History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

The Immortal Game: A History of Chess, or How 32 Carved Pieces on a Board Illuminated Our Understanding of War, Art, Science and the Human Brain

Average customer rating:

A Wonderful Book About the World of Chess...
SImply Outstanding!
A personal and rather shallow book
A Fun, Not Technical, Chess History -- and MORE!!
We're living through a mini golden age for chess literature

The Immortal Game: A History of Chess, or How 32 Carved Pieces on a Board Illuminated Our Understanding of War, Art, Science and the Human Brain
David Shenk
Manufacturer: Doubleday
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0385510101
Release Date: 2006-09-05

Book Description

Why has one game, alone among the thousands of games invented and played throughout human history, not only survived but thrived within every culture it has touched? What is it about its thirty-two figurative pieces, moving about its sixty-four black and white squares according to very simple rules, that has captivated people for nearly 1,500 years? Why has it driven some of its greatest players into paranoia and madness, and yet is hailed as a remarkably powerful intellectual tool?

Nearly everyone has played chess at some point in their lives. Its rules and pieces have served as a metaphor for society, influencing military strategy, mathematics, artificial intelligence, and literature and the arts. It has been condemned as the devil’s game by popes, rabbis, and imams, and lauded as a guide to proper living by other popes, rabbis, and imams. Marcel Duchamp was so absorbed in the game that he ignored his wife on their honeymoon. Caliph Muhammad al-Amin lost his throne (and his head) trying to checkmate a courtier. Ben Franklin used the game as a cover for secret diplomacy.

In his wide-ranging and ever-fascinating examination of chess, David Shenk gleefully unearths the hidden history of a game that seems so simple yet contains infinity. From its invention somewhere in India around 500 A.D., to its enthusiastic adoption by the Persians and its spread by Islamic warriors, to its remarkable use as a moral guide in the Middle Ages and its political utility in the Enlightenment, to its crucial importance in the birth of cognitive science and its key role in the aesthetic of modernism in twentieth-century art, to its twenty-first-century importance in the development of artificial intelligence and use as a teaching tool in inner-city America, chess has been a remarkably omnipresent factor in the development of civilization.

Customer Reviews:

A Wonderful Book About the World of Chess... .......2007-10-02

and what an interesting world it is. An insightful look at the history, pyschology, philosophy, and implications for the future of the world's oldest and greatest game.

This book should please chess lovers, as it is a rare thing in the crowded gamut of chess books... a broad survey of the game. Many of us play the game, and we study chess books and chess software, we play computer progams and human opponents, but perhaps we do not stop to look at the game from a distance. This book does that for us. And there is much we can learn, in my opinion.

Mr. Shenk is a talented and capable writer, and he has done his work well. He builds on his personal relationship with the game. While he is not an avid player, his great great great grandfather was a Grandmaster. The book is a fun to read and a page turner, and while it delights, it also instructs. Not so much as how to play the game, but perhaps why.

Chess is the world's 3rd biggest sport. It was supposed to be killed by the computer - and yet paradoxically the computer has greatly enhanced the game. It is one of the oldest games and yet it defies mastery. This book looks at this and more, from wacky Grandmasters to precocious school kids and dedicated patzers. It examines the history of chess in ancient Persia, to Bobby Fischer versus Spassky in Iceland to Big Blue versus Kasparof in New York.

Most chess books place the game of chess under a "microscope" - they analyze one specific aspect of the game, by breaking the game into pieces with diagrams and algebraic notion. This book is so welcome and necessary because it looks at the big picture of chess... from a distance, through the years, chess through a "telescope".

My only critique is that I wish the book had been even longer!
This book will be of interest to all, from chess expert to novice to the non-player who merely wants an entertaining education about the world's greatest game.

SImply Outstanding!.......2007-09-17

What an outstanding read - part documentary, history, biography and mystery novel. David Shenk has stimulated all of my mental faculities by writing was is arguably one of the most compelling chess history book ever written. From Novice to Grand Master, lots of good moves within this read. Thank you for a job well done!

A personal and rather shallow book.......2007-08-19

Readers looking for a decent history of chess won't find it in this book. They will find a highly personal account of the author's chess experiences and rather indulgent reflections on those experiences, and a grab-bag of topics with some historical connection to chess - but treated in a superficial and almost journalistic style.

The last chapter (Chess and the future of human intelligence) is particularly trivial. Shenk observes a group of kids in an American Chess in Schools program. It is pure mawkisness - perhaps I should say silliness. Dialog is recorded verbatim. Portentious claims are made.

What makes the book interesting is that Shenk intersperses a famous chess game (The Immortal Game between Anderssen and Kieseritzky in 1851) among the otherwise forgettable chapters. One rushes through the chapters just to get to the next phase of this gripping chess game. This was an excellent device to inject interest into what could easily have been a dry, technical account.

The book will interest readers with no knowledge of chess, but who are curious about it and just want an entertaining and interesting read with minimum intellectual demands upon them. Readers who want a more scholarly and coherent account of chess should look elsewhere.

A Fun, Not Technical, Chess History -- and MORE!!.......2007-07-08

When I got this book, my wife took one look at the title and laughed. "A history of chess? Have fun with that." A lot of people will think that about this book, and that's a shame. The Immortal Game is far more than a history of chess.

Shenk does cover a lot of the history of chess. He traces the roots of the game to the Middle East, and traces its spread throughout Europe. But he traces the history of chess through how it is used - chess is used as a metaphor throughout history, and what it serves as a metaphor for tells us a lot about each time period.

Muslims enjoyed chess because it was not a game of chance. It emphasized the idea of personal responsibility and free will over strict determinism and fatalism. Medieval Christians embraced this symbolism as well, even as they changed the pieces to suit their own society (the Elephant of the Muslim game became the Bishop in Christian Europe, for example). Shenk tells of a Dominican monk who wrote what many consider the most influential chess book of all time -- Liber de moribus hominum et officiis nobilium as popularium sive super ludo sacchorum -- which translates as The Book of Morals of Men and the Dutie of Nobles and Commoners, or On The Game of Chess.

