Chess theory
Encyclopedia
The game of chess
is commonly divided into three phases: the opening
, middlegame, and endgame. As to each of these phases, especially the opening and endgame, there is a large body of theory
as how the game should be played. Those who write about chess theory, who are often but not necessarily also eminent players, are referred to as "theorists" or "theoreticians".
"Opening theory" commonly refers to consensus, broadly represented by current literature on the openings. "Endgame theory" consists of statements regarding specific positions, or positions of a similar type, though there are few universally applicable principles. "Middlegame theory" often refers to rules or principles applicable to the middlegame. However, the modern trend is to assign paramount importance to analysis of the specific position at hand rather than to general principles.
The development of theory in all of these areas has been assisted by the vast literature on the game. In 1913, preeminent chess
historian
H.J.R. Murray wrote in his 900-page magnum opus A History of Chess
that, "The game
possesses a literature
which in contents probably exceeds that of all other games combined." He estimated that at that time the "total number of books on chess, chess magazines, and newspapers devoting space regularly to the game probably exceeds 5,000". In 1949, B. H. Wood
opined that the number had increased to about 20,000. David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld wrote in 1992 that, "Since then there has been a steady increase year by year of the number of new chess publications. No one knows how many have been printed..." The world's largest chess library
, the John G. White
Collection at the Cleveland Public Library
, contains over 32,000 chess books and serials, including over 6,000 bound volumes of chess periodicals. Chessplayers today also avail themselves of computer
-based sources of information unimagined by Murray.
The earliest printed work on chess theory whose date can be established with some exactitude is Repeticion de Amoresy Arte de Ajedrez by the Spaniard
Luis Ramirez de Lucena, published c. 1497, which included among other things analysis of eleven chess openings. Some of them are known today as the Giuoco Piano
, Ruy Lopez
, Petroff's Defense, Bishop's Opening
, Damiano's Defense, and Scandinavian Defense
, though Lucena did not use those terms.
The authorship and date of the Göttingen manuscript
are not established,, and its publication date is estimated as being somewhere between 1471 and 1505. It is not known whether it or Lucena's book was published first. The manuscript included examples of games with the openings now known as Damiano's Defence, Philidor's Defense, the Giuoco Piano, Petroff's Defense, the Bishop's Opening, the Ruy Lopez, the Ponziani Opening
, the Queen's Gambit Accepted
, 1.d4 d5 2.Bf4 Bf5 (a form of the London System
), Bird's Opening
, and the English Opening
. Murray observes that it "is no haphazard collection of commencements of games, but is an attempt to deal with the Openings in a systematic way."
Fifteen years after Lucena's book, a Portuguese
apothecary
, Pedro Damiano
, published in Rome
the book Questo libro e da imparare giocare a scachi et de la partiti (1512). It included analysis of the Queen's Gambit Accepted, showing what happens when Black tries to keep the gambit pawn
with ...b5. Damiano's book "was, in contemporary terms, the first bestseller of the modern game." Harry Golombek
writes that it "ran through eight editions in the sixteenth century and continued on into the next century with unflagging popularity." Modern players know Damiano primarily because his name is attached to the weak opening Damiano's Defense (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6?), although he condemned rather than endorsed it.
These books and later ones discussed games played with various openings, opening traps, and the best way for both sides to play. Certain sequences of opening moves began to be given names, some of the earliest being Damiano's Defense, the King's Gambit
(1.e4 e5 2.f4), the Queen's Gambit
(1.d4 d5 2.c4), and the Sicilian Defense (1.e4 c5).
Damiano's book was followed by general treatises on chess play by Ruy López de Segura (1561), Giulio Cesare Polerio (1590), Gioachino Greco (c. 1625), Joseph Bertin
(1735), and François-André Danican Philidor
(1749).
The first author to attempt a comprehensive survey of the openings then known was Aaron Alexandre
in his 1837 work Encyclopedie des echecs. According to Hooper and Whyld, "[Carl] Jaenisch
produced the first openings analysis on modern lines in his Analyse nouvelle des ouvertures (1842-43)." In 1843, Paul Rudolf von Bilguer
published the German Handbuch des Schachspiels
, which combined the virtues of Alexandre and Jaenisch's works. The Handbuch, which went through several editions, last being published in several parts in 1912-16, was one of the most important opening references for many decades. The last edition of the Handbuch was edited by Carl Schlechter
, who had drawn a match for the World Championship with Emanuel Lasker
in 1910. International Master William Hartston
called it "a superb work, perhaps the last to encase successfully the whole of chess knowledge within a single volume."
The English
master Howard Staunton
, perhaps the world's strongest player from 1843 to 1851, included over 300 pages of analysis of the openings in his 1847 treatise The Chess Player's Handbook. That work immediately became the standard reference work in English-speaking countries, and was reprinted 21 times by 1935. However, "as time passed a demand arose for more up-to-date works in English". Wilhelm Steinitz
, the first World Champion
, widely considered the "father of modern chess," extensively analyzed various double king-pawn openings (beginning 1.e4 e5) in his book The Modern Chess Instructor, published in 1889 and 1895. Also in 1889, E. Freeborough and the Reverend C.E. Ranken published the first edition of Chess Openings Ancient and Modern; later editions were published in 1893, 1896, and 1910. In 1911, R.C. Griffith and J.H. White
published the first edition of Modern Chess Openings
. It is now the longest-published opening treatise in history; the fifteenth edition (commonly called MCO-15), by Grandmaster Nick de Firmian
, was published in April 2008.
