5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Superb, September 24, 2009
This review is from: Positional Sacrifices (Paperback)
This is another of McDonald's wonderful books. He is an extremely talented author, who rivals Seirawan and Silman at explaining positional concepts. This book, Positional Sacrifices, is interesting and original. Not many authors have examined the subject of sacrifices for purely positional gain. Positional Sacrifices also includes some exciting games that are not widely known, where other books would give over analysed games such as Lautier-Shirov or focus on stereotypical sacrifices such as Rxc3 in the sicilian. Previous reviewers have made the comment that McDonald should not have given the full games, but it aids my understanding of the sacrifice, as well as allowing the reader to immerse themselves in fascinating yet obscure games, by talented players such as Raecky and Konstantinopoly. In each section, the reader is given the things that must be present for a successful sacrifice, such as lack of a plan in exchange sacrifices and a safe king in a Q for R+B sacrifice. This makes it easy to apply to a real game. As with all the other reviewers, my only complaint is that this book is too short. It is small and thin and McDonald's excellent writing makes me call out for more, more, more. Perhaps McDonald should write a sequel to this book. I know I'd buy it.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
12 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
great idea, but slightly mis-focused presentation, July 5, 2004
This review is from: Positional Sacrifices (Paperback)
The author's key point is that positional sacrifices differ from combinations by the degree of uncertainty inherent in them.
Including chapter 1, The Psychology of Sacrifices; chapter 2, Theoretical and Standard Sacrifices; and the final 20 element quiz, this book has all of nine chapters. The middle 6 chapters make up the meat of the book and include
chapter 3, Sacrifices to create a passed pawn
chapter 4, Sacrifices to destroy the opponent's center
chapter 5, Sacrifices to open lines
chapter 6, The Indian bishop
chapter 7, The "Karpovian" exchange sacrifice
chapter 8, Queen for Rook and Bishop sacrifices
This book covers pawn, exchange, piece, even queen sacrifices in different circumstances and to different ends. Some of the examples are truly amazing, well beyond anything that I could ever conceive. A good grasp of positional considerations is needed to appreciate some of these, even though the positional elements and why they are important are generally very well explained. Any tactical variations are given at length, and this defintely helps the reader come to terms with the examples.
Where I think the author misfires, is in pursuing each example game to the very end. This leads to some very complicated alternatives being explored, many of them well past the point of the sacrifice. If you need closure on whether or not the sacrifice proved successful, this may be good. But it limits the number of examples given.
I think the content of this book could help most players below expert rating appreciate some ideas for the first time. Seeing a winning passed pawn motif conjured out a position that contained not even a wisp of such a possibility is truly enlightening. Also includes fine examples (and explanation!) of the compensation arising from certain pawn and piece sacrifices.
Of course, you can always ignore the indepth variations until you are in the mood and simple read the text and get a lot out of this book.
Handy size, well-written, few if any typos. Three and a half stars, rounded down to three.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