Shenk sees chess as a metaphor for life, and the responsibilities of each member of society. He goes so far as to justify the movement of each piece by the role its namesake played in society. Even today, chess is used by psychologists studying human thought processes and how intelligence develops. Computer scientists teach their supercomputers chess in an effort to simulate human consciousness and develop truly artificial intelligence. Elementary school children are taught chess to develop creative thinking skills. Each era adopts chess as its own metaphor, and the game continues to flourish.

Interspersed with the history of the game, Shenk offers a play-by-play of "The Immortal Game," a practice game played by Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kiesseritzky in 1851. The game began as something of little consequence, played between two acquaintances as they were waiting for the next game of their match, but quickly became something of note. The game has been studied by chess students ever since - Kiesseritzky even published a report in his own chess magazine immediately after it was over.

The Immortal Game is a history of the game of chess, but it's more than just a history. It's an attempt to answer the question, why chess? What has made this game so popular? Why has it lasted for over a thousand years? It's a study of the use of metaphor throughout history. It's a discussion of what intelligence really is. And it's an encouragement to novice chess players all over the world that there is a reason to study this game.

We're living through a mini golden age for chess literature.......2007-03-22

There have been a number of chess books published recently, most of them in expensive hardback format: Bobby Fischer vs. Russians, Kasparov's My Illustrious Predecessors, even Shahade's uneven Chess Bitch. Now add to those titles The Immortal Game, a great overview of chess by David Shenk. The author became interested in chess rather late, and he'll never be a great player, and he knows it. But that doesn't mean the game can't be fascinating. One of the things to take away from this book is you don't have to be a Grandmaster to get a lot of out chess.

The book follows the history of the game as it also tracks one famous encounter between two chess players in 1851. Dubbed "The Immortal Game," it sums up what is so magical about chess--its unpredictability, its sudden reversals, and the feeling that no matter how much you play it, you will never fathom its depths. That's also the point Shenk drives home in the part of the book not devoted to the game, as he looks at how chess has shaped thinking on everything from math to science to social class to warfare to art to computers to psychology. He talks about great achievements brought about by chess, and the game's darker side, which has led to more than one case of madness, more than one suicide, and a reclusive American genius' raving anti-semite comments. No other game, he argues, has impacted the world as much, and few have lasted as long.

This is a well-written book, and very engaging. It does not have to be read by a person deeply-immersed in, and it's not overly-technical. I have to quibble a little about his insistence that chess geniuses are made and not born. While I don't doubt that thousands of hours puts the Garry Kasparovs and Susan Polgars of the world ahead of the rest of us, he ignores the fact that many other a would-be champ devoted equal effort to the game and failed miserably. He also doesn't seem to get that much of the "research" that has "proven" effort over aptitude is effected and infused by social and PC bias of the time, just as research on the subject half a century ago was similarly biased in the other direction. We seem to hesitate to say there may be a "chess gene" because the game is predominantly male and almost completely excludes certain racial groups. Be honest and ask yourself if we'd approach the sport of basketball with the same convictions.

Overall this is a very good book, however, and I recommend it for both the devoted fan and the casual, as well as curious, person, as a fine entertainment. Hopefully we are seeing a chess-publishing revival in the book world, and renewed interest in the game in the U.S.

Endgame Virtuoso Anatoly Karpov: The Superb Endgame Skills of the 12th World Champion

Average customer rating:

Endgame Virtuoso Anatoly Karpov: The Superb Endgame Skills of the 12th World Champion
Tibor Karolyi , and Nick Aplin
Manufacturer: New in Chess
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 905691202X

Book Description

Anatoly Karpov's legendary endgame technique has always been something of an enigma. Karpov became worldchampion 1975 (having been preceded by Bobby Fischer). He managed to win positions which nearly everybody else estimated as a draw with his fine end game technique. This book for the first time takes a close look at this end game technique, ex plaining the finer points better than Karpov himself has ever cared to do. A very in structive and en tertaining book.

Searching for Bobby Fischer: The Father of a Prodigy Observes the World of Chess

Average customer rating:

Chess is Life
Young Fischer
A Book For All Chess Players - Good Read
superb ! excpet couple of chapters
Pretty Good Book

Searching for Bobby Fischer: The Father of a Prodigy Observes the World of Chess
Fred Waitzkin
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Accessories:

Chessmaster 7000

ASIN: 0140230386

Amazon.com

Searching for Bobby Fischer is the story of Fred Waitzkin and his son Josh, from the moment six-year-old Josh first sits down at a chessboard until he competes for the national championship. Drawn into the insular, international network of chess, they must also navigate the difficult waters of their own relationship. All the while, Waitzkin wonders about and searches for the elusive Bobby Fischer, whose myth still dominates the chess world and profoundly affects Waitzkin's dreams for his son.

Customer Reviews:

Chess is Life.......2006-01-13

Searching for Bobby Fischer is a skillfully woven set of vignettes that tell two stories, really. One, of course, is the story of his and his son Josh's discovery of the boy's precocious chess talent, the other the story of the chess environment in the US and the effect of Bobby Fischer's legacy on US chess.

Reading the other reviews I find it hard to understand what some people complain about in the book. For instance, the Russian trip had great importance, both as a contrast to the chess community in the US, and because it was a formative event in the life of the main subject of the book. How do you just leave something like that out?

The actual "search" near the end of the book is truly a beautiful, bittersweet interlude that serves to put under the glaring light of truth the amorphous, romanticized legend of Bobby Fischer. It's a dirty, confusing little search that goes nowhere, and is a telling metaphor for the life course of the once legendary champion.

One important comparison to the movie is the recounting of the Nationals that Josh finally wins. While what they put in the movie was exciting, to me it was nothing like the vibrant, tense denoument in the book. The come from behind save Josh pulled out in real life is the stuff of little legends all on its own.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable book, front to back, poignant, with the ring of truth on every page. I can't recommend enough to both chess players and non-players alike.

