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Reviews

R. E. Fauber's Impact of Genius

Reviewed by Leopold Lacrimosa

6/30/02

Impact of Genius: 500 Years of Grandmaster Chess by R. E. Fauber. (International Chess Enterprises, Copyright July 1992. 392 + viii pp., 229 commented chess games, 222 chess diagrams.

R. E. Fauber put together, not a game collection, not a study manual, not a how to book, but a history lesson. A lesson that includes games from as far back as the 1500’s from Ruy Lopez, the 1600’s from Gioacchino Greco, the 1700’s from Francois Philidor, to almost the present day with games from Spassky, Larsen and Fischer. With each of these games, Fauber introduces us to the players with brief bios & personal information, fleshing the player out as a full person instead of just a name at the top of a game score, telling us about their trials, triumphs and their defeats - not just in chess, but also in their lives as well.

He tells us about how Morphy in his latter years, after failing as an attorney, flew into rages at the mention of chess. He also tells how Steinitz, who got to come to New Orleans to meet his idol Morphy, was embarrassed, since chess was not allowed to be a topic of their conversation. He lets us in on the famous rivalry between Steinitz and Zukertort. How it came about, grew, and festered to its conclusion.

He brings us to the two schools of dogma between Chigorin & Tarrasch. Fauber also talks about the philosopher & chess player Lasker, whom years after losing the World Championship to Capablanca, was forced to continue playing in tournaments for funds at almost 55 years of age due to the wild inflation of Germany after WWI.

The Americans Pillsbury and Marshall are brought to light as their exploits bring rise to chess in the western world. We are told about Mieses, Janowski, Schlechter, Maroczy, Rubinstein, and Bernstein - names in the annals of chess history whom we’ve heard of, but have been taught little of.

The myth of the “Machine”, Jose Capablanca, is brought to life in Fauber’s book as well as Spielmann, Tartakower and Breyer. He talks to us about the hypermodern players; Richard Reti, Aaron Nimzovich and Bogoljubov, bringing these players to life for the reader and giving us insights into their lives beyond chess.

Extremely interesting is the chapter entitled “The God of War: Alexander Alekhine”, the last and largest of only five chapters of the twenty-two in the book on single individuals. Alekhine was perhaps the most complex of all the world champions, and Fauber does an excellent job telling the reader about this perplexing genius.

Progress of the book continues with the Europeans Euwe and Keres, the Americans Kashdan and Fine, the childhood, life, and death of “Sammy, the chess wunderkind Reshevesky. The Russians Ilyin-Zhenevsky, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Petrosian and Spassky shows what came out of the Soviet School of Chess.

The next to last chapter, including both Bent Larsen and Bobby Fischer, is appropriately called “Heuristic Adventurers”. While the ending chapter of the book “Chess After Fischer” is a short four page commentary on the original three K’s; Karpov, Korchnoi, and Kasparov with mentions of Ivanchuk, Gelfand, Akopian, Kamsky and Judit Polgar.

What I really liked about the book is not necessarily the showing of each player’s best and greatest games, but the games which truly show their individual chess playing styles - what made each and every one a great player above and beyond the average grandmaster. Everything from the original analysis of the Two Knights Defense “Fried Liver Attack” by Polerio 400 years earlier, to Pillsbury's beautiful win over Gunsberg in the last round of the great Hastings tournament of 1895 to clinch first place over the likes of Lasker and Chigorin to name a few. From Frank Marshall's love of gambit play to the solid scientific play of Botvinnik.

If you are interested in the history and lives that created the masterpieces of the games we players study, then this is a book I would recommend for reading. It is not a book where you look at only a few select chapters to find your favorite pet lines of a given system, but a book in which you will spend an enjoyable amount of time as I have, reading it from cover to cover, learning of the richness of the history of our game and its greatest players.

Leopold Lacrimosa
Chess Coach
Scottsdale, Arizona