This rather odd book (which is made up of culled highlights from Winter's Chess Notes) has a lot of interesting pieces in it and, to be quite honest, it also has a lot of stuff that will bore the vast majority of chess players to tears. One common example is: "The conclusion of an article on pages 491-492 of the December 1925 BCM: 'Boris Kostic can claim that he is the first chess master to make a tour of the chess world in a really comprehensive way...' Any dissenters?"

That really stirred my imagination. Did it have the same effect on you? Here's another: "The game between Paulsen and von Gottschall at Dresden, 1892 (see page 209 of the tournament book) opened 1.h3. Play continued 1...e5 2.c4 Nc6 3.e3 Nf6 4.a3 d5, and Black won at move 32." This may have religious significance for those who love playing 1.h3 or for fans (do any exist?) of von Gottschall, but the rest of us will probably pass over this installment in search of something a bit more interesting.

The problem, I think, rests with Mr. Winter's love of any chess fact (and I do stress FACT! He looks at anything not proven and fully documented with disdain). This high-priest of correctness (whom no known chess player has ever seen) would undoubtedly groan in ecstasy if he found out what Alekhine used to feed his cat (of course, he would take weeks to research this "Alekhine's cat" issue before publishing his findings. I wonder what his day job is?). This makes him a chess lover in the highest sense of the word and, as a result, everything proven is (in his mind) sanctified and worthwhile.

Though Mr. Winter's view of chess is most likely shared by a handful of people who think like he does (IM John Donaldson [forgive me, John!] is one of them; he can tell you what some random grandmaster ate for breakfast with so much reverence that you might think he was discussing the return of the Messiah), the vast majority of chess fans will turn from page to page with a combination of frowns (for paying so much money for so much gibberish), smiles (for the many humorous tales presented), and introspective glances (from the thought-provoking information that I had hoped would fill up every page).

Overall, this book echoes the author's tastes to perfection. Before buying it, ask yourself what you're expecting. If it's the whole range of human emotion (well...I haven't found love and lust in its pages, but I'm still looking!), you will be very happy with your purchase! Satisfaction will also be forthcoming if you're looking for a quiet, uneven read without the need for a chess board. However, if you want instruction, games or a systematic historical perspective of chess, spend your money on something else.

Pushing the hyperbole aside, Mr. Winter ends up giving us just what he promises in the preface: "Born from the stark realization that the beaten track of chess literature was bestrewn with fallacies, guesswork and hearsay, the bimonthly journal attempted throughout its eight-year run to clear away some of the deadwood and supplant it with a garland of more reliable material, founded on proper documentation.

If that's what you're looking for, this is most definitely the book for you.

YOU CAN FIND THIS BOOK AT