According to Hooper and Whyld, the various editions of Modern Chess Openings, the last edition of the Handbuch, and the fourth edition of Ludvig Collijn's Larobok (in Swedish) "were the popular reference sources for strong players between the two world wars." In 1937-39 former World Champion Max Euwe
published a twelve-volume opening treatise, De theorie der schaakopeningen, in Dutch. It was later translated into other languages.
In the late 1930s to early 1950s Reuben Fine
, one of the world's strongest players, also become one of its leading theoreticians, publishing important works on the opening, middlegame, and endgame. These began with his revision of Modern Chess Openings, which was published in 1939. In 1943, he published Ideas Behind the Chess Openings, which sought to explain the principles underlying the openings. In 1948, he published his own opening treatise, Practical Chess Openings, a competitor to MCO. In 1964, International Master I.A. Horowitz published the 789-page tome Chess Openings: Theory and Practice, which in addition to opening analysis included a large number of illustrative games.
In 1966, the first volume of Chess Informant
was published in Belgrade
, Yugoslavia
, containing 466 annotated games from the leading chess tournament
s and match
es of the day. The hugely influential Chess Informant series has revolutionized opening theory. Its great innovation was that it expressed games in languageless figurine algebraic notation and annotated them using no words, but rather seventeen symbols, whose meanings were explained at the beginning of the book in six different language
s. This enabled readers around the world to read the same games and annotations, thus greatly accelerating the dissemination of chess ideas and the development of opening theory. The editors of Chess Informant later introduced other publications using the same principle, such as the five-volume Encyclopedia of Chess Openings and Encyclopedia of Chess Endings treatises. Chess Informant was originally published twice a year, and since 1991 has been published thrice annually. Volume 100 was published in 2007. It now uses 57 symbols, explained in 10 languages, to annotate games (see punctuation (chess)
), and is available in both print and electronic formats. In 2005, former World Champion Garry Kasparov
wrote, "We are all Children of the Informant."
In the 1990s and thereafter, the development of opening theory has been further accelerated by such innovations as extremely strong chess engines such as Fritz
and Rybka
, software such as ChessBase
, and the sale of multi-million-game database
s such as ChessBase's Mega 2008 database, with 3.8 million games. Today, the most important openings have been analyzed over 20 moves deep, sometimes well into the endgame, and it is not unusual for leading players to introduce theoretical novelties on move 25 or even later.
Thousands of books have been written on chess openings. These include both comprehensive openings encyclopedia
s such as the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings and Modern Chess Openings; general treatises on how to play the opening such as Mastering the Chess Openings (in four volumes), by International Master John L. Watson
; and myriad books on specific openings, such as Understanding the Grünfeld
and Chess Explained: The Classical Sicilian. "Books and monographs on openings are popular, and as they are thought to become out of date quickly there is a steady supply of new titles." According to Andrew Soltis
, "Virtually all the new information about chess since 1930 has been in the opening."
Middlegame theory is considerably less developed than either opening theory or endgame theory. Watson writes, "Players wishing to study this area of the game have a limited and rather unsatisfactory range of resources from which to choose."
One of the earliest theories to gain attention was that of William Steinitz who posited that the player with the advantage must of necessity attack, or else risk losing that advantage. Steinitz counseled that a premature attack against one's opponent in an equal position could be repelled by skillful defence, and so a player's best bet was to slowly maneuver with the goal of accumulating small advantages. Steinitz himself did not lay out his whole theory in one place, but Emanuel Lasker in Lasker's Manual of Chess and Max Euwe in The Development of Chess Style expounded and developed Steinitz's theory.
Leading player and theorist Aron Nimzowitsch's
influential books My System
(1925), Die Blockade (1925) (in German), and Chess Praxis (1936) were, and remain, among the most important works on the middlegame. Nimzowitsch called attention to the possibility of letting one's opponent occupy the centre with pawns while you exert control with your pieces as in the Nimzo-Indian or Queen's Indian defences. He pointed out how in positions with interlocking pawn chains, one could attack the chain at its base by advancing one's own pawns and carrying out a freeing move (pawn break). He also drew attention to the strategy of occupying open files with one's rooks in order to later penetrate to the seventh rank where they could attack the enemy pawns and hem in the opponent's king. Another of his key concepts was prophylaxis, moves aimed at limiting the opponent's mobility to the point where he would no longer have any useful moves.
In 1952, Fine published the 442-page The Middle Game in Chess, perhaps the most comprehensive treatment of the subject up until that time. The mid-20th century also saw the publication of The Middle Game, volumes 1 and 2, by former World Champion Max Euwe
and Hans Kramer, and a series of books by the Czechoslovak
-German grandmaster Luděk Pachman
: three volumes of Complete Chess Strategy, Modern Chess Strategy, Modern Chess Tactics, and Attack and Defense in Modern Chess Tactics.
Another key turning point in middlegame theory came with the release of Alexander Kotov's Think like a Grandmaster book in 1971. Kotov outlined how a player calculates by developing a tree of variations in his head, and recommended that players only examine each branch of the tree once. He also noted how some players seem to fall victim to what is now known as Kotov's Syndrome: they calculate out a large range of different lines, become dissatisfied with the result, and realizing that they are short on time, play a completely new candidates without even checking if it is sound. More recently, Jonathan Tisdall, John Nunn and Andrew Soltis have elaborated on Kotov's tree theory further.
In 1999, Watson's Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy: Advances Since Nimzowitsch was published, in which Watson discusses the revolution in middlegame theory that has occurred since Nimzowitsch's time.
