Instructive Modern Chess Masterpieces

[Javier]

ISBN: 9 781901 983425

Year of publication: 2001

Publisher: Gambit

Pages: 320

 

Stohl is a strong GM from Slovakia.

This is a nice book. Annotations are superb and so is the selection of games, most of them pretty modern.

 

Unfortunately, this book has 2 problems.

 

1- The best annotator of a game is usually (but not always) the player who has played the game himself. None of the games were played by Stohl.

Of course, sometimes you'll come accross games that have been annotated by other palyers and thos annotations are simply outstanding, even much better than the ones written by the player, but Stohl doesn't seem to have included any original ideas of his own. For example, he doesn't suggest too many opening ideas. Not much imagination in his analysis.

 

2- This kind of material is actually not that hard to find. For example, a single copy of chessbase magazine contains hundreds of annotated games.

 

Good job, but not particularly useful for the learning player. Material is not organized in a friendly way.

[Javier]

(Note by the administrator: Although I've managed to recover this post, I can't find who wrote it)

 

 

 

I was also slightly disappointed by this book. As Javier said, it seems to be a very serious, painstaking, and honest work, the games selected are very interesting, but :

 

- I found the comments are very "dry", the overall impression is somewhat boring.

-  I cannot judge about quality and originality of the analytical work, but in some cases it's rather heavy and difficult to follow.

 

I completely agree on the fact that such books cannot really be aimed at strong players (I mean strong club level, 2000 and above), because these players can find more detailed information of this kind elsewhere.

 

But, on the other side, it's not a book for intermediate club players either, because it lacks explanations, and -more probably- paedagogic skill. This very scrupulous, but cold approach doesn't convey any enthousiasm, any feeling of the author about the games he would like us to enjoy.

 

I don't think (your opinion ?) we average players buy such games collections primarily to STUDY chess. You use them (at least I do ) when you come back tired from work or school, and want to enjoy a "nice game game of chess" together with your favorite cup coffee or glass coke... of course you don't expect reading a joke every two lines, but you like reading something lively, and feeling entertained. I'm afraid IGM Stohl's editor missed that !

 

I had the opportunity of buying in the last months two  games collections I consider better, but for completely different reasons  :

 

- "Understanding Chess Move by Move" by IGM John Nunn, published by GAMBIT . Really a good book, with an emphasis on very detailed explanations. A real 30-game lecture on top level chess, but readable by any intermediate player.

 

- " Super Tournaments 2000" published by Chess Stars. The style of this book is not so far from Stohl's ( in my opinion a bit more lively, but it's a rather subjective matter) . The point is that, in 445 pages (Stohl's book has about 320) you have 300 annotated games from the best 2000 tournaments, only between top players. Ok, the analyses are somewhat lighter that in Stohl's book, but, I confess, still quite sufficient for me! And there are comparatively more text annotations ... Finally, sorry to mention this down-to earth detail, the price is only 10% higher ...

 

Vote : 5 points for the serious job, but no more.