Not So Stellar "Stars" Taylor Kingston Emanuel Lasker: Games 1889-1903, 1998 Chess Stars, Softcover, Figurine Algebraic, 335pp., $25. Emanuel Lasker: Games 1904-1940, Chess Stars, Softcover, Figurine Algebraic, 303pp., $25 Boris Spassky's 300 Wins, Chess Stars, Softcover, Figurine Algebraic, 380pp., $25 The "Chess Stars" series is the pet project of a Russian IM named Sergei Soloviov. The three books discussed here are the seventh, eighth, and ninth of the series, being preceded by four volumes on Tal and two on Capablanca. While the series is aptly named in terms of its subjects, its treatment of them is in these three volumes is not entirely stellar; results are rather mixed. Regular readers of Chess Informant will probably enjoy these works: they are clearly intended for hard-core game-guzzlers of advanced strength. Others may be turned off by the books' faceless institutional quality, which results in some great chess games being packaged in old- style Eastern Bloc socialist drabness. Those seeking historical accuracy or human interest will also be disappointed. The format is simple: a mass of games presented chronologically, with extensive notes in the chess equivalent of symbolic logic, Informant code. Crosstables are provided for most but not all major tournaments and matches. Games are indexed by opponent and Encyclopedia of Chess Openings code, but not by opening name. Those not familiar with ECO and Informant codes should be forewarned: no explanation of them is provided in these books. The Lasker volumes have almost no verbal text; the Spassky book has a narrative that perhaps should have been omitted. It's not clear who is doing the annotations for the Lasker books. Sometimes they are credited to various masters of both past and present eras (Schiffers, Steinitz, Tarrasch, Rubinstein, Euwe, Kmoch, Zak to name a few; curiously absent is Georg Marco, considered the foremost annotator of Lasker's time) but the bulk are anonymous. Soloviov? IM Vladimir Ivanov? GM Alexander Khalifman, who is listed as "chess editor"? Fritz5? It would be nice to know. A source clearly not consulted is Lasker's Greatest Chess Games 1889-1914 by Reinfeld and Fine (Black Knight Press, 1935; Dover, 1965). Spot comparisons found some interesting discrepancies, such as in the famous game Lasker-Napier, Cambridge Springs 1904. Here (See Diagram) w--------w Reinfeld and Fine punctuate the next two moves as "20 Bc4!! exf4!!", while Soloviov (or whoever) gives both a "?", which in fact seems to be correct. For White Soloviov cites R‚ti's recommendation of 20 bxc3 Bf8 21 Bb5 Rxe7 22 Bxe7 Bxe7, though he fails to note that Black's Bishops are then good compensation for the Exchange, which Reinfeld and Fine do point out. More importantly though, for Black Soloviov gives a saving line overlooked by Reinfeld and Fine, namely 20...Ne4! 21 Bxf7 Bg4 22 Bxe8 Rxe8 23 Ba3 exf4, which appears to win. It should be noted that 20...Ne4! is also in The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games by Burgess, Nunn, and Emms (Carrol & Graf, 1998). So while it's not clear who should get credit, it would appear that one way or another Chess Stars is providing some noteworthy improvements to older annotations of Lasker's games. In terms of historical thoroughness and accuracy it is appropriate to compare the Chess Stars Lasker set with The Collected Games of Emanuel Lasker, compiled by Ken Whyld (The Chess Player, 1998; see The Chess Caf‚ Archives for a review). The books have different strengths and weaknesses. Whyld's book completely lacks annotations, but has slightly better (though still quite brief) narratives. Whyld is scrupulously thorough in presenting crosstables, while Chess Stars is a bit hit-or-miss. Whyld attempted to compile every known Lasker game: exhibitions, offhands, consultations, blindfolds, simuls, leapfrog simuls, even composed problems and checkers games, as well as serious tournaments and matches. Soloviov gives only serious games (plus a few offhand games from Lasker's last days), for a total of 653 to Whyld's 1390. However, with the annotations the Chess Stars set runs to 638 pages, to 229 for Whyld's book. The ink and paper quality of the Chess Stars set is much the better, and its typeface larger and more readable. Where we can compare apples to apples, i.e. serious games, a close inspection reveals a fair number of discrepancies between the two books, at least in Lasker's early years. For example, for a tournament at London in March 1892, Soloviov does not give a full list of participants, but Whyld names all 12. Soloviov says five of Lasker's games from this event (vs. Loman, Locock, Lee, and two "not knowns") are unavailable, while Whyld at least gives results, fragments, and/or short descriptions (e.g. "Lasker exchanged pieces for a winning pawn ending") of four of the games (vs. Loman, Locock, and the "unknowns" Gossip and Jasnogrodsky), and gives a full score vs. Lee. For a Berlin tournament in July 1890, some glaring discrepancies turn up. Soloviov does not mention Riemann, who Whyld says withdrew after losing to Lasker in round 1. Soloviov gives as "not available" a Lasker-Minckwitz game; Whyld says Minckwitz withdrew after 3 rounds and did not play Lasker. Soloviov gives a full score for Lasker-Harmonist (1-0, 38), played supposedly 27 July, 1890, while Whyld says Harmonist withdrew after 7 rounds without playing Lasker (and finds no record of any game ever between them). Soloviov gives a 28-move Vienna Game (1 e4 e5 2 Nc3) that purports to be Mieses-Lasker, but Whyld says that against Mieses, Lasker played the white side of a Zukertort Opening (1 Nf3), that the game was not finished, and the score is lost. Instead, the Mieses-Lasker moves that Soloviov claims were the official tournament game of July 1890, are given by Whyld as an offhand encounter from October 1889. Hey, who do ya read? While your reviewer can't say definitely who's right or wrong here, if I had to bet, it would be on Whyld, who consistently lists his sources: all of them books, periodicals, historians and/or collectors considered reliable. The