De la Bourdonnais versus McDonnell, 1834: The Eighty-five Games of Their Six Chess Matches, with Excerpts from Additional Games Against Other Opponents Library Binding – September 12, 2005

Great read. Cary Utterberg has done a tremendous job of taking us back to the classical era of modern chess where tactics and daring play ruled - it does not mean brash in any way and there are many positional gems. Every game is annotated in detail, though for some games, I felt it would have been nice if the author kept the variations less and descriptions more. The first 40 pages read like a neo-realist French novel setting the context for whats to come. I managed to get the hard copy edition before it went out of print. McFarland, like always, outdid itself. Must have for every collector, player, aficionado and for anyone who loves chess.

These games are fundamental for the incipience of modern chess. Morphy, Steinitz, Zuckertort, Blackburne, et al., would be unthinkable without the explorations revealed in these seminal games. The edition is complete, & more than expected.

Well researched, beautifully written. Apart from updated game analysis, I loved the introduction laying out the historical backdrop, the short biographis of the two players and how the tournament played out. Wish the author wrote more!

I came across four games from this match years ago, two in Horowitz's Golden Treasury and two in Coles's Epic Battles. I've wanted more ever since. The games are fascinating and very hard-fought, much more than mere historical curiosities. Cary Utterberg has done a fantastic job of research and the book is a model of presentation. It's expensive but well worth it. I'm really glad that someone else shares my interest in these two players and cared enough to write and publish this gem.

Wonderful, well-researched book about two early giants.

This is a terrific book about an important historical chess match. If you play chess, even if you don't have a great interest in these historical figures, the games are interesting and the author has gone to great pains to get all the information he possibly could relating to these players and these matches.

This is a hard back book, designed to last for years. It is well worth the price!

Quality format, excellent/thorough historical research.

First of all, have you ever read ANYTHING on the Internet ... only to look for it later, and discover that it had been moved or deleted? (One of my 'pet peeves.') I don't know why anyone does this, much valuable material: chess games, book reviews, news items, etc; these are all deleted on a regular basis. (Please read on, you will see the relevance of this complaint later in this review.)

I have had this particular book for many months now ... all I can say is that there are literally hundreds of books that people have sent me over the last few years, and I need to do book reviews on all of them ... eventually.

Chess History: what is the perhaps the most important match of the last 250 years? Which match was one of the first to pit the top masters from two different countries that were considered to be the leading chess nations of that day? Which match was the FIRST to have all the moves of that event recorded for chess posterity?

The answer was the event of 1834, which was - in actuality - a series of matches between la Bourdonnais and McDonnell.

Morphy studied these matches, as did many other chess players of the 1800's. But for over 100 years, the regular player could not find a book on these games anywhere. In the last 20-30 years, chess databases contained all of the games, as did a few other sources ... but most of these were inaccessible to the average chess enthusiast. A permanent record of these games was long overdue.

Taylor Kingston did an excellent, if somewhat lengthy review, for Chess Cafe, (The authorized merchandise distributor for the U.S. Chess Federation.). However, even though I have searched for it diligently, I can see no trace of this review on their website. (It is archived on my web pages; you should be able to find it with any search engine.)

Should you study these games? Well, to be honest, the answer is yes and no. As an Original USCF LIFE-Master, the student might look at these games and they would appear to be a little crude. Of course, one must bear in mind that they were played almost 200 years ago - chess has advanced considerably since that time. Additionally, several reviewers have pointed out that the analysis in this book is not perfect, the assiduous player, aided by Fritz, (or any other chess program); will definitely find improvements in the play and the notes ... should he (or she) choose to do so.

Then why would you buy this book? I think that this question has more than one answer:

# 1.) It is the ONLY place where you can find ALL the games ... and the notes from dozens of different sources in one place. (The author gets an A+ for his research, I doubt if any pertinent source has been overlooked or missed.)

# 2.) I enjoy a chess game that has been diligently annotated; many times there are copious notes, especially in the more famous of these encounters.

# 3.) The average player, which means anyone rated below 1850, will definitely learn a great deal by diligent study of these historic clashes.

# 4.) Anyone who considers himself a serious student of chess history will definitely want this book; it is as thorough and as in-depth as anyone could hope for.

A small side note is that the author even found my web pages, and mentions them in a couple of places. (See the notes to game # 04 and game # 50.)

In the end, this is a fantastic book, it receives my highest recommendation. This is a beautiful hardback edition with a library binding, the highest quality paper, and top-notch editing. This is a volume that most chess players would be proud to own and place on their book-shelf. I conclude with a quote from Mr. Kingston's review: (this book) ... "must be considered the definitive work on this important event, and one of the best of its kind ever. It is a book that scholars will cherish, and that anyone with the least interest in the game's history will enjoy."