Young Fischer.......2006-01-09

Ever since the elusive disappearance of chess genius Bobby Fischer, who beat Russian Boris Spassky in 1972 for the world championship, the only American to do so, parents all over the United States have wondered if their little sons and daughters would someday have the potential to be the next Fischer. Searching for Bobby Fischer by Fred Waitzkin is the true story of Fred and his son Josh. In New York City, the only place for serious chess players in the US, Josh discovered chess one day in Washington Square Park. Soon after he began playing he was pronounced a prodigy and taken under the wing of one of the best chess teachers in the country, Bruce Pandolfini. Fred is infatuated with his son's potential and gets drawn into the crazy and obsessive world of chess. The book chronicles the years from when Josh begins playing until he wins the national championship. Along the way Fred travels to Moscow to watch the long awaited match of Karpov and Kasparov, two chess titans, and opposite sides of the same coin. Fred realizes the truth of what being a professional player means and how hard it is the US. He's confused about his longing for Josh to be a great player and how he obsesses so much over it. Deep down he knows Josh is not as good as Fischer, and even if he was how can you compete with these Russian players who are exposed to the game forty to fifty hours a week? Throughout this journey Fred discovers both the glory and failure in being a chess parent of a talented player, and shares his worries, fears, and hopes for his son. I highly recommend this groundbreaking story.

This book captures all the feelings and emotions of being the parent of a precocious child. On one hand, you want them to live a well-rounded life. But on the other hand, your thoughts drift to untold glory and tournaments to be won. You want the child to study and work hard and it's easy to get caught up in immediate results. Then you worry your kid's not having fun or you've pushed them too hard. Especially for chess, a parent has to wonder, why do I care so much about my child's gift, I've seen professional chess players and the dreadful lives they lead. Even the very best players cope with miserable conditions. Unlike a tennis prodigy, for a chess player there's no pot of gold at the end. But week after week these parents take their brilliant kids to tournaments and spend a weekend holed up in a stuffy hotel. They cannot understand their feelings or why they do this, but what if their son or daughter is the next Bobby Fischer?

Searching for Bobby Fischer is not only about chess. It describes the delicate relation between Fred and his son. At first, Josh is a genius. He can do no wrong and wins everything. Kids tremble when they play him. At the nationals, he'll be ranked number one. He is unstoppable. And then Josh loses at the nationals to a little kid with a much lower rating. He crushes Josh in less than twenty minutes. Fred and Bruce cannot understand what went wrong. Fred is confused and wonders why he pushes his son so hard. For six months Josh doesn't want to play and Fred fears this is the end. He feels awful about liking his son more when he wins and thinking how boring Josh's life would be without chess. Soon Fred and Bruce realize what needs to be done and the following year Josh wins the national championship. Fred starts to begin understanding the feelings he has about Josh and chess.

The chapters about Moscow and world championship match between Karpov and Kasparov are fascinating. Karpov is loved by the Soviet Union and has many powerful political connections. Kasparov is more the rebel, outspoken against Karpov and the government. Half of the battle for the title is political and psychological. Rumors that Karpov would poison Kasparov at any cost abound. It is well known in a previous match Karpov employed a hypnotist to sit in the third row and during the game hypnotize his opponent. Kasparov argues bitterly against Karpov having his team of seconds and trainers offer him drinks during the game. He says the drink could contain a message, such as they found a winning line and he should adjourn the game (in those days adjournments for very long games were allowed, meaning the game would be stopped and continued in a few hours), or a long struggle was ahead and he shouldn't drink anything to make him crash. Also, people say Karpov would regularly bribe Kasparov's seconds and trainers to give his team their opening secrets or just rob Kasparov of a critical trainer. Due to his smaller team, instead of preparing Kasparov would have to get on the phone to block Karpov's latest move. Just for the record, Kasparov won the match after six brutal months.

Searching for Bobby Fischer is a fast and thoughtful read. Fred movingly conveys his hopes and dreams for his son, and opens a world up that many people didn't even know existed. A truly good book.

A.M.

A Book For All Chess Players - Good Read.......2005-08-24

This book has the championship chess presence like "The Queen's Gambit" by Tevis and the scholastic excitement of "The Chess Team" by Sawaski - The others are fiction, but what sets this book (SFBF) apart is that it is a real story. However, the title is a hair misleading. This book really has nothing at all to do with the real Bobby Fischer (Former World Chess Champion) - but rather about chess prodigy and future chess grandmaster Josh Waitzkin.

The book itself is very much different from the movie and although the movie was very well done and one of my favorites of all time, the book is outstanding and should be read even if you watched the movie. If you play chess or like to teach chess, this book is highly useful for experience. The whole work just flows nicely and you get excited for Josh on his trials and tribulations. It is a quality book, with interesting experiences and I highly recommend it to all.

superb ! excpet couple of chapters.......2005-07-15

superb book!

postives:

1. insights into everything it covers
chess world, inights into a chess parent
2. smooth reading
3. the suspense in the last chapter itself is worth 5 starts
4. honest expressions about his feelings and his ideas
about others
5. the expression of the dilemma within him (or any chess
parent) on where this is headed.

negative:

1. couple of chapters seemed boring (irrelevant) at times,
but that could be me looking to get ahead with story
of him and his prodigal son.

Pretty Good Book.......2005-06-17

I read this book, and I think the movie is better. This book is about the father of a young boy named Josh Waitzkin, who is a chess prodigy. I think the main problem in this book is that it doesn't talk about Josh as much as it should. Also, I think there were just a few inappropriate things that didn't need to be written. Its a pretty good book.

Note on Josh Waitzkin

It's sad that Josh Waitzlin quit chess. I think he quit because everyone thought he was going to be the next bobby fischer, and deep down he knew he wasn't. He was an International Master at age 16 while Bobby Fischer was a Grandmaster at age 16. The even more sad thing was in a newspaper article, he said he would never quit because he would never want to think about what he could have been. Also, in his book Josh Waitzkin's attacking chess, he wrote that when a prodigy grows up, they may hit a wall. Some people may say he never had it, some may say he never will. But the prodigy should keep going. Anyway, he quit at a ration in the low 2400's.

World Champion Openings (World Champion Series)

Average customer rating:

A very worthwhile opening book with lots of neat analysis!
Mediocre at best. Okay for beginners but lacks detail
Excellent reference book - must have
Enjoyable thou not a must have
A great addition for beginners and tournament players alike!

World Champion Openings (World Champion Series)
Eric Schiller
Manufacturer: Cardoza
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0940685698

Customer Reviews:

A very worthwhile opening book with lots of neat analysis!.......2005-11-25

This is one of Mr. Schiller's best books! If you really want to get some new ideas in the openings then this book is worth considering. It has a lot of different type of analysis. Don't just get a standard opening text like MCO without getting "World Champion Openings" to go along with it!

