Customer Reviews

Three Hundred Chess Games - 'Dreihundert Schachpartien' - English Language Edition

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In 1914, the Tsar of Russia conferred upon the five finalists of the St. Petersburg tournament the title "Grandmaster," inaugurating a tradition of singling out those whose demonstrated ability stood out even among masters. Siegbert Tarrasch was one of those five, along with Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine and Marshall. Though he was never able to overcome the supreme tactical genius of Lasker in their struggles for the World Championship, Tarrasch earned the respect of his peers with a string of brilliant tournament and match performances that made him a natural challenger and secured his place in history as a great player.

Yet Tarrasch's fame today rests more upon his pedagogic writings than on his tournament victories, for he bequeathed to us a volume of three hundred meticulously annotated games that served as the model for the post-war generation of rising stars. For three quarters of a century, this seminal volume -- hailed as "one of the monuments of our game" by GM Reuben Fine -- has been available only to those who could read it in the original German.

Sol Schwarz's translation of Three Hundred Chess Games is, therefore, a most welcome contribution to the history of chess, making this masterpiece available for the first time in English. And a very workmanlike job it is: the translation is generally excellent, only occasionally betraying a trace of the Teutonic original, and the value of the volume is enhanced by the clear and plentiful diagrams and meticulous indices. As an historical work alone it would deserve high praise.

But the book is of more than historical merit -- it is an abundantly instructive manual of chess praxis for any aspiring student. Tarrasch's annotations give a superb insight into the fundamental concepts of modern chess. Building on and in some cases modifying Steinitz's fundamental principles, Tarrasch is at his crusty best when stating, dogmatically and forcefully, the proper way to handle recurring pawn structures, pronouncing on the relative merits of open files and doubled pawns, or stressing the necessity for active play even at the cost of material.

To understand master games we mortals need a guide, even one whose evaluations are occasionally a shade more black and white than a modern grandmaster's might be. And the games in this collection are exceptionally valuable to students because the strategic themes and tactical interchanges lie, with the aid of Tarrasch's illuminating commentary, just within the grasp of a talented amateur. Those who quibble that Tarrasch's commentaries on his own pet defense to the Queen's Gambit (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c5!?) or the line of the French that bears his name (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2) are overly rigid should note that he actually abandoned his advocacy of the latter (see the notes to game 287!) and that no lesser player than Kasparov himself got good results in his youth with the former. Indeed, if the talented amateur absorbs the level of strategic understanding and tactical insight offered here in Tarrasch's pithy precepts, he will have time enough to refine that understanding -- for having done so, he will stand at the threshold of mastery himself.

Siegbert Tarrasch won a string of tournament victories in the early 1890s, making him arguably the best player in the world. But he passed up the opportunity to play the aging Steinitz (against whom he had +3-0) for the world title. So Lasker won the title instead in 1895, and forever after put Tarrasch in the shade, although he was still in the world's top five for another 20 years.

Tarrasch was also a great chess teacher. However, his writings can be very dogmatic, and his comments on some opening seem rather humourous in their naivety to modern masters. His writings seemed designed to make chess seem simpler and more rule-based than it really is. IM John Watson's brilliant book _Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy_ goes into this in far more detail.

It's very obvious that chess has progressed immensely in 100 years. So while this book is very instructive, it must be read with some caution. But it is a very important classic, that it's a pity that it hasn't been part of the learning English-speaking player's reading list until now. On the other hand, it was translated into Russian at least 12 years ago, since I gladly purchased a copy when I was there in 1988 despite my very limited Russian.

And it must be said that he was not nearly so dogmatic in his play as in his writings. There are a number of examples of almost Nimzovitchian ideas.

One instructive moment is his analysis of his victory on the Black side of the Advance French against Paulsen. After the standard moves 1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 e5 c5 4 c3 Nc6 5 Nf3 Qb6 6 Bd3, Tarrasch gives his next move 6 ... cxd4 an exclamation mark, and points out that 6 ... Bd7 allows 7 dxc5. Yet almost everyone, even Watson, thinks that Tarrasch's great rival Nimzovitch was such a radical when he played this against Salwe many years later!

While I have not yet studied all 300 games cover to cover (I have studied approximately 100), I have read enough to make the following observations;

1) the production quality of the book is outstanding (i.e. binding, diagrams, text font, etc.)

2) the games span a large number of tournaments and a great variety of openings, and opponents.

3) the games are very well annotated - an intermediate chess player rated 1200 to 1800 can easily read and understand these games quite well. Also I like the style of annotations used throughout this book- a few variations mixed with much commentary. To me this is much more preferable than simply listing a myriad of endless move strings and some symbol with an evaluation. (which is what some other books try to do.)

4) Unlike some game collections by other players, Tarrasch includes a fair number of losses to his opponents in which he openly criticizes his own play. He typically goes on to point out the particular lesson he learned from the loss. To me, this makes the book very real, and increases my respect for Tarrasch, both as player and author.

By repeated exposure to certain concepts (i.e. open files, weak squares, outposts, pawn minortities, etc.) a student will rapidly incorporate these concepts into his or her play.