There are also many books on specific aspects of the middlegame, such as The Art of Attack in Chess by Vladimir Vuković
, The Art of Sacrifice
in Chess by Rudolf Spielmann
, The Art of the Checkmate
by Georges Renaud and Victor Kahn, The Basis of Combination
in Chess by J. du Mont, and The Art of Defense in Chess by Andrew Soltis
.
s.
The second edition (1777) of Philidor's Analyse du jeu des Échecs devoted 75 pages of analysis to various endgames. These included a number of theoretically important endings, such as rook and bishop versus rook, queen versus rook, queen versus rook and pawn, and rook and pawn versus rook. Certain positions in the endings of rook and bishop versus rook, rook and pawn versus rook, and queen versus rook have all become known as Philidor's position
. Philidor concluded his book with two pages of (in the English translation), "Observations on the ends of parties", in which he set forth certain general principles about endings, such as that: "Two knights alone cannot mate." (see two knights endgame), the ending with a bishop and rook pawn whose queening square is on the opposite color from the bishop is drawn (see wrong rook pawn#Bisnop and pawn), and a queen beats a bishop and knight (see pawnless chess endgame#Queen versus two minor pieces).
Staunton's The Chess-Player's Handbook (1847) included almost 100 pages of analysis of endgames.
In 1941 Reuben Fine published his monumental 573-page treatise Basic Chess Endings, the first attempt at a comprehensive treatise on the endgame. A new edition, revised by Pal Benko
, was published in 2003.
Soviet writers published an important series of books on specific endings: Rook Endings by Grigory Levenfish
and Vasily Smyslov
, Pawn Endings by Yuri Averbakh
and I. Maizelis, Queen and Pawn Endings by Averbakh, Bishop Endings by Averbakh, Knight Endings by Averbakh and Vitaly Chekhover
, Bishop v. Knight Endings by Yuri Averbakh, Rook v. Minor Piece Endings by Averbakh, and Queen v. Rook/Minor Piece Endings by Averbakh, Chekhover, and V. Henkin. These books by Averbakh and others were collected into the five-volume Comprehensive Chess Endings in English.
In recent years, computer-generated endgame tablebase
s have revolutionized endgame theory, conclusively showing best play in many complicated endgames that had vexed human analysts for over a century, such as queen
and pawn versus queen. They have also overturned human theoreticians' verdicts on a number of endgames, such as by proving that the two bishops
versus knight
ending, which had been thought drawn for over a century, is normally a win for the bishops (see pawnless chess endgame#Minor pieces only and Chess endgame#Effect of tablebases on endgame theory).
Several important works on the endgame have been published in recent years, among them Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual, Fundamental Chess Endings by Karsten Müller
and Frank Lamprecht
, Basic Endgames: 888 Theoretical Positions by Yuri Balashov
and Eduard Prandstetter, Chess Endgame Lessons by Benko, and Secrets of Rook Endings and Secrets of Pawnless Endings by John Nunn
. Some of these have been aided by analysis from endgame tablebases.
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
is commonly divided into three phases: the opening
Chess opening
A chess opening is the group of initial moves of a chess game. Recognized sequences of opening moves are referred to as openings as initiated by White or defenses, as created in reply by Black. There are many dozens of different openings, and hundreds of named variants. The Oxford Companion to...
, middlegame, and endgame. As to each of these phases, especially the opening and endgame, there is a large body of theory
Theory
The English word theory was derived from a technical term in Ancient Greek philosophy. The word theoria, , meant "a looking at, viewing, beholding", and referring to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action...
as how the game should be played. Those who write about chess theory, who are often but not necessarily also eminent players, are referred to as "theorists" or "theoreticians".
"Opening theory" commonly refers to consensus, broadly represented by current literature on the openings. "Endgame theory" consists of statements regarding specific positions, or positions of a similar type, though there are few universally applicable principles. "Middlegame theory" often refers to rules or principles applicable to the middlegame. However, the modern trend is to assign paramount importance to analysis of the specific position at hand rather than to general principles.
The development of theory in all of these areas has been assisted by the vast literature on the game. In 1913, preeminent chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
historian
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
H.J.R. Murray wrote in his 900-page magnum opus A History of Chess
A History of Chess
A History of Chess is a chess history book by Harold James Ruthven Murray published in 1913.Murray's aim is threefold: to present as complete a record as is possible of the varieties of chess that exist or have existed in different parts of the world; to investigate the ultimate origin of these...
that, "The game
Game
A game is structured playing, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements...
possesses a literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
which in contents probably exceeds that of all other games combined." He estimated that at that time the "total number of books on chess, chess magazines, and newspapers devoting space regularly to the game probably exceeds 5,000". In 1949, B. H. Wood
Baruch Harold Wood
Baruch Harold Wood MSc OBE was an English chess player, editor and author. He was born in Sheffield, England.-Playing career:...
opined that the number had increased to about 20,000. David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld wrote in 1992 that, "Since then there has been a steady increase year by year of the number of new chess publications. No one knows how many have been printed..." The world's largest chess library
Chess libraries
Chess libraries are library collections of books and periodicals on the game of chess.Chess has a very extensive literature, probably exceeding that of all other games combined....
, the John G. White
John G. White
John Griswold White was a prominent Cleveland attorney, a chess connoisseur, and a bibliophile. "Over a period of some fifty years he conducted a determined quest, throughout the world, for desirable additions to his library." Chess historian H.J.R...
