The Middlegame - BOOK 2

This new edition is greatly expanded by over 100 games with commentary.

Publisher: ISHI Press
Author: Eric Schiller
Year of Publication: 2012 (Reprint) Pages: 160
Notation Type: Algebraic (AN)


Book Description At the time of the first edition, this opening was just becoming popular in Grandmaster chess. It soon became a hot item and for this edition we had over 20,000 games in our database. Champions of the defense include Grandmasters Agdestein, Dolmatov, Gleizerov (more than 100 games!), Glek, Karlsson, Moskalenko, Nikolic, Ulibin, and Vaisser. The theory is now pretty well established. I recommend that you start by studying the Overview below and looking at the games cited in the next paragraphs. I have concentrated on the lines most frequently seen in high level games. The opening is so absurdly transpositional that there is no way to organize it exhaustively. The most important thing is to note where the pieces usually land. About the Author(s) Eric Schiller (born March 20, 1955 in New York City) is an American chess player, trainer, arbiter and one of the most prolific authors of books on chess in the 20th century. In 1974, Schiller was the Illinois Junior Champion. Schiller played for the University of Chicago team several times at the Pan American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship. He was an organizer of the Hawaii International chess festivals 1994-98 including 1998 US Open California Champion 1995. Later that year, he appeared as a chess adviser for the music group Phish on some of the stops for their "Chess Tour" where they played an ongoing game of two chess moves per tour stop and some "band vs. audience" partial games as part of their stage performance. Schiller was an arbiter at several notable games and championships including the FIDE World Chess Championship 2000. While Vladimir Kramnik and Garry Kasparov opted not to participate in the event, they had both endorsed Schiller for this sensitive role during the planning stages. As of April 2009, Schiller has a FIDE rating of 2166. He is also an International Arbiter and International Trainer. Schiller's expertise and publications in the Flohr-Zaitsev Variation made him a sought-after expert when Gary Kasparov used that opening at the second game at the World Chess Championship 1990.

In 1972, an epic chess match took place in Iceland between representatives of the two great super-powers of the world: Bobby vs. Boris. Boris was backed by the Mighty Soviet Union, with late night phone calls coming from his handlers in Moscow, telling him what his next move should be.

The remarkable increase in strength of chess computers over the last ten years has resulted in a flood of books and articles on programming methods and new approaches to analysing positions.All important articles on the subject have now been collected together in one volume together with the best games by chess computers including the World Computer Championships.

Vladimir Vukovic (26 August 1898, Zagreb – 18 November 1975, Zagreb) was a Croatian chess writer, theoretician, player, arbiter, and journalist. He was awarded the International Master (IM) title in 1951 and International Arbiter (IA) in 1952.He played for Yugoslavia on second board in the 1st Chess Olympiad at London 1927, posting a record of +7?6=2.

This volume includes reprints “The Chess Players”, originally from the October 1953 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The story of Zeno the Rat by Charles Harness faithfully recreates the small chess club atmosphere of 60 years ago.

This book is written in both German and English. Some knowledge of both Classic notation and Algebraic (mainly the latter) is needed to follow all the notes. The book is mainly a series of fairly difficult endgame studies. I went through the book and solved each problem in the manner that the authors suggested in their preface. It helped me win many Chess tournament games that would have otherwise been draws and also draw many games that should have been lost.

Is there any quality common in the world's greatest chess masters, any peculiarity which made them contestants upon that particular parti-coloured board and on no other? Is there, in other words, a chess-mind?