Mediocre at best. Okay for beginners but lacks detail.......2003-10-06

World Champion Openings by Eric Shiller is not a good book. Eric Shiller rountinely criticsized for the vast amount of errors in his books.

Good points:
It is easy to read. It gives a nice simple overview of the major openings so you can learn the basic response to many openings. If you have no concept about any openings and are a absolute beginner, this is a okay book to buy.

Bad points:
It lacks detail or options. For many the variations to each opening, he only gives one line. Then it wastes too much time and space going over a whole example game. You're not buying a book to learn the middlegame though.

For example, the Caro-Kann defense Advance variation. After "1.e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5..." The next move he gives is "c5." Well what if you opponent plays something else? He admits, that "c5" isn't even the best move, but this is the only move he talks about. What about "Bf5"? What should you do then? Then he plays out whole annotated game between Tal-Botvinnik. Why it's a book about openings?

He should spend more time talking about different variations of openings and/or potential traps and less time analyzing entire games. If you are buying for a beginner, it could be considered, but otherwise, get Modern Chess Openings or Nunn's Chess Openings.

Excellent reference book - must have.......2003-01-26

This is a "must-have" for those who are striving to get into the 1000~1500 rating (USCF rating) range. This serves as a good reference and many variations are reviewed and discussed. After he gives the moves for several variations, he gives us an analysis which is benefitial to your game in chess. Many of the openings in this book may not be used commonly - that's why it is helpful surprising your opponent in which moves you play in the opening. It is worth your expense.

Enjoyable thou not a must have.......2001-12-31

I have been going through this book recently while looking for some new openings to try out. Schiller does a good job of showing the openings that World Champions like to play, and shows some nice sample games from each of the openings.

One thing that I like about the book is that you can go through each of the games, and get a point of how the openings work, and what the main purpose is without having to look at a ton of variations, which (for me at least) often leads to to forget what was going on in the main game. I was able to go through the games rather quickly and painlessly.

This is a good gentle introduction to the most common openings. I also enjoyed that some non common openings were shown, such as when Tony Miles played 1. ..h6 against 1. e4 against World Champion Anatoly Karpov - and won! This was probably my favorite game in the book.

Schiller writes for Joe Chessplayer the average guy, who is looking to learn more about chess, but not neccessarily be obsessive about it. I think he is very readable. After finishing this book I ordered Standard Chess Openings and Unorthodox Chess Openings from Amazon. I look forward to them.

...

This book is not a must own, like Logical chess move by move, but it is not a waste of money if you are looking to explore some new openings in a painless manner.

A great addition for beginners and tournament players alike!.......2000-08-05

A thorough, exemplary work, Schiller expounds on the essential openings requisite to any blossoming chessplayer's repertoire.

There are many great features I find appealing about it.

One, the book is very clear. The book pictorially presents the moves in each of the openings providing the reader with far more than just a tedious list of annotated moves.

In addition, the book is very direct. Instead of trying to explain myriad openings, it qualifies its efforts to concentrate strictly on those openings which are considered the most essential so you don't overwork yourself like a mad man. And moreover, the openings are explained not just move-by-move but also by means of an explanation of the motives and skill factors needed of the chessplayer to successfully execute each opening.

Each opening is presented with de facto games played by leading grandmasters including Fischer, Kasparov, Karpov, etc. The book explicitly identifies where moves by such grandmasters are now obsolete and provides the new theory for each move. Thus, I cannot agree with other reviewers who claim that this book is just a book of games and thereby has no qualifications to instruct. The games were simply implemented to better explain the concept of each opening.

Finally, the book contains graphs of the moves world grandmasters preferred to begin games. For example, about 60% of world chess champions prefer the open game in response to the King's Pawn Opening, 30% the Sicilian Defense, and only 5% each for the Caro-Kahn or French Defense! This statistic as well as many others make this book a fine source for up-and-coming chessplayers. I would highly recommend this book for any chess player at any level of competition as a mentor for general chess opening schemes and strategy.

Average customer rating:

A Very Engaging Read

An Entertaining Tour of World Championship Chess

End Game: Kasparov vs. Short
Dominic Lawson
Manufacturer: Harmony
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0517598108
Release Date: 1994-06-28

Customer Reviews:

A Very Engaging Read.......2002-04-23

I thoroughly enjoyed this blow-by-blow account of the 1993 World Chess Championships between Kasparov and Short. Although biased (pro-Short - and the author admits to that biase up-front), the book provides the uninitiated with an insight into the world of the chess Grandmaster.

An Entertaining Tour of World Championship Chess.......2002-03-27

This book allows anyone who has been bitten by the chess bug to enjoy the natural drama created by this match. The author gives enough, but not too much, interesting detail regarding the squabbles and politics involved in setting up a championship match. The author's greatest accomplishment was the way he used his narrative to create suspense and excitement in each game. Some might argue that the book was more exciting than the match itself that involved a rather one-sided victory for Kasparov. Finally, the author does not require the readers to possess advanced chess knowledge. A good read for any chess maven.

The System: A World Champion's Approach to Chess

Average customer rating:

Some real truth in a chess book
Too good to be true
eccentric and egocentric but worth reading, maybe
The System - How to create more pressure playing d4
An Absurd Book

The System: A World Champion's Approach to Chess
Hans Berliner
Manufacturer: Gambit Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1901983102

Book Description

Hans Berliner is one of the most successful correspondence chess players of all time, and was utterly dominant in the 5th World Championship. Here, for the first time, he explains the set of principles - The System - that he used to guide him to the right moves. Readers will be astonished by the simplicity and power of Berliner's methods as he takes several major openings and subjects them to System principles, and finds radically new approaches to them.

Customer Reviews:

Some real truth in a chess book.......2002-12-04

This book is one of the most interesting I have read. It has many interesting points such as a revised points score scale for the pieces. Berliner clearly believes in this as he has used it for the evaluation function in his computer program HITECH.
Also some of the opening analysis is very interesting, such as some very convincing ideas on Benko gambit and Grunfeld.

The book is has been slated by some ignorant reviewers who do not fully understand what Berliner is trying to say in this book.
The idea in the book to me is that evaluation is the key to the middlegame and that you have to have an openings philosophy.

