TWO CHESS BIOGRAPHIES

REUBEN FINE: A Comprehensive Record of an American Chess Career (1929-1951) Author: Aidan Woodger

392 pages

$65.00

McFarland & Company (2004)

AMOS BURN: A Chess Biography

Author: Richard Forster

972 pages

$75.00

McFarland & Company (2004)

Reviewed by John Watson

McFarland & Company not only stands at the high-end of American chess publishers but arguably also at the pinnacle of world publishers when it comes to production quality and scholarship. Theirs are books made for libraries, jammed with historical research and including comprehensive collections of games many if not most of which cannot be found in conventional sources. McFarland’s chess historical books span quite a range. They include relatively obscure subjects such as John Hilbert’s volume on Walter Penn Shipley (not a prominent player but an organizer and supporter of chess; 442 large-size pages), Jewish Chess Masters on Stamps (!), and Kurt Landsberger’s collection of Steinitz letters. But the majority of their chess publications thus far have been biographies/games collections. The good part is that most of them are just readable enough to balance their potentially dry emphasis on research. By “readable” I mean to include the books whose primary appeal rests with the presentation of well-annotated games by famous players.

For example, Stephen Gordon’s modest 406 page collection of Reshevsky’s games uses the effective technique of introducing each decade with a several-page essay about Reshevsky’s life and career during that period. The book is a deliberate and understated testimony to Reshevsky’s unique spot in chess history. It’s almost difficult to comprehend that such a part time player could be ranked among the very best who have ever competed. Reshevsky’s games are a revelation; his unpopularity among players in the U.S. may have contributed to the lack of historical attention that he has received.

Edward Winter found a fascinating way to write about Capablanca’s life that remains unique among chess biographies. He used an almost exclusively documentary approach, unearthing a wealth of newspaper and magazine articles by and about the champion, including his own writings and letters, with some wonderful commentary on other players of his time. Winter has investigated the key controversies of Capablanca’s career, notably the issues and arguments surrounding the matches both played and unplayed with Lasker and Alekhine.

I have previously mentioned Kurt Landsberger’s biography of William Steinitz which, much like Winter’s account, derives almost entirely from documents, articles, letters and the like. Landsberger supplies more of his own interpretation and the flavor of a narrative to his book, which is one of my very favorite historical works. And there are several more such biographies, e.g., Soltis’ of Frank Marshall with 220 very well-annotated games. Skinner and Verhoeven’s collection of Alekhine’s games takes up 824 pages. The latter is almost exclusively research and not to my taste.

Here I want to look at two more recent additions to this group (both McFarland, 2004). Aidan Woodger’s REUBEN FINE: A Comprehensive Record of an American Chess Career (1929-1951) is one of those dogged attempts to locate every game by a great player and explain them. The Acknowledgements list gives a hint of how wide a search was undertaken but the Introduction is more interesting, explaining Woodger’s motivation and his approach. The author overwhelmingly uses annotations from other sources (usually multiple ones) but also adds his own suggestions, checked by a slightly dated “Fritz 5.32 on an IBM machine with a Pentium Chip.” Woodger begins with a biography of 6 densely-packed pages (McFarland usually uses small type) and then moves on to the games. These take up most of the book. As far as I can tell, every “important” game has notes, often very thorough ones.

Reuben Fine was one of the great American players, for several years one of the very best in the world and according to Jeff Sonas’ historical ratings reaching #1 in the early 1940s and #2-#5 in the latter part of the 1930s. His results in the late 1930s were equal to the best, and most observers felt that he had a strong case for being Alekhine’s challenger for the World Championship. I briefly described this in a previous review. Among other tournaments, he won Hastings 1935/36, tied for first in Amsterdam, and came in 3rd at the famous 1936 Nottingham tournament. He won Zandvoort 1936 (a point ahead of Euwe and two ahead of Keres), Leningrad and Ostende in 1937, Margate 1937, and of course finished 1st with Keres at the famous AVRO 1938 tournament (ahead of Botvinnik, Euwe, Alekhine; Fine was only 24 at the time!). He also won the gold medal at the Olympiads in 1933 (3rd board), 1935 (first board), and 1937 (2nd board), accounting for the greatest results ever for the U.S. teams.

Fine also had a lengthy career as an author. His most famous works included IDEAS BEHIND THE CHESS OPENINGS, one of the most popular books ever among players who have graduated from the developmental stage. It is rather dogmatic even by the standards of his own time and still more so by virtue of hindsight, but if nothing else shows what a clear and appealing writing style Fine had. He also wrote BASIC CHESS ENDINGS (a tour de force and still highly relevant to endgame theory in its revised form by Pal Benko) and THE MIDDLE GAME IN CHESS. Fine’s own games collection is excellent and drawn upon in full in Woodger’s work. Finally there’s the infamous THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE CHESS PLAYER, widely regarded as one of the most absurd books ever written about chessplayers. After his chess career ended, Fine became an exponent of Freudian psychoanalysis, authoring important works in the field. He continued to write and co-author chess works, generally shorter ones that are considered inferior to his previous efforts.