Collection at the Cleveland Public Library
Cleveland Public Library
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869 and is located in Cleveland, Ohio. It operates the Main Library on Superior Avenue in downtown Cleveland, 28 branches throughout the city, a mobile library, a Public Administration Library in City Hall, and a library for the blind and physically...
, contains over 32,000 chess books and serials, including over 6,000 bound volumes of chess periodicals. Chessplayers today also avail themselves of computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
-based sources of information unimagined by Murray.
Opening theory
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
Luis Ramirez de Lucena, published c. 1497, which included among other things analysis of eleven chess openings. Some of them are known today as the Giuoco Piano
Giuoco Piano
The Giuoco Piano is a chess opening beginning with the moves:Common alternatives to 3...Bc5 include 3...Nf6 , 3...Be7 , or 3...d6 .-History:...
, Ruy Lopez
Ruy Lopez
The Ruy Lopez, also called the Spanish Opening or Spanish Game, is a chess opening characterised by the moves:-History:The opening is named after the 16th century Spanish priest Ruy López de Segura, who made a systematic study of this and other openings in the 150-page book on chess Libro del...
, Petroff's Defense, Bishop's Opening
Bishop's Opening
The Bishop's Opening is a chess opening that begins with the moves:White attacks Black's f7-square and prevents Black from advancing his d-pawn to d5....
, Damiano's Defense, and Scandinavian Defense
Scandinavian Defense
The Scandinavian Defense is a chess opening characterized by the moves:The Center Counter Defense is one of the oldest recorded openings, first recorded as being played between Francesco di Castellvi and Narciso Vinyoles in Valencia in 1475 in what may be the first recorded game of modern chess,...
, though Lucena did not use those terms.
The authorship and date of the Göttingen manuscript
Göttingen manuscript
The Göttingen manuscript is the earliest known work devoted entirely to modern chess. It is a Latin text of 33 leaves held at the University of Göttingen. A quarto parchment manuscript of 33 leaves, ff. 1–15a are a discussion of twelve chess openings, f. 16 is blank, and ff. 17–31b are a...
are not established,, and its publication date is estimated as being somewhere between 1471 and 1505. It is not known whether it or Lucena's book was published first. The manuscript included examples of games with the openings now known as Damiano's Defence, Philidor's Defense, the Giuoco Piano, Petroff's Defense, the Bishop's Opening, the Ruy Lopez, the Ponziani Opening
Ponziani Opening
The Ponziani Opening is a chess opening that begins with the moves:The opening is now considered inferior to 3.Bb5, the Ruy Lopez, and 3.Bc4, the Italian Game, and is accordingly rarely seen today at any level of play. Black's main responses are 3...Nf6, leading to quiet play, and 3...d5, leading...
, the Queen's Gambit Accepted
Queen's Gambit Accepted
The Queen's Gambit Accepted is a chess opening characterised by the moves:The Queen's Gambit is not considered a true gambit, in contradistinction to the King's Gambit, because the pawn is either regained, or can only be held unprofitably by Black...
, 1.d4 d5 2.Bf4 Bf5 (a form of the London System
London System
The London System is a complex of related chess openings that begin with 1.d4 followed by an early Bf4. The London System requires very little knowledge of opening theory and normally results in a very closed game...
), Bird's Opening
Bird's Opening
Bird's Opening is a chess opening characterised by the move:Bird's is a standard but never popular flank opening. White's strategic ideas involve control of the e5-square without occupying it, but his first move is also non-developing and slightly weakens his kingside...
, and the English Opening
English Opening
In chess, the English Opening is the opening where White begins:A flank opening, it is the fourth most popular and, according to various databases, anywhere from one of the two most successful to the fourth most successful of White's twenty possible first moves. White begins the fight for the...
. Murray observes that it "is no haphazard collection of commencements of games, but is an attempt to deal with the Openings in a systematic way."
Fifteen years after Lucena's book, a Portuguese
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
apothecary
Apothecary
Apothecary is a historical name for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses materia medica to physicians, surgeons and patients — a role now served by a pharmacist and some caregivers....
, Pedro Damiano
Pedro Damiano
Pedro Damiano was a Portuguese chess player who lived from 1480 to 1544. A native of Odemira, he was a pharmacist by profession...
, published in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
the book Questo libro e da imparare giocare a scachi et de la partiti (1512). It included analysis of the Queen's Gambit Accepted, showing what happens when Black tries to keep the gambit pawn
Pawn (chess)
The pawn is the most numerous and weakest piece in the game of chess, historically representing infantry, or more particularly armed peasants or pikemen. Each player begins the game with eight pawns, one on each square of the rank immediately in front of the other pieces...
with ...b5. Damiano's book "was, in contemporary terms, the first bestseller of the modern game." Harry Golombek
Harry Golombek
Harry Golombek OBE , was a British chess International Master and honorary grandmaster, chess arbiter, and chess author. He was three times British chess champion, in 1947, 1949, and 1955 and finished second in 1948. He became a grandmaster in 1985.He was the chess correspondent of The Times...
writes that it "ran through eight editions in the sixteenth century and continued on into the next century with unflagging popularity." Modern players know Damiano primarily because his name is attached to the weak opening Damiano's Defense (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6?), although he condemned rather than endorsed it.
These books and later ones discussed games played with various openings, opening traps, and the best way for both sides to play. Certain sequences of opening moves began to be given names, some of the earliest being Damiano's Defense, the King's Gambit
King's Gambit
The King's Gambit is a chess opening that begins with the moves:White offers a pawn to divert the Black e-pawn so as to build a strong centre with d2–d4...