The anecdote about his conversation with Bobby Fischer is also an eye opener.

All in all very entertaining, more please Dr Berliner!

Too good to be true.......2001-09-10

Like many of the other reviews to this book, I believe this book was amusing! It was very provocative to get me to think about changing from my Beloved English to the Queen's Pawn Opening. However, like many other people, I cringe when he claims to have worked out a forced win for White. Yes, his little records are exciting, and perhaps he is on to something, but I doubt that chess will be solved to a level where humans can know how to do it, ever.
Still, there is much to be said for his interesting first two chapters, where he lets you in on some good information, much of which was review (in the first chapter), but still informative. I did enjoy this book, but for someone really looking to improve their chess, I can not recommend it.

eccentric and egocentric but worth reading, maybe.......2001-07-11

When you read - page 174 - "we wanted to claim that this is The theory of chess, not just my theory" you may think that the author is a joker or the innocent victim to german and american culture. OK, Berliner was an average chess player - US results were meaningless in years when soviet players dominated - and 30 years ago was a succesful correspondence chess player, then quitted active chess. he dedicates himself to computer science and designed and programmed Hitech a succesful chess playing software until late 1988. So now he writes this book pretending to reveal the chess truth. Here Berliner comments 13 games, most recent of which is 30 years old, when in the chess world 30 years are 300 years. He explains how to choose each move it's true, but this leads to variations and every chess lover knows variations are confuted all saints day by chess practice. Berliner thinks he is Prometeus but chess is an unrevealable fire. However the book contains some interesting idea so I'm happy having read it.

The System - How to create more pressure playing d4.......2000-12-20

Although this book has had some poor reviews, it should not be under-estimated. If you are of playing strength 1600-1800 (which I currently am), and you like to play d4 as an opening, I would highly recommend this book. Although Berliner speaks of "The System" as if it could be written down as an equation (so to speak) i.e. the "unified field theory of chess," (this concept is interesting to analytical types and/or scientists)-> The book does has many merits for the d4 player against the Benko Gambit, Indian defenses, etc.. Check it out!

An Absurd Book.......1999-07-11

For those of you tempted to buy a book whose author claims to have worked out a forced win for White against the Grunfeld and several other defenses, I strongly recommend that you read the independent reviews by John Watson and Jeremy Silman at chesscafe.com, where the specifics of much of Berliner's bad analysis and megalomaniacal pontificating are spelled out in detail. In my case, I found the book to be a slightly amusing exercise in debunking crackpot science (which is why I gave it two stars). I'm sure that there will be several others who will agree with me that this may just be the most preposterous chess book ever written. If, however, you're the sort of person who watches PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE every time it's on TV, calls the Psychic Friends Network regularly and thinks professional wrestling is for real, this book is right up your alley.

The Chess Artist: Genius, Obsession, and the World's Oldest Game

Average customer rating:

A peek inside the chess world
Interesting at times, but it doesn't quite satisfy
you don't have to like chess to love this book
Great Book
The weird underbelly of an intellectual pastime

The Chess Artist: Genius, Obsession, and the World's Oldest Game
J. C. Hallman
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 031233396X
Release Date: 2004-10-14

Book Description

In the tiny Russian province of Kalmykia, obsession with chess has reached new heights. Its leader, a charismatic and eccentric millionaire/ex--car salesman named Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, is a former chess prodigy and the most recent president of FIDE, the world's controlling chess body. Despite credible allegations of his involvement in drug running, embezzlement, and murder, the impoverished Kalmykian people have rallied around their leader's obsession---chess is played on Kalmykian prime-time television and is compulsory in Kalmykian schools. In addition, Kalmyk women have been known to alter their traditional costumes of pillbox hats and satin gowns to include chessboard-patterned sashes.The Chess Artist is both an intellectual journey and first-rate travel writing dedicated to the love of chess and all of its related oddities, writer and chess enthusiast J. C. Hallman explores the obsessive hold chess exerts on its followers by examining the history and evolution of the game and the people who dedicate their lives to it. Together with his friend Glenn Umstead, an African-American chessmaster who is arguably as chess obsessed as Ilyumzhinov, Hallman tours New York City's legendary chess district, crashes a Princeton Math Department game party, challenges a convicted murderer to a chess match in prison, and travels to Kalmykia, where they are confronted with members of the Russian intelligence service, beautiful translators who may be spies, seven-year-old chess prodigies, and the sad blight of a land struggling toward capitalism. In the tradition of The Professor and the Madman, Longitude, and The Orchid Thief, Hallman transforms an obsessive quest for obscure things into a compulsively readable and entertaining weaving of travelogue, journalism, and chess history.

Customer Reviews:

A peek inside the chess world.......2007-06-22

Chess players can be very intriguing. At the highest levels, it is difficult to imagine what they go through and why they do it. It is a competitive obsession.
The reader is led through the world of a competitive chess player with some great insights of the motivation and culture in which a chess player immerses himself/herself.

Interesting at times, but it doesn't quite satisfy.......2007-04-29

The Chess Artist contains some interesting observations about the game, and the occasional worthwhile excursus, but it never quite closes in on an interesting story. This may be because so much of it is built on intentionally arbitrary encounters, events seemly engineered to generate something to write about (e.g. chess games played in prisons, or among a museum's Duchamp collection). I enjoyed it, and I learned something, but I had hoped for more.

you don't have to like chess to love this book.......2006-12-12

even if you don't like chess, this book is interesting enough for you to enjoy. it's part travel narrative, part outsiders look into the world of chess. the book is well written, extremely interesting, and is informative as well as entertaining. i like chess, so i enjoyed it, but i lent it to someone who doesn't like chess, and she enjoyed it just as much. hallman paints a detailed picture of chess city in the former soviet union, as well as personalities of people who play chess. for me, the best part was his description of the crazy subculture and chess playing in the park in NYC as well as the "skittles room" of the tournaments. i wish there were more books about chess like this one. great book, definately recommended.

Great Book.......2006-11-19

This is a great read even if you hate chess,this by far my favorite book about a chess player or players( I have read 2 others ,see my reviews)I would like to read a sequel to it.I was captivated by, and enthralled with this book!Hallman is a great writer, please write more books on chess players,maybe follow Nakamura and write about it!.