As so often, the games constitute the essence of the book. As I looked through his games from the 1930s, it was hard to find one that wasn’t at least interesting, often fascinating. I find them more diverse and creative than the typical contests of the 1920s, perhaps because Fine’s was a real golden age of chess in terms of the number of world-class players representing past, present and future greats. The subject of Fine’s style is controversial. He probably wasn’t deserving of the epithet “Flohr-Fine Style”, which referred to dry, cautious, and technical play. Certainly Fine was no slouch at tactical play, and his well-prepared, innovative openings were often dynamically charged. Nevertheless, the assessment of several players that Fine was disinclined to risk anything and was at his best in technical positions was probably true, at least when playing top opposition. Fortunately, his famed opponents did the risk-taking often enough that Fine’s games with them provide lasting enjoyment. I should also say that in his lesser tournaments Fine seemed to indulge in unclear tactics more readily. You can see this just by thumbing through the book.

REUBEN FINE concludes with Appendices including biographical data about Fine’s opponents, a fun list to skim through. There are also sections on the time controls used at various tournaments (remember 40 in 2.5 hours without sudden death?), Fine’s own books, blindfold play, and the usual indices. This book is mainly for a lover of chess play. There isn’t much description of Fine’s life, although there are many articles by players and journalists that preface tournaments and they sometimes spice up things by describing Fine’s extra-chess side, e.g., his concern with the “adulteration of foods” that was said to be typically American at the time.

When considering biographical/games books, there are several main factors that I look at. Perhaps the most obvious and important is whether I’m interested in the player being written about. I confess to a prejudice towards World Champions and other elite players. Fine qualifies in that regard, as do a majority of well-known chess biographies. When other players are involved, I would like a description of the subject’s life and contributions and why they should be of interest to me. I also consider whether the book is mainly a set of games and how interesting and well annotated they are, or a descriptive biography. In the latter case, one can mean biography in the sense of providing substantial details about a player’s life outside of chess and/or supplying details about events relating to the tournaments and matches involved. Many chess biographies do mainly the latter (“Grandmaster X arrived in Bern on July 2nd. He stayed at the Y hotel along with Grandmaster’s X and Y. The tournament hall was located at the end of the street. In the drawing of the lots, Master X ...”). Fewer do the former but sometimes it justifies the book’s existence. Fine’s contributions (books, opening and endgame theory) are special and particularly interesting to me as a writer. On the other hand, the description of his life outside of chess is limited. Articles from the time supply information about both his life and reputation as a competitor, but not enough to be satisfying.

Altogether, one can see that I might recommend Woodger’s book, and I do. Indeed I spent a lot of time with it (mainly looking at games) without doing so under obligation of writing a good summary/review.  I also spent more time than I normally would have with Richard Forster’s massive AMOS BURN: A Chess Biography, mostly due to the overwhelmingly positive response by reviewers. I was frankly not that taken by the book, which admittedly may be just a matter of personal taste. I do wonder, however, if other reviewers really went over many games and/or read most of the rest of the book. Or do they principally stand in admiration of the incredible feat of research and care that the author put into it? Naturally the one is not exclusive of the other, but one suspects that the latter is the case.

Forster’s work is a 972-page biography/games collection of Amos Burn, one of the leading masters of the late 19th- and early 20th centuries.  When I saw a comment from a reviewer suggesting that Blackburne was not in the same class as Burn, I decided to refer to Jeff Sonas’ historical ratings lists and in fact I think that if you compare their careers as a whole Blackburne and Burn occupy a very similar level (as does their mutual score: 10-9 in Blackburne’s favor). That might be a good way to think about Burn’s strength and historical standing. One naturally wonders why Forster feels that such a lengthy account of his life is worthwhile. Reviewers point admiringly to the fact that AMOS BURN: A Chess Biography is probably the greatest combination of thoroughness and accuracy ever achieved in a chess biography. That is no mean achievement, but perhaps not the best of criteria. Writing a thorough book about a modern world-historical figure would requires sifting through unimaginably more material than is available about a chessplayer, yet authors manage to do it in fewer pages than Forster. The skill is in paring down your material without losing the essence of your subject, while keeping in mind the reader’s time and interests.

