"Encyclopaedia of Chess Games, French Defense" by IGM Adam
Kuligowski & Harry Wienigk,  1997 Schmidt Schach GMBH,
Figurine Algebraic Notation, Softcover, 341 pp., $37.50

Reviewed by Ken Plesset 

The Chess Cafe is pleased to welcome USCF Life Master and
former U.S. Correspondence Chess Champion Ken Plesset as a
guest reviewer this week. Mr. Plesset has played the French
defense almost exclusively as a response to 1.e4 for the past 25
years with excellent results.

There is little doubt that opening books comprise the great bulk of
new chess releases. The quantity and frequency of these releases
makes it increasingly more difficult for the player looking to obtain
that certain opening edge to separate the wheat from the chaff.. The
book examined this week, fresh from the German publisher
Schmidt, is basically a database in book form. (This technique,
amounting to intellectually short-changing the book-buying public,
is unfortunately, not relegated to the Old Country.)

Each page contains a heading (the first number of moves of the
line) and 25 variations and each variation ends with an evaluation
symbol with the name, place and date of the game quoted. There
are some 8000 games total. The classification system and format of
the Table of Contents was designed by Harry Wienigk; the
database used is by World Chess Information System. The book is
written in English and German.

The classification system is satisfactory, but surprisingly lacks
cross references. For example, I was looking for one of the lines I
play in the Winawer: 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 (In the U.S., this
line is known as the Winawer Variation; this book calls it the
Paulsen System) 4.e5 Nd7, generally followed by 5.a3 Bxc3
6.bxc3 b6. (See Diagram) (I have seen this described as the
Matulovic Variation.) In the index I found the first 4 moves, and
was then directed to page 257. There I found the following 5th
moves: f4, a3, Qg4, Nf3, Bd2, and Ne2 but no lines with ...b6.
After 5.a3 the only move discussed was 5....Ba5. Surely they could
not have left out the line I was looking for, as it is not that
uncommon?! So I did a bit more searching, and found it under
another move order 4.e5 b6 5.a3 Bc3 6.bxc3 Ne7 on page 252. Not
critical, but a cross reference on page 257 would have been not
only logical, but also helpful.

A more blatant example: One reason some people do not play the
French (I have been told) is that when playing Black against a
lower rated player it is too easy for White to draw using the
Exchange Variation. I do not believe this, and neither does IM
John Watson who has written a number of authoritative books
about the French. The line I like to play is 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5
exd5 and if 4.Bd3 then Nc6! 5.c3 Bd6, and now if 6.Ne2
(preparing 7.Bf4) then Qh5. I have had excellent results against
lower or equal rated players with lines similar to this. The main
idea is for Black to castle on the Queenside and to initiative a
Kingside attack if White castles short. Even if White castles on the
Queenside, Black can generate an attack. The benchmark game in
this variation is Winter-Alekhine, Nottingham 1936. I wanted to
see if there was anything new in this variation after 5.... Bd6,
specifically looking for 6.Qf3.

The Table of Contents did not give me much of a clue where to
look. There is no index of players, and the correct area to look
could not be found under the player's name. I started to go through
the entire Exchange Variation with the exception of moves like c4
for White or c5 for Black. After about twenty minutes I found the
Winter-Alekhine game. The move order of the first six moves had
been changed to fit into the classification system. The original
game went 1.d4 e6 2.e4 d5 3.exd5 exd5 4.Bd3 Nc6 5.Ne2 Bd6 6.c3
Qh4. (See Diagram) The moves in this book were 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5
3.exd5 exd5 4.Bd3 Bd6 (this was a main heading in the
classification system) 5.c3 Nc6 6.Ne2 Qh4, arriving at the original
game by transposition. Once I found the Alekhine game, the
information I sought was in the surrounding area.. I found a
number of games that I was looking for (with 6.Qf3). There were
14 games in the book, but I found considerably more (86) in my
650,000 game data base. The overlap was 4 games. Interesting, to
say the least.

Furthermore, there are no complete games given in this book, so if
one is trying to learn a variation, the usual follow-up ideas are not
there. Clearly the author has structured this book to be more in an
ECO-type format.

With a computer, a million-game database and viewer is
conveniently accessible for a price that is only two, possibly three
times the high price of this book. And, the result would be vastly
superior. With a million games, one can easily dig out 8,000
French Defense games, as well as many thousands of games of
almost any other opening. There are also complete games, some
with annotations. 

While it is beyond the scope of this article to review data bases, I
do own three, collected over many years: ChessBase, Chess
Assistant and Bookup. "The Ultimate Game Collection"
(1,000,000 games on CD ROM) and "Catalan- Bogo-Indian CD
ROM" have been reviewed by The Chess Cafe (and can be found
in the Book Review Archives). Besides studying openings as such,
these databases allows you to search for typical pawn formations,
to see how games similar but not exactly the same as one you have
played might go. In addition, one can study endgames ,
combination play, etc.

In any case, using databases or database type books should be used
mainly for helping you find new ideas, not for evaluating entire
lines. The trap is being lured into a sense of false security by
memorizing, rather than understanding variations. Of course, this
leads to further problems when you forget variations at critical
times in a game, becoming confused and playing a move meant to
be played in a similar line but not in the one you are playing,
becoming bored by memorizing a bunch of variations you do not
really understand, not knowing what to do if your opponent plays
an inferior move (or one just not in the book), and in general
allowing the problem-solving areas of your brain atrophy.

Unless you are at least of expert strength, and ready to inject your
own, original ideas into the material, this book should be avoided.
Correspondence players may find it marginally useful. However,
this reviewer questions its high price and apparent low return.
Perhaps it is ultimately really only suited for "French Freaks"
(thank you Bobby Fisher).