This personal essay (not a review) is based upon Jacob Aagaard's EXCELLING AT POSITIONAL CHESS (click to see reviews of this book by Silman and Donaldson). Given no other forum to do so, I'd like to address the continuing mischaracterization of my own work that he started in EXCELLING AT CHESS (Click to see Watson's review of this book). This time he doesn't cast any personal aspersions, so at least that's progress. But he manages to pack a lot of incomprehensible statements about my work into a page and a half. For example, Aagaard says, "I believe that John is mistaken in his view on Tarrasch and the others as dogmatic people who did not think." This is sheer nonsense. There isn't the slightest connection between what I actually wrote (or believe) and the idea that Tarrasch and some mysterious "others" didn't think. (Presumably he refers to old masters such as Lasker and Capablanca, whom I included in my discussion).

Naturally I wouldn't say that some of the greatest players of history weren't also great thinkers, or that they were "dogmatic people." I only make the as yet undisputed and almost trivial point that they sometimes were dogmatic about certain positions or subjects, hardly a shocking claim. I go on to identify those particular areas without attributing sweepingly negative personal characteristics to any of them. Along with that, Aagaard makes the odd statement that "Some commentators, like John Watson, (I'd like to know who these other error-ridden folks are, by the way) have made the 'misassumption' that this (the increasing role of the initiative and computer analysis) has made the lessons of yesterday to some extent irrelevant."  I don't discuss the lessons of either today or yesterday or their "relevance" (in fact I think that older games have enormous relevance), but rather question whether certain general ideas are losing their relevance. I emphasize several times that mine is a description of modern play with no claims about the instructional or educational worth of my examples (i.e., the lessons to be gleaned from them). Finally, according to Aagaard , I'm supposed to have "gone too far" by "claim[ing] that the paradigm of thinking has completely changed." A more open-minded and less rule-oriented attitude in specific areas, however important, is not a paradigm "change" ("shift" is the usual word), at least not in the sense that Kuhn used the term. At any rate, I didn't in fact make the exaggerated claim that Aagaard attributes to me.

It might be nice to actually quote me once in a while rather than present interpretations or even caricatures of what I've said. Particularly in an effectively permanent medium such as a book (in this case two serious books), one should be careful about saying negative things about another author's work either without reading the work (which Aagaard presumably did) or lacking the linguistic skills to understand it or write about it (as is indicated by Aagaard 's other work). The latter is understandable when one is using a foreign language, but all the more reason to take a modicum of care when criticizing others.

Aagaard is on better ground when he takes on a real example that actually appears in my book. That's fair game. Still, I find his objections completely unconvincing. He uses the game Yusupov-Christiansen which begins 1.d4 d6 2.e4 Nf6 3.f3 e5 4.dxe5 dxe5 5.Qxd8+ Kxd8 6.Bc4 Be6 7.Bxe6 fxe6 (Aagaard skips these context-setting moves) 8.Nh3 (intending Nf2-d3)

8...Bc5 9.Nf2 Bxf2+ 10.Kxf2 Nc6 11.Be3 Ke7 12.Na3! with the idea Nc2-e1-d3 (which in fact occurs). An absorbing game follows, ultimately won by White.

After 8.Nh3, I say: "Don't put your knights on the rim! Well, knights are living on the edge these days (see Chapter 5). But the case before us is really simple. Neither side is about to make any dramatic pawn breaks, so there is plenty of time to maneuver pieces to their best posts..." [emphasis mine]. I then give a description of White's basic strategy (to reposition the knights in the center and attack e5) with which Aagaard fully agrees.

Discussing the position after Nh3 (he skips all other moves before and after, including the important Na3-c2-e1-d3 idea), Aagaard then says: "The problem is this thing about knights on the rim. In his chapter 5, where the knights live on the rim, they only do so as long as there is a concrete advantage. When the advantage disappears the knights race towards the center. The same goes for this example. The knight in no way lives on the rim - it is going towards the center. I am sure that Tarrasch, who was not an idiot [in the next paragraph he helpfully adds that 'Tarrasch was not stupid'], would have no problems with this."

What to say? Regarding the statement about concrete advantages (which can justify leaving knights on the rim for very many moves, as seen in a number of standard openings and middlegames), the same thing is of course also trivially true for other pieces, including knights in the center, e.g., in some cases their effectiveness there disappears and they logically move to the flank. In general, of course, pieces ought to be moved if possible when the advantage of having them at their current position disappears. (As an aside, I think that it is also noteworthy that in so many openings knights are now being developed to the edge only temporarily, particularly when that development escaped notice over many years and games).

Next, Aagaard says that the knight on h3 doesn't live on the rim. Of course not - indeed I made the opposite point. To be clear, I used the word "but" (i.e., by contrast) to indicate that the knight in this example doesn't live on the edge - i.e., things are more simple: they merely go to the edge and then are repositioned. This is odd criticism indeed! Finally, Aagaard uses the loaded characterization that "the knights race to the center." But surely a race to the center would involve the two natural moves Ne2 and Nd2, whereas White instead aims for Nh3-f2-d3 and then Na3-c2-e1-d3, which is seven moves, a loss of 5 tempi! In fact it is because the knights use up so much time that with accurate play Black could probably have equalized out of the opening. In that case he would have justified his own counterintuitive decision to double pawns even after the exchange of queens. Rightly or wrongly I feel that the game contains valid ideas that I think are typical of modern play, and that you'd be hard-pressed to find examples of this kind of play in older times. I agree that Tarrasch probably wouldn't object to the knight moves post facto, but I doubt that he would have hit upon them in a practical game in 1890, despite his being a relatively stronger player for his time than Yusupov for his. I do think that he'd shudder at 6...Be6. But this sort of thing is merely speculation on both of our parts and not very helpful.

At the end of his exposition Aagaard tells us that he has "continuously praised SECRETS OF MODERN CHESS STRATEGY as a great piece of work." To whom he has continuously done so is, of course, not stated, nor the reason why in two books he has yet to find anything tangibly positive about it. Perhaps he feels that this detached praise exempts him from being held to task for careless statements. It would be easier to dispense with the latter instead.