DEVELOPMENT OF CHESS STYLE: The Famous Book That Shows How the Historical Development of Chess Style Parallels the Development of the Individual Chess Player

Euwe, Dr. M./Cozens, W. H. (Translator)

ISBN 10: 067914045X / ISBN 13: 9780679140450

Published by David McKay Company, Inc., New York, 1978

About this Item

152 pp. Original red wraps, lightly rubbed w/ mild edge wear. Contents very nice.

Seller Inventory # 19127FUNC

Bibliographic Details

• Title: DEVELOPMENT OF CHESS STYLE: The Famous Book That Shows How the Historical Development of Chess Style Parallels the Development of the Individual Chess Player
• Publisher: David McKay Company, Inc., New York
• Publication Date: 1978
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 067914045X
• ISBN 13: 9780679140450
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Very Good-
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Dust Jacket
• Seller catalogs:
  • Fun - Chess

About this title

Synopsis

This is essentially a book on chess history, showing how different styles of chess play became popular and flourished and then faded in popularity, such as for example the Hyper-Modern Style of play that became “All the Rage” in the 1920s and 1930s. Former World Chess Champion Dr. Max Euwe traces the history of chess going through the games of the greatest players in history showing how the earliest recorded games show a wild attacking style. Later styles emphasized development, then pawn structure, then defensive play, then positional. Now primarily strategic planning is emphasized. Dr Euwe's thesis in his new book is that the evolution of the style of a chess player, during his formative years, runs parallel to that of the game itself since the dawn of modern chess in the seventeenth century. Forty-four great games, spanning the three centuries from Greco to Spassky, are analyzed in depth, always with reference to chess knowledge and practice current at the time. From the long history of master chess, Dr. Euwe has selected the great figures whose positive contributions to theory and dogma have influenced the methods of their successors and turned generations of players down new avenues of attack. Particularly admirable is Dr Euwe's thorough exposition of the origins of position play in the games of Steinitz. The detailed treatment given to nine of these games is a chess education in itself. And this is only one chapter. (In the very next, we see Steinitz beaten by a genius of a new kind.) All the rest is here, too - Philidor's pawn power, the combinative wizardry of Anderssen and of Morphy, whose influence was as long-lasting as his career was short-lived, the perfecting of technique in the years before the First World War, the iconoclasm of Reti, Nimzowitsch and Alekhine and the virile approach of the modern Russian School.

About the Author

Dr. Max Euwe was world chess champion from 1935 to 1937. He played all of the great players from Lasker to Fischer in tournaments and studied all of their games in great detail. He knew more about them and their games than anybody else. Max Euwe was born on May 20, 1901 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Among the world Champions, Euwe was certainly the most active and prolific writer about the game. He was never a professional player. He had a real job. He was a math professor. After retirement he became a chess official. He was president of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978. This was during the Cold War and Euwe had to make difficult decisions for the good of chess. It was absolutely, definitely because of Euwe that Bobby Fischer got to sit down at the board to play a match for the World Chess Championship. Fischer had been disqualified many times along the way, the first time being when he refused to play in the US Championship that was a necessary preliminary to the World Chess Championship competition. Max Euwe, himself a past world champion, acted as both referee and official at the famous Iceland matches in 1972. Max Euwe died on November 26, 1981 in his native Amsterdam at age 80.