(1.e4 e5 2.f4), the Queen's Gambit
Queen's Gambit
The Queen's Gambit is a chess opening that starts with the moves:The Queen's Gambit is one of the oldest known chess openings. It was mentioned in the Göttingen manuscript of 1490 and was later analysed by masters such as Gioachino Greco in the seventeenth century...
(1.d4 d5 2.c4), and the Sicilian Defense (1.e4 c5).
Damiano's book was followed by general treatises on chess play by Ruy López de Segura (1561), Giulio Cesare Polerio (1590), Gioachino Greco (c. 1625), Joseph Bertin
Joseph Bertin
Captain Joseph Bertin was one of the first authors to write about the game of chess. David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld in The Oxford Companion to Chess call his book The Noble Game of Chess "the first worthwhile chess book in the English language". B...
(1735), and François-André Danican Philidor
François-André Danican Philidor
François-André Danican Philidor , often referred to as André Danican Philidor during his lifetime, was a French composer and chess player. He contributed to the early development of the opéra comique...
(1749).
The first author to attempt a comprehensive survey of the openings then known was Aaron Alexandre
Aaron Alexandre
Aaron Alexandre was a Jewish German–French–English chess player and writer.Aaron Alexandre, a Bavarian trained as a rabbi, arrived in France in 1793. Encouraged by the French Republic's policy of religious toleration, he became a French citizen. At first, he worked as a German teacher and as...
in his 1837 work Encyclopedie des echecs. According to Hooper and Whyld, "[Carl] Jaenisch
Carl Jaenisch
Carl Friedrich Andreyevich von Jaenisch was a Finnish and Russian chess player and theorist. In the 1840s, he was among the top players in the world.-Life and career:...
produced the first openings analysis on modern lines in his Analyse nouvelle des ouvertures (1842-43)." In 1843, Paul Rudolf von Bilguer
Paul Rudolf von Bilguer
Paul Rudolf von Bilguer was a German chess master and chess theoretician from Ludwigslust, Mecklenburg-Schwerin....
published the German Handbuch des Schachspiels
Handbuch des Schachspiels
Handbuch des Schachspiels is a chess book, first published in 1843 by Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa. It was one of the most important opening references for many decades...
, which combined the virtues of Alexandre and Jaenisch's works. The Handbuch, which went through several editions, last being published in several parts in 1912-16, was one of the most important opening references for many decades. The last edition of the Handbuch was edited by Carl Schlechter
Carl Schlechter
Carl Schlechter was a leading Austrian chess master and theoretician at the turn of the 20th century. He is best known for drawing a World Chess Championship match with Emanuel Lasker.-Early life:...
, who had drawn a match for the World Championship with Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker
Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...
in 1910. International Master William Hartston
William Hartston
William Roland Hartston is an English chess player who played competitively from 1962 to 1987 with a highest Elo rating of 2515...
called it "a superb work, perhaps the last to encase successfully the whole of chess knowledge within a single volume."
The English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
master Howard Staunton
Howard Staunton
Howard Staunton was an English chess master who is generally regarded as having been the world's strongest player from 1843 to 1851, largely as a result of his 1843 victory over Saint-Amant. He promoted a chess set of clearly distinguishable pieces of standardised shape—the Staunton pattern—that...
, perhaps the world's strongest player from 1843 to 1851, included over 300 pages of analysis of the openings in his 1847 treatise The Chess Player's Handbook. That work immediately became the standard reference work in English-speaking countries, and was reprinted 21 times by 1935. However, "as time passed a demand arose for more up-to-date works in English". Wilhelm Steinitz
Wilhelm Steinitz
Wilhelm Steinitz was an Austrian and then American chess player and the first undisputed world chess champion from 1886 to 1894. From the 1870s onwards, commentators have debated whether Steinitz was effectively the champion earlier...
, the first World Champion
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title....
, widely considered the "father of modern chess," extensively analyzed various double king-pawn openings (beginning 1.e4 e5) in his book The Modern Chess Instructor, published in 1889 and 1895. Also in 1889, E. Freeborough and the Reverend C.E. Ranken published the first edition of Chess Openings Ancient and Modern; later editions were published in 1893, 1896, and 1910. In 1911, R.C. Griffith and J.H. White
John Herbert White
John Herbert White was co-author with Richard Clewin Griffith of the first three editions of the famous chess opening treatise Modern Chess Openings. It was first published in 1911 and is still in print...
published the first edition of Modern Chess Openings
Modern Chess Openings
Modern Chess Openings is an important reference book on the chess openings, first published in 1911 by the British players Richard Clewin Griffith and John Herbert White...
. It is now the longest-published opening treatise in history; the fifteenth edition (commonly called MCO-15), by Grandmaster Nick de Firmian
Nick de Firmian
Nicholas Ernest de Firmian , is a chess grandmaster and three-time U.S. chess champion, winning in 1987 , 1995, and 1998. He also tied for first in 2002, but Larry Christiansen won the playoff...
, was published in April 2008.
According to Hooper and Whyld, the various editions of Modern Chess Openings, the last edition of the Handbuch, and the fourth edition of Ludvig Collijn's Larobok (in Swedish) "were the popular reference sources for strong players between the two world wars." In 1937-39 former World Champion Max Euwe
Max Euwe
Machgielis Euwe was a Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, and author. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion . Euwe also served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978.- Early years :Euwe was born in Watergraafsmeer, near Amsterdam...
published a twelve-volume opening treatise, De theorie der schaakopeningen, in Dutch. It was later translated into other languages.
