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True Lies in Chess
For the author, chess is about more than just winning as many games as possible, it is a creative search for the truth. In True Lies in Chess, Comas Fabrego takes on the challenging task of separating the truth from lies in chess literature. Guided by many practical examples and clear advice, the readers will learn how to reduce the complexity of chess towards the essential features of each position, and so improve their play.
- GenresChess
160 pages, Paperback
First published December 30, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 18, 2019
Unfortunately the author main purpose seems to lambast the classics, while forgeting that chess is difficult, and sometimes comiting the same kind of errors he condemns in other. For example, when discussing the pros and cons of an e4 outpost for white vs. f file for black, he says about a specific position that "the knight on e4 doesn't exert any pressure on the enemy position, because, the central points are well defended", but seems to forget that the need to defend those points decreases the flexibility and activity of the black army (i.e. a pawn on c7 must stay put to not weaken the pawn on d6, some piece or a pawn on h6 must guard g5 against Ng5-e6 etc.) Chess is truly difficult, and mistakes on analysis before the computer age were unavoidable, and not a result of laziness or bias.
March 16, 2014
Like a lot of contemporary chess books, the title is somewhat misleading. Searching for the truth in chess, like in life itself, is easier to write about than to do sometimes.
However, Comas Fabrego has some wise words to the student of chess: not all books and annotations are what they seem. Some authors pick a theme and show the reader some select some cherry-picked variations to support that theme. Comas Fabrego is especially tough on Botvinnik the writer, although he gives him his due as a player.
But the book is uneven and unthematic. It opens with some egregious examples of tendentious annotations from published works, but the zigs and zags off into middlegame themes and opening analysis. My favorite, alas, was the final chapter, where the author picks six or seven games from the golden era of the Soviet school of chess. The annotations here are informative, instructive and thematic.
Would that Comas Fabrego had more chapters like the finale. As it was, you get the feeling that he had half a dozen disparate essays that he cobbled into a book.
One final word: the editor placed the analysis diagrams in strange places relative to the text. Thus, there's a mainline diagram with no analysis following it. Later, the author presents pages of analysis with diagrams interspersed at odd times. Not a big deal, but off-putting at times.
However, Comas Fabrego has some wise words to the student of chess: not all books and annotations are what they seem. Some authors pick a theme and show the reader some select some cherry-picked variations to support that theme. Comas Fabrego is especially tough on Botvinnik the writer, although he gives him his due as a player.
But the book is uneven and unthematic. It opens with some egregious examples of tendentious annotations from published works, but the zigs and zags off into middlegame themes and opening analysis. My favorite, alas, was the final chapter, where the author picks six or seven games from the golden era of the Soviet school of chess. The annotations here are informative, instructive and thematic.
Would that Comas Fabrego had more chapters like the finale. As it was, you get the feeling that he had half a dozen disparate essays that he cobbled into a book.
One final word: the editor placed the analysis diagrams in strange places relative to the text. Thus, there's a mainline diagram with no analysis following it. Later, the author presents pages of analysis with diagrams interspersed at odd times. Not a big deal, but off-putting at times.
May 9, 2020
Author is obnoxious.
In his analysis of Harmonist-Tarrasch 1889, he suggests Watson and Nimzowitsch might have selected this example even though they knew it was incorrect. Pretty serious claim without a shred of evidence.
In his analysis of Lasker-Chigorin 1895, he cherry picks his analysts so he can repeatedly say “none of the analysts considered...” But most of the lines he cites appear in Kasparov’s MGP1 analysis of this game. So he just didn’t mention Kasparov’s analysis.
There’s some good stuff in here but it’s not worth wading through all the crap.
And for somebody who spends so much time bashing other authors' errors, he has a fair number of stupid ones himself (he refers to Ragozin as Simagin several times in Chapter 6).
In his analysis of Harmonist-Tarrasch 1889, he suggests Watson and Nimzowitsch might have selected this example even though they knew it was incorrect. Pretty serious claim without a shred of evidence.
In his analysis of Lasker-Chigorin 1895, he cherry picks his analysts so he can repeatedly say “none of the analysts considered...” But most of the lines he cites appear in Kasparov’s MGP1 analysis of this game. So he just didn’t mention Kasparov’s analysis.
There’s some good stuff in here but it’s not worth wading through all the crap.
And for somebody who spends so much time bashing other authors' errors, he has a fair number of stupid ones himself (he refers to Ragozin as Simagin several times in Chapter 6).
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews