It's fortunate that I stuck with Mihail Marin's SECRETS OF CHESS DEFENCE beyond some rocky points in the first 30 pages or so. It turns out to have some good qualities that are missing from previous tomes on this subject. Of course, as with any book on defense (or even a part of one on that subject) we are told that people don't write about it much; this is a predictable claim but fair enough. Marin tries to explain this in cosmic terms. His first paragraph consists of the majestic pronouncement: "We live in a world marked by aggression at all levels." He then attributes the prejudice against defense to the entire history of humanity's aggression, mirrored by that of individuals. Chess itself was regarded "as another form of medieval dual," leading to our association of cowardice with those who refuse to pick up the gauntlet. All very elevated, yet it may be that such biases of human culture needn't be invoked. After all, if we are such naturally aggressive folk then maybe it's just more fun to attack than defend!

Be that as it may, the author returns to the world of moving pieces by contrasting an early and famous attacking game by Steinitz (in which his opponent misses a key defensive move and gets slaughtered) with "a similar situation" in one of Marin's own 1994 games. In the latter contest White defends brilliantly and neutralizes Marin's attack. The positions are hardly similar (one is wide open with immediate confrontation and no particular positional features and the other is a cramped Hedgehog), but the idea expressed about the differing levels of defense is valid. He follows this with an exaggerated description of Steinitz' "road to Damascus" and "radical" change in philosophy after a single tournament (Paris 1867). Unfortunately he then gives as examples only two much later games by Steinitz against Chigorin, from their 1889 and 1892 matches. One game is an Evans Gambit with a defense that Steinitz himself called an "experiment," complaining that his "experiments" cost him 5 out of the 7 lost games of the match (see my review of Kasparov's MY GREAT PREDECESSORS). Such a game is perhaps not the best example of the evolution of defense, although it does show the increasingly defensive style of Steinitz' own play. In my opinion, the latter style only fully manifested itself towards the end of his career. Chigorin himself is described by Marin as a "totally opposed chess personality" and "an unconditioned [sic] devotee of the combinative school." Several other writers (including myself) disagree with this too strong characterization, finding in some of his games both unassuming positional ideas and the use of slow maneuvering in closed positions (e.g., several of his Chigorin Defenses and various e-pawn games as Black). Marin's general descriptions have merit but they are often too strongly stated.

In this section several of the examples are very good, especially the one on pages 11-12 and the remarkable Lasker-Steinitz game where Black's pieces go backwards to defend and ultimately prepare a counterattack. But Marin is unconvincing when he pontificates or philosophizes (e.g. biblical quotes adorn many chapters, some with no apparent relationship to the material). On page 13 he says: "Most modern authors tend to ignore (or publicly deny) the instructional value of old games." That would be very strange indeed, since the many contemporary instructional, strategic, and endgame books that I regularly receive are full of classical games; and I can't think of a single example of someone denying, much less "publicly" denying, the instructional value of older games. I believe that most of my generation (which probably includes most current authors) grew up and learned largely from tournament books, games collections and instructional books featuring the likes of Morphy, Steinitz, Tarrasch, Lasker and their opponents, as well as Rubinstein, Capablanca, Alekhine etc. In fact there was little choice given the literature available; if there were no instructional value in these games, a substantial part of a generation would have been in a bad way indeed.

Perhaps because the first chapter is so much more abstract than the others (see below), Marin sometimes seems to lose his focus. On page 23, for example, we have a standard attack by Black in the King's Indian Defense via ...f4/...g3, with Black's pieces poised to attack a king on h1. What's worse for White, it's a blitz game and when he doesn't find his only difficult-to-see resource and allows a beautiful combination (Marin even uses the combination as an exercise), he uses this as an example of "superficial treatment" in defense! Then on pages 27-9, Marin gives two examples with the theme "Black's threats are only an optical illusion." But in the first one White has a nice positional advantage, he is the only one attacking, and he wins smoothly. At no time do I see Black conjuring up the slightest threat, nor does Marin claim that he does so! In the second example White has terrific development and controls key squares. Black tries a tricky one-pawn advance that manages to use up two more moves still without developing any of his queenside. Not surprisingly, White refutes it. Hardly an example of defense!

Furthermore, Marin's presentation often contains what seem to be overstatements, although some of them are more dramatic than truly inaccurate. Here's a position from Marin-Svidler, Elista 1998:

Marin,M (2530) - Svidler,P (2710) [A20]
ol (men) Elista RUS (3), 01.10.1998

1.c4 e5 2.g3 g6 3.d4 d6 4.Nc3 Nd7 5.Nf3 Bg7 6.Bg2 Ne7 7.0-0 exd4 8.Nxd4 0-0 9.e3 Nb6 10.b3 d5 11.cxd5 Nbxd5 12.Nxd5 Nxd5 13.Ba3 Re8 14.Rc1 c6 15.Qd2 Nc7 16.Bb2 Nb5 17.Rfd1 Bg4 18.f3 Nxd4 19.fxg4 Ne6 20.Bxg7 Nxg7 21.Qxd8 Raxd8 22.Kf2 Ne6 23.h4 h6 24.b4 Rxd1 25.Rxd1 Rd8 26.Rxd8+ Nxd8 27.Ke2 Kf8 28.Kd3 Ke7 29.Kd4 Kd6 30.Bf1 Ne6+ 31.Ke4 b5 32.h5 Ng5+ 33.Kf4 Ne6+ 34.Ke4 a6