In the late 1930s to early 1950s Reuben Fine
Reuben Fine
Reuben Fine was one of the strongest chess players in the world from the early 1930s through the 1940s, an International Grandmaster, psychologist, university professor, and author of many books on both chess and psychology.Fine won five medals in three chess Olympiads. Fine won the U.S...
, one of the world's strongest players, also become one of its leading theoreticians, publishing important works on the opening, middlegame, and endgame. These began with his revision of Modern Chess Openings, which was published in 1939. In 1943, he published Ideas Behind the Chess Openings, which sought to explain the principles underlying the openings. In 1948, he published his own opening treatise, Practical Chess Openings, a competitor to MCO. In 1964, International Master I.A. Horowitz published the 789-page tome Chess Openings: Theory and Practice, which in addition to opening analysis included a large number of illustrative games.
In 1966, the first volume of Chess Informant
Chess Informant
Chess Informant is a publishing company from Belgrade that periodically produces a book of the same name, as well as the Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings, Encyclopaedia of Chess Endings, Opening Monographs, other print publications, and software Chess Informant (Šahovski Informator) is a...
was published in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
, Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
, containing 466 annotated games from the leading chess tournament
Tournament
A tournament is a competition involving a relatively large number of competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:...
s and match
Match
A match is a tool for starting a fire under controlled conditions. A typical modern match is made of a small wooden stick or stiff paper. One end is coated with a material that can be ignited by frictional heat generated by striking the match against a suitable surface...
es of the day. The hugely influential Chess Informant series has revolutionized opening theory. Its great innovation was that it expressed games in languageless figurine algebraic notation and annotated them using no words, but rather seventeen symbols, whose meanings were explained at the beginning of the book in six different language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
s. This enabled readers around the world to read the same games and annotations, thus greatly accelerating the dissemination of chess ideas and the development of opening theory. The editors of Chess Informant later introduced other publications using the same principle, such as the five-volume Encyclopedia of Chess Openings and Encyclopedia of Chess Endings treatises. Chess Informant was originally published twice a year, and since 1991 has been published thrice annually. Volume 100 was published in 2007. It now uses 57 symbols, explained in 10 languages, to annotate games (see punctuation (chess)
Punctuation (chess)
When annotating chess games, commentators frequently use question marks and exclamation points to denote a move as bad or good. The symbols normally used are "??", "?", "?!", "!?", "!", and "!!". The corresponding symbol is juxtaposed in the text immediately after the move When annotating chess...
), and is available in both print and electronic formats. In 2005, former World Champion Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov
Garry Kimovich Kasparov is a Russian chess grandmaster, a former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist, and one of the greatest chess players of all time....
wrote, "We are all Children of the Informant."
In the 1990s and thereafter, the development of opening theory has been further accelerated by such innovations as extremely strong chess engines such as Fritz
Fritz (chess)
Fritz is a German chess program developed by Frans Morsch and Mathias Feist and published by ChessBase. There is also a version called Deep Fritz that is designed for multiprocessing....
and Rybka
Rybka
Rybka is a computer chess engine designed by International Master Vasik Rajlich. , Rybka is one of the top-rated engines on chess engine rating lists and has won many computer chess tournaments...
, software such as ChessBase
ChessBase
ChessBase GmbH is a German company that markets chess software, maintains a chess news site, and operates a server for online chess. Set up in 1998, it maintains and sells massive databases, containing most historic games, that permit analysis that had not been possible prior to computing...
, and the sale of multi-million-game database
Database
A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...
s such as ChessBase's Mega 2008 database, with 3.8 million games. Today, the most important openings have been analyzed over 20 moves deep, sometimes well into the endgame, and it is not unusual for leading players to introduce theoretical novelties on move 25 or even later.
Thousands of books have been written on chess openings. These include both comprehensive openings encyclopedia
Encyclopedia
An encyclopedia is a type of reference work, a compendium holding a summary of information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge....
s such as the Encyclopedia of Chess Openings and Modern Chess Openings; general treatises on how to play the opening such as Mastering the Chess Openings (in four volumes), by International Master John L. Watson
John L. Watson
John Leonard Watson is a chess International Master and author.Watson was born in Milwaukee and grew up in Omaha, Nebraska. He was educated at Brownell-Talbot, Harvard, and the University of California at San Diego, where he took his degree in engineering...
; and myriad books on specific openings, such as Understanding the Grünfeld
Grünfeld
Grünfeld is a surname, and may refer to:*A. Tom Grunfeld , American professor*Alfred Grünfeld , Austrian pianist and composer*Berthold Grünfeld , Norwegian psychiatrist, sexologist, and professor...
and Chess Explained: The Classical Sicilian. "Books and monographs on openings are popular, and as they are thought to become out of date quickly there is a steady supply of new titles." According to Andrew Soltis
Andrew Soltis
Andrew Eden Soltis is a chess Grandmaster, author and columnist.He won at Reggio Emilia 1971–72 and was equal first at New York 1977. He was awarded the International Master title in 1974 and became a Grandmaster in 1980...
, "Virtually all the new information about chess since 1930 has been in the opening."
Middlegame theory
One of the earliest theories to gain attention was that of William Steinitz who posited that the player with the advantage must of necessity attack, or else risk losing that advantage. Steinitz counseled that a premature attack against one's opponent in an equal position could be repelled by skillful defence, and so a player's best bet was to slowly maneuver with the goal of accumulating small advantages. Steinitz himself did not lay out his whole theory in one place, but Emanuel Lasker in Lasker's Manual of Chess and Max Euwe in The Development of Chess Style expounded and developed Steinitz's theory.
