"Chess Comet Charousek" by Victor A. Charuchin, translated by
Andreas Dengler, Manuel Fruth, and Gregori Maksheev; 1997
Schachfirma Fruth; figurine algebraic notation, 289 pp. $24.55. 

Rudolf Charousek (pronounced "kah-ROO-zek") was to chess
something like what Keats was to poetry or Jimi Hendrix to music:
a tremendous talent who flourished for a relatively short time, then
was cut off while still young. Born in 1873 in what is now the
Czech Republic, Charousek excited the chess world with a string
of impressive and brilliant performances in the period 1896-98,
and quickly became regarded as a likely world title challenger for
Emanuel Lasker, whom he defeated at Nuremberg 1896. However,
in the spring of 1898 he contracted tuberculosis. While a brief
remission brought hope, his condition soon worsened, and by April
1900 he was dead at age 26.

Though he is usually mentioned at least briefly in any decent book
discussing great chess masters, and was a co-subject (with
Pillsbury) of a 1907 German work by Ludwig Bachmann,
Charousek has never received a good, full-length biographical
treatment in English. Now, with the publication of Chess Comet
Charousek, that situation has changed - mostly for the worse.

I'm not sure who's most to blame for this badly flawed and sloppy
effort: the author, the translators, the proofreader, the art director,
the publisher or the annotator. Author Charuchin's biographical
narrative is limited mostly to the bare facts of Charousek's life and
chess career. Much of it could have been written by anyone with
access to his tournament crosstables and an average chess
encyclopedia. We learn trivialities such as what round he played
whom at Berlin 1897, but next to nothing about Charousek as a
man except that he studied law. As a personality he is left a blank;
there are almost no descriptions of his manners, opinions, habits,
virtues, vices or quirks, no interesting anecdotes which might have
fleshed him out and allowed us to feel we know him, as we do for
so many of his contemporaries, such as Blackburne, Zukertort, or
Janowski, to name only a few. Charuchin mixes in with his few
facts some glaring errors. He states that in an 1893 match against
Makovetz, Charousek won the first game, and "The remaining 3
games ended in a draw." This is contradicted by a table a few
pages later showing the score as +2 -1 =3 for Makovetz. In at least
one instance he appears to be seriously misinformed: we are told
that Lasker was not at Berlin 1897 because "due to his bad health
[he] wouldn't play tournaments with more than 16 participants."
Lasker's biographer Hannak mentions no illness at that time, and if
Charuchin is to be believed, one can only assume that a sickly,
gullible Lasker was duped by deceitful organizers into playing at
Hastings 1895, Nuremberg 1896, Paris 1900, and St. Petersburg
1909, with fields of 22, 19, 17, and 19 respectively. 

Translation is another problem. I once read a ludicrous ad for
garments imported from China, that said "The knacky color that if
so shirts will satisfy to all of them." I have no idea how
Charuchin's prose sounds in its original Russian, but its English
translation puts me in mind of that ad. One gets the distinct
impression the translators were first-year language students ineptly
filling in their many vocabulary gaps from a dictionary. A few
examples: Charousek and Morphy are described as "chess cracks"
who "all died a soon death." After leaving Czechia Charousek is
said to have "stayed in Hungary all the rest of his live." We are told
that Charousek at Nuremberg (how did he get there while staying
in Hungary?) 1896 "overplayed" Lasker, and forced Showalter "to
pass to the unpleasant sphere of boring defense." The gaffes are
sometimes unintentionally hilarious: it is said the tournament
Berlin 1897 "may well have been mixed up with an American he-
man movie: Phantastic adventures from the very start ...". We learn
that Chigorin had "a blossoming suntanned face", leading one to
think he had acute acne or a chronic addiction to gin, and we are
told "Especially long Charousek tarried at the Austrian capital",
prompting one to speculate on his manly endowment.

The translation is not only poor but incomplete. A six-page excerpt
from the "Fraenkischen Kurier" of 1896 is presented in its original
German, without so much as an explanatory footnote.
Typographical errors are rampant, for example we read that at
Berlin "intense mental labour hasn't effectes the health. of the
participants." The paper and cover are of mediocre quality, the
print is not centered on the pages, and the photos are remarkably
poor, looking like the umpteenth generation of a copy-of-a-copy
process.

The book's only value lies in its games. There are 250, of which,
Charuchin claims, 98 are newly rediscovered. Charousek was a
genuine talent with a remarkable tactical gift, which he showed
early on, as the book's first game, played when he was 17,
illustrates (See Diagram):

Charousek-Gruenn, Miskolc, 1890 
Diagram: 
White: Kc2, Qa6,
Ra1, Rh1,Bc1,Bf1; pawns - a2, b2, b7, c3, d4, f3, h2 
Black: Kb8, Qc8, Re8,Rh8, Nf6, Ba7; pawns - c7, f4, f7, g7, h7

18. Bxf4! Qxa1 19. Bxc7+! Kxc7 20. Qxa7 Rb8 21. Bb5! Qxh1 22.
Qc5+ Kxb7 (22. ... Kd8 23. Qd6+) 23. Qc6+ Ka7 24. Qa6#.
Charousek had been playing for only 3 years at that time.