The only warning here (which has been touched on in the other reviews) is that Tarrasch tended to be rather dogmatic and general rule-based in his play than modern masters. Also, due to the time period in which the games were played, some of the opening variations used may look almost humerous to a modern player.

However, even with the caveats mentioned, this remains a most excellent study manual and a good representation of the style of play at the time. It is a safe bet that anyone who bothered to play over a sizeable sampling of games from this book could not help but improve their play.

Firstly, if you are seriously considering purchasing this book, please read the other book reviews first! (They are excellent, and I can hardly improve upon them.)

Rather than repeat anything anyone else has said, I will simply say:
# 1.) THREE HUNDRED well-annotated games!!
# 2.) This book was written by one of the strongest players who ever lived, and who also was considered one of the best chess teachers of all time. (He was also one of the FIVE ORIGINAL Grand-Masters of chess!)
# 3.) The games are grouped chronologically; there is also a good index of openings. (Giving you two good study plans for this book.)

I will also say that a student of mine from Texas purchased this book. (His Mom is from here; they spent a great deal of his summers here.) When he bought this book, he was rated 1400, a year later he was over 1800! While I cannot promise you similar improvement, I feel sure - as a LIFE-Master - that you WILL improve if you conscientiously study the games in this book!!

The English Language Edition of this book does not cost 120.00. It costs 19.95 and is available from ChessCentral. I mention this only because it's easy to assume Amazon has some sort of sophisticated computer database offering accurate price reports on merchandise. It doesn't.

Out of my 500+ chess books, I would say I use this one the most. Tarrasch's annotations are great, succinct, and to the point, they are designed to teach and not confuse, and also shows you the development of his early career. You see many games against sub-GM opposition, and I always feel such games are invaluable to the developing player. (I also love, for this point, the two Euwe books, Chess Master Meets... etc.). Another main reason I consult this book often is that Tarrasch played such good, common sense openings. This book has tons of French Defences, from both sides, Queen's Gambits, Ruy Lopezes, and other things you don't see very often, like the Scotch Four Knights, The Goring Gambit, etc. The book has a nice opening index. It is an incredible book. My only complaint is that my book is getting used so much that the binding is separating near the front. So, the binding could have been better made. Essential.

The other reviews have properly stated the strengths and weaknesses of this book. This book, in conjunction with Tarrasch's manual "The Game of Chess" has much to teach the average player; much more than many of the beginner/low-intermediate books that currently flood the market. This book is a forgotten gem, mainly because it wasn't available in English until recently.

And of course, there is little promotion of the book, which is all the more reason you should get it before it goes out of print forever, as I am surely it eventually will.

I have to disagree with another reviewer who praised the high qualify of this Hays Publishing edition. The printing and diagrams are nice -- not those old, faded ones you see from Dover -- but the binding is glued, and the Walbrodt match pages have fallen out in my copy.

Substance wise, this is very good. The annotations aren't move-by-move for beginners, but are precise and word-oriented. The openings are often dated, but a club player can still play them, and it's really the middle and end games that count. Not all of the games are memorable, of course, which is nice, because you get a taste of all kinds of games the way chess is actually played.

If you have read the last biography on Fischer, you know that this volume was one of the books he read over and over. There is no way a beginner can improve and pass to the next stage if he/she doesn't read it! Many will tell you to read Nimzovich for learning the middlegame, but Nimzovich is already advanced, and he is in polemic with Tarrasch, so if a player doesn't retrace the entire chess development history. he cannot improve his game, because he will not understand where a certain idea, and the counter-idea came from. First of all I must say I was really satisfied with this book because is in algebraic notation. These kind of collection of old games were always in that old-impossible to read descriptive notation, this one is in algebraic, and that for me is great!
But then let's come to the games. Dr. Tarrasch gives not only important annotations to each game, but also give some historical reasons behind the openings played, or information about the tournament and the players. This is also invaluable for the beginner, because in this way is possible to know the main ideas behind the openings. These ideas often are not discussed in books written by GMs, because they all think that everyone already knows the history of that opening, and why they stopped playing a certain move 60 or more years ago. Then of course there are also many biographical notes, which give a glimpse upon how chess was played between the end of 1800 and the beginning of 1900. Practically I believe that Tarrasch is the synthesis of Morphy's ideas and Steinitz, so once a player has studied deeply this book, it is possible to pass to the hypermoderns. But without studying this book (which means to read it from cover to cover more than one time, like Fischer did) a player will always have a gap inside his preparation. I continue to mention Fischer, but also Fine, another of the top world players of the last century, studied this book deeply, and considered it a monumental masterpiece. It should definitely be in the chess library of every serious player. By the way, this book is complete also in another sense, it contains the most important tactics, the important endgames a player should know, and most of all the strategies used after the opening phase is finished. So when I bought this book I didn't realize it, but it covered all the three phases of the game, and made me a better player (I believe I gained at least 500 points in OTB tournaments thanks to this book!).

I agree with most of the reviewers that this is, indeed, a classic of chess. The problem is that I was disappointed with the English translation from the first page. Tarrasch writes about having a club foot on that page, but not in the English translation. Large portions of the autobiographical material appear to have been edited out, but the annotations to the games are intact and that is the meat of the book. If you can read German, read it in German. 5 stars for the game annotations, 3 stars for the translation.