Leading player and theorist Aron Nimzowitsch's
Aron Nimzowitsch
Aron Nimzowitsch was a Russian-born Danish unofficial chess grandmaster and a very influential chess writer...
influential books My System
My System
My System is a book on chess theory written by Aron Nimzowitsch. Originally over a series of five brochures from 1925 to 1927, the book — one of the early works on hypermodernism — introduced many new concepts to followers of the modern school of thought...
(1925), Die Blockade (1925) (in German), and Chess Praxis (1936) were, and remain, among the most important works on the middlegame. Nimzowitsch called attention to the possibility of letting one's opponent occupy the centre with pawns while you exert control with your pieces as in the Nimzo-Indian or Queen's Indian defences. He pointed out how in positions with interlocking pawn chains, one could attack the chain at its base by advancing one's own pawns and carrying out a freeing move (pawn break). He also drew attention to the strategy of occupying open files with one's rooks in order to later penetrate to the seventh rank where they could attack the enemy pawns and hem in the opponent's king. Another of his key concepts was prophylaxis, moves aimed at limiting the opponent's mobility to the point where he would no longer have any useful moves.
In 1952, Fine published the 442-page The Middle Game in Chess, perhaps the most comprehensive treatment of the subject up until that time. The mid-20th century also saw the publication of The Middle Game, volumes 1 and 2, by former World Champion Max Euwe
Max Euwe
Machgielis Euwe was a Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, and author. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion . Euwe also served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978.- Early years :Euwe was born in Watergraafsmeer, near Amsterdam...
and Hans Kramer, and a series of books by the Czechoslovak
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
-German grandmaster Luděk Pachman
Ludek Pachman
Luděk Pachman was a Czechoslovak-German chess grandmaster, chess writer, and political activist. In 1972, after being imprisoned and tortured almost to death by the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, he was allowed to emigrate to West Germany...
: three volumes of Complete Chess Strategy, Modern Chess Strategy, Modern Chess Tactics, and Attack and Defense in Modern Chess Tactics.
Another key turning point in middlegame theory came with the release of Alexander Kotov's Think like a Grandmaster book in 1971. Kotov outlined how a player calculates by developing a tree of variations in his head, and recommended that players only examine each branch of the tree once. He also noted how some players seem to fall victim to what is now known as Kotov's Syndrome: they calculate out a large range of different lines, become dissatisfied with the result, and realizing that they are short on time, play a completely new candidates without even checking if it is sound. More recently, Jonathan Tisdall, John Nunn and Andrew Soltis have elaborated on Kotov's tree theory further.
In 1999, Watson's Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy: Advances Since Nimzowitsch was published, in which Watson discusses the revolution in middlegame theory that has occurred since Nimzowitsch's time.
There are also many books on specific aspects of the middlegame, such as The Art of Attack in Chess by Vladimir Vuković
Vladimir Vukovic
Vladimir Vuković was a Croatian chess writer, theoretician, player, arbiter, and journalist.His tournament record includes the following achievements:* 3rd at Celje 1921, behind Stefan Erdélyi and Imre König...
, The Art of Sacrifice
Sacrifice (chess)
In chess, a sacrifice is a move giving up a piece in the hopes of gaining tactical or positional compensation in other forms. A sacrifice could also be a deliberate exchange of a chess piece of higher value for an opponent's piece of lower value....
in Chess by Rudolf Spielmann
Rudolf Spielmann
Rudolf Spielmann was an Austrian-Jewish chess player of the romantic school, and chess writer.-Career:He was a lawyer but never worked as one....
, The Art of the Checkmate
Checkmate
Checkmate is a situation in chess in which one player's king is threatened with capture and there is no way to meet that threat. Or, simply put, the king is under direct attack and cannot avoid being captured...
by Georges Renaud and Victor Kahn, The Basis of Combination
Combination (chess)
In chess, a combination is a sequence of moves, often initiated by a sacrifice, which leaves the opponent few options and results in tangible gain. At most points in a chess game, each player has several reasonable options from which to choose, which makes it difficult to plan ahead except in...
in Chess by J. du Mont, and The Art of Defense in Chess by Andrew Soltis
Andrew Soltis
Andrew Eden Soltis is a chess Grandmaster, author and columnist.He won at Reggio Emilia 1971–72 and was equal first at New York 1977. He was awarded the International Master title in 1974 and became a Grandmaster in 1980...
.
Endgame theory
Many significant chess treatises, beginning with the earliest works, have included some analysis of the endgame. Lucena's book (c. 1497) concluded with 150 examples of endgames and chess problemChess problem
A chess problem, also called a chess composition, is a puzzle set by somebody using chess pieces on a chess board, that presents the solver with a particular task to be achieved. For instance, a position might be given with the instruction that White is to move first, and checkmate Black in two...
s.
The second edition (1777) of Philidor's Analyse du jeu des Échecs devoted 75 pages of analysis to various endgames. These included a number of theoretically important endings, such as rook and bishop versus rook, queen versus rook, queen versus rook and pawn, and rook and pawn versus rook. Certain positions in the endings of rook and bishop versus rook, rook and pawn versus rook, and queen versus rook have all become known as Philidor's position
Philidor position
The Philidor position usually refers to an important chess endgame which illustrates a drawing technique when the defender has a king and rook versus a king, rook, and a pawn. It is also known as the third rank defense, because of the importance of the rook on the third rank cutting off the...
