Grandmaster Alfonso Romero's CREATIVE CHESS STRATEGY is a games collection of top players past and present, sometimes deeply annotated by variations but generally including more verbal explanation than the average games collection. The chapters are organized by themes, which at first look standard and dull: pawn structure, space advantage, centre, bishop pair, positional exchange sacrifices, the isolated queen's pawn (surely the most over-discussed positional theme in all of chess literature and rarely treated with originality), etc. Later, however, we get to see unique topics such as positional sacrifices of two pawns, coordination of rook and knight, communication among the pieces and such unusual topics as the case of apparently unjustified attacks that work.

It's interesting the Romero, a player known for his sharp play, covers a wide range of positional subjects, often using games that never turn particularly tactical. In fact, he starts the book with a 7-page annotation of the same game Petrosian-Bannik, USSR Ch 1958 that Eingorn looks at. Whereas at least 50% of Eingorn's notes to this fully positional struggle are variations, roughly 20% of Romero's are. He gives an insightful flow of comments that are accompanied by discussions of pawn structure and particular options for the endgame.

The game selection is superb. I was excited by numerous brilliantly played top-level games that I'd never seen. Romero's commentary should satisfy anyone, particularly his audience who he describes as “intermediate and high-ranking players who wish to understand the difference between ordinary players and masters.” I think that any “ordinary” player will appreciate the lively descriptions of moves and players.

Romero writes with refreshing enthusiasm and keeps the reader involved. His highest praise is given to tactical masterpieces, for example, Chapter 15 devotes 7 pages to the mutually brilliant game Shirov-Topalov, Linares 1998 and another 3 to the terrific fight Shirov-Polgar, Merida 2000, both won by Shirov. Nevertheless, most of this book deals with positional aspects of the game, as described above. The difference between his and other discussions of such themes is that Romero backs up his exposition on an almost move-by-move basis. For the most part he does so with words. When he does switch to variations, on the other hand, the density of analysis can be outrageous. In a game Hort-Wirthensohn, Biel 1981, for example, Romero emphasizes simple positional themes with occasional supporting analysis until he reaches a late middlegame (or ending) with 3 pieces on each side. Suddenly he provides 2 large pages of small-type analysis to examine a single non-tactical move. I had fun playing over some of this (until I became tired!); the position was in fact extremely interesting. As the book continues we see a little more of this, but not so much as to turn off the average reader.

I wish that I could describe the book in more detail but space and time forbid. To me, this is the most entertaining and absorbing of recent books that deal with strategy and I can recommend it without reservation.

Click to see DONALDSON'S REVIEW of this book.