At any rate, the book isn’t a good fit with my criteria discussed above. In the first place I am not especially interested in Burn as a player; his games are fine but don’t grab my attention in the way that other players’ do. Nor do I discover much of interest about Burn’s life outside of chess. Okay, that’s due to Burn himself and the presumably the availability of appropriate source material, but that doesn’t help me as a reader. Most biographies are also lacking in this regard, but have games and notes that are more compelling to me. Others hold my interest because they are so full of life details and well written. I think of books such as PAL BENKO: My Life, Games, and Compositions, Landsberger’s WILLIAM STEINITZ, CHESS CHAMPION (mentioned above), and Alexander Münninghoff’s MAX EUWE, The Biography. The bottom line is that I enjoy actually reading these books, whatever their academic faults may be. Burn strikes me as a stodgy dullard compared to these colorful and multi-dimensional players. He is occasionally dragged into a controversy (e.g., exchanging sharp letters about playing a match with Gunsberg), but one has to plod through masses of material to find a bit of color.

What about the games? Forster achieves success in using other’s notes (mainly contemporaneous ones) and adding his own computer-assisted analysis with the minimum of intrusiveness. In other words he has allowed the old masters’ notes to breathe without piling up too many corrections and refinements. This is a real art and there are several biographical works that fail in this respect. Kasparov’s GREAT PREDECESSORS series comes to mind, although with such famous games one could argue that a search for ultimate truth is more appropriate. In the end, however, I didn’t find most of Burn’s games compelling. Remember that I am comparing his with other games collections, not trying to denigrate his play. In fact I don’t know of any strong player whose games don’t provide some fun and intellectual stimulation. But for me, the McFarland Fine book contains more interesting games, and most annotated games collections that I have are far more attractive in that respect. For example, books by the players themselves, such as Alekhine, Botvinnik, Keres, Bronstein, Fischer, Tal, Korchnoi, Kasparov, Shirov, Anand, just for starters (one could add less prominent collections such as Speelman’s, Belyavsky’s, Averbach’s etc.), and those partially or fully written by others, too numerous to mention. Even relatively bare games collections by Kramnik and Khalifman contain one fascinating game after another, as does the GREAT PREDECESSORS series. The point is that we all have limited time in which to read, and still less to devote to collections of master games. I would prefer to spend that time exploring the books above instead of devoting my attention to Burn’s games.

Having said that, Forster makes a great decision to introduce the book with excerpts from Burn’s games that show especially creative and/or attractive ideas, and then listing his favorite games by game number. I noticed this last part only after having looked at a number of random games through the book. His favorites are far more interesting than the average lot. I looked at 6 of the 20 (without using a board), and found that all but one were attractive for more than a fairly obvious combination. By using this list the reader might satisfy his desire for interesting ideas and struggles without having to wade through 901 games. But then the question remains: Why should someone spend so much money and reading time on a relatively dull narrative and set of games when they could have a 150-200 page book The Life and Games of Amos Burn with his best 30-40 games the most interesting pickings of his life? I think the sign of a good writer in any field is that he can limit his material and provide readable, highest quality substance. As I indicated above, an academic and research-oriented book dealing with a president, scientist, or world leader might potentially need tens of thousands of pages to present all valid material on its subject. But such a book is often pruned to the 300-500 page range and admired by scholars and laymen alike for its combination of breadth and economy. Furthermore, such a work is used and cited by many other researchers and students; it seems unlikely that Forster’s huge one will serve a similar function.

Forster’s book includes a great many photographs, most of them small and attractively inserted into one column of the text. A considerable portion of their subjects are so obscure that they will be unknown to even an avid fan of late 19th- and early 20th century chess. Forster has also done a thorough job with the end material. There are 24 pages of densely packed endnotes in small print. Then, apart from the usual lists of players, tournament records, and openings, we find a General Index (often missing from chess books). In addition there’s a lengthy Index of Themes including various breakdowns of material (this can be generated from ChessBase), pawn structures, sacrifices, and much more. He even provides us with special categories such as “advance with f-pawn, weakening”. Impressive stuff, but will anyone read it?

I’ve gone on too long.  AMOS BURN: A Chess Biography is a great piece of research, perhaps as thorough as any ever done about a single chess player. Any author so dedicated deserves high praise regardless of how important one thinks the finished product is. The ingredient most lacking in chess writing today is hard work, and it is clear from start to finish that Forster has invested far more effort than most of his fellow authors. For all that, I would not recommend it as a book to purchase and read. To me, this is a volume for collectors. As time goes by it might also find a home with those who love to thumb through old chess books on a Sunday afternoon.

Donaldson's review of REUBEN FINE.

Donaldson's review of AMOS BURN.

Click to buy REUBEN FINE.

Click to buy AMOS BURN, A CHESS BIOGRAPHY.