The weird underbelly of an intellectual pastime.......2006-09-21

J.C. Hallman's The Chess Artist is structured around a trip that the author took with his friend Glenn, the chess player of the book's title, to Kalmykia, a crumbling Russian Republic on the northwest shore of the Caspian Sea. Hallman was interested in interviewing Kalmykia's despotic president, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, a former chess prodigy and the president of the World Chess Federation (FIDE), who was using chess "as a tool to unify and mollify his people." (He had made chess instruction compulsory in schools, for example.) Woven around the story of their journey are chapters on chess history--its development and geographical migration across a thousand years, the history of its individual pieces--and Hallman's further adventures with Glenn: marathon chess sessions over the internet, formal chess competitions, blindfolded chess and speed chess, chess played in prison and in Princeton, and the various characters they ran across on their adventures--child prodigies and the denizens of Dickensian chess shops and the down-and-out chess hustlers of New York's Washington Square Park.

Part travelogue, then, and part history, Hallman's book is also an exploration of both the international subculture of competitive chess and of his traveling companion. For most of the period covered by the book, Glenn was ranked as a chess master--exceptionally good but well below the grandmasters who form the true elite of the chess world. Glenn is an enigmatic character. A germophobic 39-year-old with a genius for the game and poor grammar, he is apparently incapable of consistently making smart decisions in the real world. Divorced and perpetually broke, almost childish at times, his friendship seems to be to a great extent a burden. Hallman has a tendency, actually, to write about Glenn as if he were a sort of lab animal, whose mannerisms and mode of play are alike under scrutiny.

"He shrugged and performed a gesture that was new to me, opening his palms suddenly and at the same time contorting his face to an expression of exaggerated surprise."

Annoying and strange, given to marking promising relationships with ceremonial whistling, Glenn is also a sad figure, a broken man "spiraling toward nothingness, a waste of twenty years of effort and energy." One wonders what Glenn thought of his presentation in the book.

The Chess Artist is very well researched and thick with information. And it is punctuated by some truly wonderful, sometimes poetic writing:

"The train was all lullaby, the gyroscopic jostle of the tracks, the steady click of the wheels like the eighth notes of some slower melody, the stars stationary out the small window, all of it a lull of travel nostalgia, a cradle or warm womb, Glenn and I like twins incubating in that cramped space."

In Kalmykia Hallman is served "a genocide of crayfish"; in a prison cafeteria the fare is instead "hockey pucks of meat like the leftover scrapings of a botched autopsy." One chess player they observe has the "eyebrows of a demon," while another is "a nondescript man who fit the profile of a serial killer--short, well-groomed, quiet, and very dangerous."

Hallman's writing is riddled with such evocative descriptions. This is both wonderful and, surprisingly perhaps, problematic: the problem is that Hallman tends to lavish his well-written descriptions on nearly every minor character who crosses his path, so that the reader is met with too much information. Hallman's flair is obvious. But after a time, the personalities in the book tend to blend together.

It is tempting to say that Hallman does for chess what Stefan Fatsis does for Scrabble in his book Word Freak, exposing the weird underbelly of an intellectual pastime, the obsessives who sacrifice sleep and hygiene over their chosen game. Hallman's book, though, is a more serious and more difficult read. Presumably, the more familiar a reader is with chess, the more he will get out of the book. I myself do not play, but I was able to understand and appreciate, at least on some level, most of what the author had to say. Non-chess players should not be afraid of diving in.

Debra Hamel -- author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece (Yale University Press, 2003)

Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How A Lone American Star Defeated the Soviet Chess Machine (P.S.)

Average customer rating:

A brilliant work of excellence!
If not for the Cold War, many Americans might have rooted for Spassky
Outstanding book.
Coffee, Chess and Politics
"Our story is in essence a tragedy"

Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How A Lone American Star Defeated the Soviet Chess Machine (P.S.)
David Edmonds , and John Eidinow
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0060510250
Release Date: 2005-03-01

Book Description

In the summer of 1972, with a presidential crisis stirring in the United States and the cold war at a pivotal point, the Soviet world chess champion, Boris Spassky,and his American challenger, Bobby Fischer, met in Reykjavik, Iceland, for the most notorious chess match of all time. Their showdown, played against the backdrop of superpower politics, held the world spellbound for two months with reports of psychological warfare, ultimatums, political intrigue, cliffhangers, and farce to rival a Marx Brothers film. Thirty years later, David Edmonds and John Eidinow have set out to reexamine the story we recollect as the quintessential cold war clash between a lone American star and the Soviet chess machine. A mesmerizing narrative of brilliance and triumph, hubris and despair, Bobby Fischer Goes to War is a biting deconstruction of the Bobby Fischer myth, a nuanced study on the art of brinkmanship, and a revelatory cold war tragicomedy.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Customer Reviews:

A brilliant work of excellence!.......2007-04-06

This is the 2nd book I read by these 2 prize-winning journalists and authors and I praise this work once again as a brilliant tour of famous chess match between Spassky and Fischer!
The book has multiple focuses. While the matches themselves are not described in stark detail, the atmosphere around is. Included in this are brief biographies of these 2 chess superstars, pre-match and post-match reactions as well as its influence and possible involvement in the Cold War.

In it, one discovers the passive, gentle and cordial personality of Spassky - a gentlemanly figure, in contrast to a demanding, bad-boy personality, yet a prodigy, of Bobby Fischer. The book recounts all the relevant events prior to this championship in Iceland in 1972, as well as reactions to it afterward. While there is some allusion to the matches themselves, as well as precise moves and brief analysis, the book in no way targets chess players as their primary readers. The book is targeted for anyone interested in history, particularly one having to do with chess and Cold War.

The book is a real page turner and hard to put down. The style has a fast pace to it, yet thorough enough to capture even minute details. Overall, a great read for anyone and I highly recommend it!

If not for the Cold War, many Americans might have rooted for Spassky.......2007-03-31

And some did, anyway!

Learn why, in this great combination biography of Fischer, biography of Spassky, and analysis of the 1972 showdown in Iceland.

To take an analogy from the same year, this was like the Soviet-US basketball showdown at the Munich Olympics.

And, while the chess championship wasn't rigged, due to his own and his camp's incessant hectoring, especially in getting Game 3 moved to a back room, Fischer was probably dissuaded from walking out from the match.