. Philidor concluded his book with two pages of (in the English translation), "Observations on the ends of parties", in which he set forth certain general principles about endings, such as that: "Two knights alone cannot mate." (see two knights endgame), the ending with a bishop and rook pawn whose queening square is on the opposite color from the bishop is drawn (see wrong rook pawn#Bisnop and pawn), and a queen beats a bishop and knight (see pawnless chess endgame#Queen versus two minor pieces).
Staunton's The Chess-Player's Handbook (1847) included almost 100 pages of analysis of endgames.
In 1941 Reuben Fine published his monumental 573-page treatise Basic Chess Endings, the first attempt at a comprehensive treatise on the endgame. A new edition, revised by Pal Benko
Pál Benko
Pal Benko is a chess grandmaster, author, and composer of endgame studies and chess problems.- Early life :Benko was born in France but was raised in Hungary. He was Hungarian champion by age 20. He emigrated to the United States in 1958, after defecting following the World Student Team...
, was published in 2003.
Soviet writers published an important series of books on specific endings: Rook Endings by Grigory Levenfish
Grigory Levenfish
Grigory Yakovlevich Levenfish was a leading Jewish Russian chess grandmaster of the 1920s and 1930s. He was twice Soviet champion - in 1934 and 1937. In 1937 he tied a match against future world champion Mikhail Botvinnik...
and Vasily Smyslov
Vasily Smyslov
Vasily Vasilyevich Smyslov was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster, and was World Chess Champion from 1957 to 1958. He was a Candidate for the World Chess Championship on eight occasions . Smyslov was twice equal first at the Soviet Championship , and his total of 17 Chess Olympiad medals won...
, Pawn Endings by Yuri Averbakh
Yuri Averbakh
Yuri Lvovich Averbakh is a Soviet and Russian chess player and author. He is currently the oldest living chess grandmaster.-Life and career:...
and I. Maizelis, Queen and Pawn Endings by Averbakh, Bishop Endings by Averbakh, Knight Endings by Averbakh and Vitaly Chekhover
Vitaly Chekhover
Vitaly Chekhover was a Soviet chess player and chess composer. He was also a pianist.- Composing career :...
, Bishop v. Knight Endings by Yuri Averbakh, Rook v. Minor Piece Endings by Averbakh, and Queen v. Rook/Minor Piece Endings by Averbakh, Chekhover, and V. Henkin. These books by Averbakh and others were collected into the five-volume Comprehensive Chess Endings in English.
In recent years, computer-generated endgame tablebase
Endgame tablebase
An endgame tablebase is a computerized database that contains precalculated exhaustive analysis of a chess endgame position. It is typically used by a computer chess engine during play, or by a human or computer that is retrospectively analysing a game that has already been played.The tablebase...
s have revolutionized endgame theory, conclusively showing best play in many complicated endgames that had vexed human analysts for over a century, such as queen
Queen (chess)
The queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess, able to move any number of squares vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of the first rank next to the king. With the chessboard oriented correctly, the white queen starts...
and pawn versus queen. They have also overturned human theoreticians' verdicts on a number of endgames, such as by proving that the two bishops
Bishop (chess)
A bishop is a piece in the board game of chess. Each player begins the game with two bishops. One starts between the king's knight and the king, the other between the queen's knight and the queen...
versus knight
Knight (chess)
The knight is a piece in the game of chess, representing a knight . It is normally represented by a horse's head and neck. Each player starts with two knights, which begin on the row closest to the player, one square from the corner...
ending, which had been thought drawn for over a century, is normally a win for the bishops (see pawnless chess endgame#Minor pieces only and Chess endgame#Effect of tablebases on endgame theory).
Several important works on the endgame have been published in recent years, among them Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual, Fundamental Chess Endings by Karsten Müller
Karsten Müller
Dr. Karsten Müller was born November 23, 1970 in Hamburg, West Germany. He is a German chess Grandmaster. He earned the Grandmaster title in 1998 and a PhD in mathematics in 2002 at the University of Hamburg. He placed third in the 1996 German championship and second in the 1997 German...
and Frank Lamprecht
Frank Lamprecht
Frank Lamprecht is a German chess International Master and chess trainer. He is an author of Fundamental Chess Endings and Secrets of Pawn Endings, both with Karsten Müller.-External links:...
, Basic Endgames: 888 Theoretical Positions by Yuri Balashov
Yuri Balashov
-Chess career:He was awarded the grandmaster title in 1973. Balashov was Moscow Champion in 1970 and 2nd to Anatoly Karpov in the 1976 USSR Chess Championship. In 1977 he won Lithuanian Chess Championship. He finished 1st= at Lone Pine 1977 and 1st= at Wijk aan Zee 1982.Balashov represented the...
and Eduard Prandstetter, Chess Endgame Lessons by Benko, and Secrets of Rook Endings and Secrets of Pawnless Endings by John Nunn
John Nunn
John Denis Martin Nunn is one of England's strongest chess players and once belonged to the world's top ten. He is also a three times world champion in chess problem solving, a chess writer and publisher, and a mathematician....
. Some of these have been aided by analysis from endgame tablebases.
See also
- List of chess openings
- Chess endgame
- Chess endgame literatureChess endgame literatureChess endgame literature refers to books and magazines about chess endgames. A bibliography of endgame books is below.Many chess writers have contributed to the theory of endgames over the centuries, including Ruy López de Segura, François-André Philidor, Josef Kling and Bernhard Horwitz, Johann...
- Chess piece relative value