometimes a “sudden death” time control. Taylor presents some interesting endgames of his, worked around this new reality of not enough time to finish a game up. (Now, more than ever, knowing how to play certain endgames saves time and effort over figuring-it-all-out-over-the-board.) While I have always found it harder to win a lost game, I agree with the author (and many others) that winning a won game can be quite a challenge, too. Taylor changes pace when he discusses this topic, by annotating games by his wife, Liz, instead of his own. Top players may feel mildly “slighted” by a look at games of a Class player, instead of those of a master; while more average players may find that they understand Ms. Taylor’s games (and thinking and move choices) better, and thus pick up more. The final two chapters are as much a “ride along” as instruction: you see how an International Master prepares to take on stronger players, and how well he does at it. (It turns out that the “secret” to beating a grandmaster is identical to getting to Carnegie Hall. That, and developing “universal chess skill.”) You also learn about a line tested against chess hustlers in the Budapest Subway system. Taylor is both serious and enthusiastic about his chess, and this is reflected in his annotations. When it is necessary to the understanding of a certain position or strategy, he gives additional games for the reader to play over. This is suggestive of “heavy lifting,” and, indeed, work is involved in order to get the most out of True Combat Chess. Readers looking for simply a list of aphorisms are bound to be disappointed, although I’ll give you a few that I gleaned: “DDT – Dubious Development Traumatizes”; “Blitzin’ [in the endgame] Don’t Pay”; “Routine Play Don’t Pay”; and “trust yourself” and don’t calculate unnecessarily.
Is
True Combat Chess for you? If you are not sure, you can check out a few
of
Taylor’s earlier columns (none of them, and none of the older games, are
repeated in the new book) and see what you think.
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