Dr. Colin Crouch’s MODERN CHESS MOVE BY MOVE is a book that provides plenty of food for thought. International Master Crouch, who suffered a serious brain seizure in 2004, found that after he had recovered he had a keen desire to discover what had been going on at the top levels of chess during his absence from the game. To do this he tasked himself with analyzing in detail a win by each of the players rated 2700-plus FIDE during this time and that the victory had to be against stiff opposition – 2600 plus. As if this was not enough Dr. Crouch set himself the goal of writing a book that would be accessible and of interest to a wide range of players. The result of his effort is MODERN CHESS MOVE BY MOVE.
The games featured in this book are as follows. One can see from the number of pages that they are not lightly commented. Crouch uses plenty of explanatory prose and detailed analysis as needed to explain what is going on in these top-level encounters.
1 Kasimdzhanov-Kasparov, Linares 2005 22
2 Dreev-Dominguez, Poikovsky 2005 36
3 Adams-Yusupov, French League 2005 46
4 Topalov-Anand, Sofia 2005 56
5 Bacrot-Rublevsky, Khanty-Mansiysk 2005 73
6 Karjakin-Anand, Wijk aan Zee 2006 85
7 Svidler-Topalov, Morelia 2006 98
8 Sargissian-Nisipeanu, German League 2006 119
9 Leko-Radjabov, Morelia 2006 126
10 Ivanchuk-Aronian, Russian Team Championship 2006 139
11 Karpov-Akopian, Russian Team Championship 2006 151
12 Bareev-Efimenko, Turin Olympiad 2006 161
13 Kramnik-Leko, Dortmund 2006 172
14 Navara-Socko, Polish Team Championship 2006 186
27 Cheparinov-Nepomniachtchi, Wijk aan Zee 2008 344
28 Eljanov-Ponomariov, Kharkiv 2008 354
29 Bu Xiangzhi-Zvjaginsev, Russian Team Championship 2008 361
30 Gelfand-Alekseev, Russian Team Championship 2008 373
31 Mamedyarov-Nepomniachtchi, Russian Team Championship 2008 381
32 Inarkiev-Karjakin, Russian Team Championship 2008 388
33 Karjakin-Inarkiev, Baku 2008 401
Index of Openings 413
Index of Games 415
Crouch has made a nice selection of games. The reader will find a variety of encounters from brutal kingside attacks to subtle endgames. There are beautiful positional efforts and others that are for all intents and purposes decided right out of the opening - the result of a strong theoretical novelty. There is enough material here to instruct and entertain the reader for months.
Not to be missed is the author's discussion of how the elite of today compare to players of the 1960s and 1970s. As Crouch points out it was only in the past decade or so that such a book could be contemplated. Partly this is due to the strong computers engines that allow us to search more closely for the truth and partly because there were not enough players rated over 2700 until recently.
Today there are more people than ever living on the planet, there are more chess players, and these chess players have more training opportunities than ever thanks to computers and the Internet. Does this mean that Portisch, Stein and Polugaevsky, each of whom never reached 2700, were weaker at their peak than today's number 30 in the world? Was Boris Spassky, who never reached 2700, not one of the greatest players of all time? Do today's elite play endgames worse than the players from thirty years ago as a result of faster time controls and no adjournments? Is there rating inflation or is it simply difficult to compare players from different eras? Crouch touches on many of these questions in a thought provoking introduction.