Mieses-Lasker game, for example, appeared in the Deutsches Wochenshach according to Whyld, while Chess Stars lists no sources at all. (It should be mentioned that such discrepancies were not found in the second volume; by 1904 Lasker games were more carefully preserved.) These discrepancies make clear the many difficulties endemic to historical chess scholarship, and may make it hard for Lasker fans to choose between Soloviov and Whyld. Potential buyers will simply have to decide which features are more important to them. If you want greater historical accuracy or the greater number of games, and are uninterested in annotations, Whyld's book is the better choice. If you prefer annotations, or cannot abide tiny type on lower-grade paper, and are willing to pay nearly twice the price, Chess Stars is the way to go. If you are interested in Lasker, but not hundreds or thousands of games' worth, don't bother with either; instead get Hannak's biography or the aforementioned Reinfeld and Fine book (or if you read Spanish I am told there is a good biography titled something like El Difˇcil Camino a la Gloria (The Hard Road to Glory); regrettably the author's name eludes my memory). If you are not interested in Lasker, I advise giving up chess. The Chess Stars staff may not realize that the title Boris Spassky's 300 Wins implies that Spassky won exactly 300 games in his career (in fact he has won many more). This faux pas is a harbinger of the many language problems that pervade the book. With Spassky, unlike Lasker, there is no attempt to present all his games, only selected wins from 1949 to 1998, and there is a misguided attempt at biographical narrative that the book was probably better off without. The narrative is rather limited and monotonous, being confined mainly to dry facts like "In [month] Spassky played in a strong tournament at [city]. In the first round he played a [variation] against [opponent] and drew in [n] moves." It was apparently written in Russian, then translated into English by a Bulgarian named Christo Iovev. Though not as bad as some translations we have seen, this is yet more proof that a translator should be a native speaker of the "to" language rather than the "from" language, as annoying oddities keep cropping up. Reigning world champions are continually referred to as "running world champions," players are said to play "on the tournament" rather than in, decades are referred to as "the 40-ies" or "the 70-ies," square names are mysteriously put in quotes, as if everyone just said the bishop sac was on "h7" but it really was somewhere else. Homonyms are a problem ("Spassky tried to overcome Tal in vein"), as is syntax: "What thinks of that Spassky himself?", or "An interesting pawn sacrifice for initiative made Spassky in the game with Zuk." Now and then there's unintentional weirdness or hilarity, e.g. "The chess players were given the famous stadium 'River Plate'.", or "He made a filigree work of a strategically integral game," or "Spassky scored two times" (did his wife know about this?). The city of Santa Monica is strangely said to be "one of the vacation satellites of Los Angeles," a description no one who knows either town would ever use. The narrative expands only occasionally, as for important events such as the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match. Its very pro-Russian slant is shown in the closing comment on this event, quoting the Soviet chess psychologist Krogius to the effect that Spassky got a swelled head from all the adulation he received as world champion and so got too soft to beat Fischer. Good grief! It's been nearly 30 years now, Communism is (one hopes) dead, the Cold War is over, and these guys are still pointing fingers and can't accept the fact that Fischer was the better player! A further indication of pro-Soviet bias, and the aforementioned socialist drabness, is the almost complete lack of personal information about Spassky. He seems to be only a chess-playing automaton that goes to tournaments. There is no mention of his difficulties with Soviet officialdom in the aftermath of 1972, or the fact that these led to his moving to France in 1975 and severing all his ties with the USSR by 1984, or any other details of his life or personality. The book's main virtue is its annotations. As with the Lasker books, these are done Informant style. Comparison with various old Informants found some cases where the notes appeared to match almost verbatim, however in most the Chess Stars notes seemed superior, citing more recent opening variations and adding further analysis. For example here, in Spassky-Uhlmann, Manila Interzonal 1976 (See Diagram) where Black played 7...Qc7, Informant #22's notes (by Bagirov) give no comment, while Chess Stars gives two alternatives, 7...Nbc6?! 8 Nxc6 Bxc3+ 9 bxc3 bxc6 10 Qxg7 Rg8 11 Qxh7 Qa5 12 Bd2 Ba6 13 Bxa6 Qxa6 14 Qd3 Qxd3 15 cxd3 Rxg2 16 Rb1 from Semkov-Lukov, Sofia 1976, and 7...0-0!? 8 Bd2 Bc5 9 Nb3 Bb6 10 0-0-0 Nbc6 11 f4 f6, from Murei-Naumkin, Moscow 1992. The games are well chosen, including for example my personal favorite among Spassky games, Spassky-Korchnoy, Candidates Match 1968, which featured a move at once delicate, elegant yet forceful (See Diagram): 26 Qb6! What Kotov called a "creeping move," a short, quiet, seemingly insignificant move involving no capture or immediate threat, yet which totally transforms the position. The point is that the resource Black had been counting on, 26...Qe6, now fails to 27 Bxc5; thus he is in virtual Zugzwang. The game concluded brilliantly with 26...Kg7 27 Nd5 Qe6 28 Bxc5 Bxc5 29 Qxc5 Nb5 30 Qe3 Qc6+ 31 Kb1 Nd4 32 Rc1 Qb5 33 Nc7! Qe2 34 Ne6+ Kh7 35 Qh6+!, 1-0. It is a pity that a player with the genius to find a move such as 26 Qb6, and a man who is one of the more interesting figures in recent chess history, gets this rather half-baked treatment by his countrymen. For regular Informant readers and/or fans and students of Spassky who want to increase their store of annotated games, this book is recommended, though without great enthusiasm. For anyone else, save your money.