As it was, he lost Game 1, forfeited Game 2, then roared back to score over half the remaning points scored, losing only once, while winning 9 and drawing 7.

It's probably the most impressive display of chess ever, culminating from a start of Fischer "sweeping" the first two matches in the Candidates' series to earn the right to face Spassky.

Then you have Spassky, who considered himself a Russian first, a Soviet second, and wasn't on perfect terms with the Soviet sports hierarch. A Spassky who was pretty much a "normal" human compared to the average populace and definitely to Fischer.

And, that's the other good part. Briefly but precisely, the authors sketch Fischer's development from childhood, and even spring new evidence about who was actually his biological father.

If you want to learn more both about the contestants and the importance of this match, read this book.

Outstanding book........2007-02-03

Is it possible to make a book about chess that is a gripping read? Even for a reader not that familiar with, or interested in, the game itself? This book answers with an emphatic "Yes".
I was 16 in 1972, an avid (though very mediocre) chess player, and a very close observer of the events recounted in this book. The authors do not exaggerate the importance that this match took on the world stage. Fischer's victory was indeed viewed as a great triumph in the US, on a par with the 1980 Olympic hockey "miracle on ice". But it has taken the passage of time to put everything in perspective. Fischer was a brilliant player, maybe the best of all time; but his antics that were then viewed as idiosyncracies, as the spoiled behavior of the prima donna sportsman, can now -- in view of his behavior of the last 30 years -- be seen as the early signs of absolute craziness (pardon the layman's term, I'm not a psychologist). The guy was, in a word, nuts.
A story of triumph and tragedy, and very well told -- it makes for a completely absorbing read.

Coffee, Chess and Politics .......2007-01-24

I was in a coffee shop last weekend when I noticed two men playing Chess near the cream and sugar counter. A small but intent group had huddled around their table quite captivated by the game. Memories of Bobby Fischer came to mind. I also watched the game for a while and then decided to visit my local bookstore and just by happenstance I saw "Bobby Fischer Goes to War" and picked up a copy. It is very interesting reading. Bobby Fischer's 1972 match with the Soviet Boris Spassky held in Reykjavik, Iceland is legendary. Spassky, the world chess champion, certainly seemed the gentleman and Fisher was billed as the young Chess prodigy. To me Chess was always a game played by elitists or other higher order members of the social ladder. In reality that is truly not the case. If there is anything elite about the game or those who play it, it is the social refinement that one takes away from the chess board. There is a certain amount of respect that one experiences and earns that should be used in a higher order of one's conduct as a person. From this book Spassky seems to fit that picture, but Bobby Fischer is anything but. Fischer had a deep intuitive intellect for the game but his social upbringing and behavior seemed rather crude and almost not worthy of the game. His behavior during the match seems embarrassing and nothing honorable as demonstrated by Spassky. Fischer seems to have learned none of finer aspects of being a participant and journeyman of the game. This is a good book and brings many avenues of thought ion this history making Chess match.

"Our story is in essence a tragedy".......2006-12-23

Fischer/Spassky was a seminal event of my childhood. I was 10 going on 11 at the time. It's tough to explain to people today how the whole event held everyone in its spell. This retrospective look at the event and its implications is a great piece of journalism by writers David Edmonds and John Eidinow. Of course, they had no cooperation from the famously vituperative Fischer. Spassky - the perfect gentleman as always - was obviously inordinately helpful in piecing together the story.

I think the best line summing up the tenor of the book is by lyricist Tim Rice, who based his muscial 'Chess' partly on Fischer/Spassky. Rice says "The good guy was the Russian who was meant to be the bad guy, and the bad guy was the American, who was meant to be the good guy. It was all very confusing and a perfect illustration of how politics creeps into everything."

Edmonds and Eidinow summarize things perfectly: "Boris Spassky went to Reykjavik to celebrate chess. Bobby Fischer went to fight. His version of the match triumphed." For this reason, the authors declare that "our story is in essence a tragedy." Read their fine work, and you'll surely agree with this assessment.

Behind Deep Blue: Building the Computer that Defeated the World Chess Champion

Average customer rating:

The soul of a new chess player
A really good read...
Very good book.
The soul of a new chess player
A thoroughly engaging and candid account

Behind Deep Blue: Building the Computer that Defeated the World Chess Champion
Feng-Hsiung Hsu
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0691090653

Book Description

On May 11, 1997, as millions worldwide watched a stunning victory unfold on television, a machine shocked the chess world by defeating the defending world champion, Garry Kasparov. Written by the man who started the adventure, Behind Deep Blue reveals the inside story of what happened behind the scenes at the two historic Deep Blue vs. Kasparov matches. This is also the story behind the quest to create the mother of all chess machines. The book unveils how a modest student project eventually produced a multimillion dollar supercomputer, from the development of the scientific ideas through technical setbacks, rivalry in the race to develop the ultimate chess machine, and wild controversies to the final triumph over the world's greatest human player.

In nontechnical, conversational prose, Feng-hsiung Hsu, the system architect of Deep Blue, tells us how he and a small team of fellow researchers forged ahead at IBM with a project they'd begun as students at Carnegie Mellon in the mid-1980s: the search for one of the oldest holy grails in artificial intelligence--a machine that could beat any human chess player in a bona fide match. Back in 1949 science had conceived the foundations of modern chess computers but not until almost fifty years later--until Deep Blue--would the quest be realized.

Hsu refutes Kasparov's controversial claim that only human intervention could have allowed Deep Blue to make its decisive, "uncomputerlike" moves. In riveting detail he describes the heightening tension in this war of brains and nerves, the "smoldering fire" in Kasparov's eyes. Behind Deep Blue is not just another tale of man versus machine. This fascinating book tells us how man as genius was given an ultimate, unforgettable run for his mind, no, not by the genius of a computer, but of man as toolmaker.

Customer Reviews:

The soul of a new chess player.......2007-03-25

Feng-Hsiung Hsu's story will appeal to anyone who enjoyed Tracy Kidder's Soul of a New Machine or Steven Levy's Hackers. The book captures the thrills and spills of an intellectual steeplechase. Along the way, it reveals the inner workings of the computer science department at Carnegie Mellon University. It's a great read. Feng-Hsiung Hsu, if you're reading this and you ever find yourself in Hortonville, Wisconsin, the first cup of coffee is on me.