Charousek created many combinations of great beauty, as here in
Charousek-Wollner, Kassa 1893: 1. e4 e5 2. d4 ed4 3. c3 dc3 4.
Bc4 -- Charousek frequently played gambits: the King's, Scotch,
Evans, and here, the Danish. 4. ... Nf6 5. Nf3 Bc5 6. Nxc3 d6 7. 0-
0 0-0 8. Ng5 h6 9. Nxf7! Rxf7 10. e5 Ng4 11. e6! Qh4 12. ef7+
Kf8 13. Bf4 Nxf2 14. Qe2 Ng4+ 15. Kh1 Bd7 16. Rae1 Nc6

Charousek was dubbed "the Austrian Morphy", but the upcoming
delightful finish is perhaps more reminiscent of Adolf Anderssen:
17. Qe8+!! Rxe8 18. fe8(Q)+ Bxe8 19. Bxd6#. This game became
the basis for the fictional encounter between the "Old Master" and
"Rolavsky" in the excellent short story "Last Round" (1947) by
Kester Svendsen. 

The book's annotations derive from a variety of sources: old
tournament books by Maroczy, Marco, Tarrasch et al, later notes
by Hungarian GM Gedeon Barcza, and some by Charuchin, who
holds an IM title for correspondence chess. While they seem in the
main sound, they have the distinct drawback of being in Informant
style, which substitutes symbolic codes for explanatory text. This
renders them dull, robotic, and bereft of life. Occasionally
Charuchin seems to have as much trouble with Informant syntax as
his translators do with English, e.g. this position from Charousek-
Lasker, Nuremberg 1896 (See Diagram).

Diagram: 
White: Kf2, Qa5, Ra1,Rh1, Ne2, Bf4; pawns - a2, b2, c3, d4, e4, f3 
Black: Kc8, Qe7, Rd8,Rh8, Nf8, Bg7; pawns - a6, b7, c6, f7, h7

At this point, White played 21. Ng3. The annotation reads
"[xf5,c7]", which makes little sense in Informant symbology. I
suppose "with the threat of 22. Nf5, when the Q cannot both
defend the B and prevent mate at c7" was meant. This is by no
means the only example; playing over ten games selected at
random, I found such mistakes in four, a rather high percentage. 

However, Charousek, unencumbered by worries over mistreatment
of his games 100 years later, went on to win in fine style by (from
diagam) 21. Ng3 Ne6 22. Nf5 Qf8 23. Bg3 Rd7 24. Nxg7 Qxg7 25.
Qe5! Qxe5 26. Bxe5 f6 27. Bxf6 Rf8 28. Rh6 Nf4 29. Ke3 Ng2+
30. Kd2 Rdf7 31. e5 Nf4 32. Rah1 Rg8 33. c4 Ne6 34. Ke3 Nf8
35. d5 Rd7 36. e6, 1-0. Rarely was Lasker manhandled in such
fashion. This game electrified the Austro-Hungarian empire, but
you'd never know it from its drab presentation in Chess Comet
Charousek.

Aside from dullness, the strict adherence to Informant annotations
has another drawback, in that it provides no discussion of
Charousek's chess style or his contributions to opening theory. If
the author were as devoted to his subject as he claims to be, he
might have put more effort into making at least some of these
games come alive.

"Chess Comet Charousek" can be recommended only to historians,
collectors, and others with an especially strong interest in
Charousek, who wish to have as many of his games as possible
regardless of the worth of the accompanying material. Even in
making this minimal recommendation I would point out that for
those with home computers (and if you're reading this you likely
have one), the Essentia CD-ROM database probably represents
better value. Costing about $80, it has over one million games, 163
of which are by Charousek, which means you would be getting
most of the worthwhile material in Chess Comet for about 1.3
cents instead of 25 bucks. Since Charousek played only about 131
serious games (or 145, counting a correspondence tournament), the
extra ones in Comet are less important, culled from simuls,
blindfold exhibitions, offhand encounters and the like; one would
not be missing much.

I would recommend "Chess Comet Charousek" to one other
person: Richard Lederer, author of the highly amusing book
Anguished English, as a source to add to his collection of
humorous mis-translations such as "The flattening of underwear
with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid." The warning of bad
books with regret is the job of the reviewer; consider yourself
warned on this one.