A really good read..........2006-04-19

Behind Deep Blue was written by the man who lead the research and development team which created the chess computer that beat the World Chess Champion, Gary Kasparov. Hsu tells a lot of fascinating stories about his involvement with IBM, academia and the world of computer-vs-computer chess tournaments. It never got too bogged down in computer or chess jargon.

Some interesting things concerning the identity of Deep Blue (or computers in general) emerge from Hsu's story. Hsu speaks of his computers' identities in ways which facilitate his sportsmanship. So for instance, almost every time one of Hsu's computers loses a game it is retrospectively explained by reminding the reader that the computer had been regrettably forced to play when it still needed a few more weeks of software or hardware tweaking. It never lost because it was an inferior machine - it lost because its superiority could not manifest because its update/debugging had been interrupted by the tournament schedule. As the book makes clear, Hsu's computers were continuously undergoing relentless tweaking, providing Hsu with this excuse every single time one lost. This may be par for the course when diagnosing machines - since any sub-desired performance which can be corrected can, therefore, be "explained" as the unfortunate consequence of the machine's present uncorrected state. For humans it's different. When I lose a foot-race I can't say, "Well the only reason I lost is because this race was scheduled a few years before my training made me fast enough to win it."

Another fascinating element of the book is Hsu's recounting of Deep Blue's now-famous rejection of 36. Qb6 in game two against Kasparov in the 1997 match. Kasparov broadly hinted that the computer's decision not to move that way was a human decision - implying that the IBM team had cheated. Hsu's defense of Deep Blue is convincing. But there is raised an interesting point regarding computer intelligence. If Deep Blue did in fact choose to avoid 36. Qb6 without human intervention then Kasparov's heartfelt identification of the move as cheating has Deep Blue passing a simple version of a Turing Test.

Very good book........2005-12-07

I have prurchased this book to improve my english language.
Yhe same talks about two subjects that I know: computers and chess.
It was a good surprise read this enjoyable work which offers information, stories and knowledge.
The author explains very clear the roots of Deep Blue and reflects the environment of Top chess.

Read it!

The soul of a new chess player.......2005-06-02

A thoroughly engaging and candid account.......2004-11-09

Taiwanese-born Feng-Hsiung Hsu has written a most engaging and readable account of how Deep Blue came to be, and how it defeated world chess champion Garry Kasparov in perhaps the greatest chess match of all time. I say "perhaps" because there are many who still consider the 1972 encounter at Reykjavik, Iceland between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky to be the greatest match ever. One thing both matches had in common, in addition to a worldwide audience, is two deeply suspicious and idiosyncratic geniuses, Kasparov and Fischer.

However, while Fischer's triumph rejuvenated interest in chess, especially in the US, Kasparov's defeat, many fear, may have rung the death knell for the ancient game. Before Deep Blue's victory, it was easy to imagine that the human mind was light-years ahead of any artificial intelligence. After Kasparov slunk off mumbling vague charges of human intervention ("cheating"), it became necessary to face the possibility that machine intelligence was on its way to exceeding that of humans.

But what did the match really prove? According to Hsu himself, the triumph of Deep Blue "might be the more important human achievement when all was said and done." (p. 256) By a "more important human achievement," he means, more important than the one that would have been Kasparov's had he won.

This I think is the crux of the matter. Deep Blue, an IBM computer of enormous power, is the product of human minds and human engineering. Look at it this way: as computers become more and more powerful and their algorithms become more and more sophisticated, there will be no thought at all that a human might compete with them at chess. It would be like expecting the world's fastest human to beat a motor car in a race. Or for the world's best human calculator to add numbers faster than a personal computer.

In a deeper sense what was destroyed by this match was not human intellectual superiority but the delusion that somehow a board game--even the greatest board game ever invented--is a true measure of human intelligence. Quite simply, the ability to play chess at the highest level is only one talent, similar to (but different from) the ability to play the violin or to run fast. More significant is the greater human ability to conceive and build a machine that does something better than humans can do themselves.

Hsu's account includes a lot of information about his personal adventures in academia and the corporate structure, including rivalries with others in the race to build the ultimate chess-playing computer. He is candid, and self-revelatory to a surprising degree, and it is this candor that helps to make this a fascinating read, not only for computer specialists and chess players, but for anyone interested in how the human competitive spirit works. His portrait of Garry Kasparov--perhaps the strongest chess player of all time--captures the arrogant, suspicious genius at his most human and makes it clear how he came to lose a match he fully expected to win.

Ah, the match itself! The book includes the moves of the games in an appendix, but one can readily see that the match turned on two very strange decisions by the hitherto nearly invincible Kasparov. Strange to say, it appears that Kasparov lost the match mainly because of poor psychological decisions. In game two, believing that he was lost, mainly because he believed that the computer would not have made the move it had made had there been a perpetual check available to the human player that would have drawn the game, Kasparov resigned. However, the machine had erred, and there was a way to draw the game. Against a human opponent, I believe that Kasparov would have closely investigated that line and found the drawing resource.

In the final game again Kasparov made a decision based on what he thought was the nature of the way computers play chess. He allowed a sacrificial line as Black in the Caro-Kahn Defense, a line that he believed Deep Blue would never play since computers are notoriously bad at figuring out how to conduct a complicated attack. Indeed, commercial chess software for PCs typically exclude this line from their opening repertoire so as not to burden the program! So Kasparov thought in playing 7... h6 that Deep Blue would retreat its knight giving Kasparov easy equality. Instead Deep Blue plunged in with 8. Nxe6! Eleven moves later Kasparov resigned--easily one of the quickest defeats of his career.

So, with better decisions, based on sound chess and NOT on mistaken preconceptions about Deep Blue's prowess, Kasparov might have won the match. However, the irony is that it is unlikely that there ever will be another match between the world chess champion and a machine simply because Kasparov and the whole chess world know that the ultimate victory of machine over man, in the arcane test of will and calculation that is chess, is inevitable. But what we also know is that it doesn't matter. We still hold races between humans even though our machines can easily out distant them. And humans will continue to play chess even though they would have no chance against a computer because chess is first and foremost a human sporting event, a test of mental strength and skill much as a boxing match is a test of physical strength and skill.

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