Hanon Russell’s publishing house, Russell Enterprises, Inc., has recently reissued three classics – Richard Réti’s MODERN IDEAS IN CHESS and Alexander Alekhine’s tournament books on NEW YORK 1924 and NOTTINGHAM 1936. All are appearing for the first time in algebraic notation in English and many additional diagrams have been added to improve readability.
Richard Réti, who died at the age of 40, accomplished a great deal in a short life. One of the best players in the world for nearly a decade, Réti is perhaps best remembered today as one of the leading lights of the hypermodern movement, for his beautiful endgame studies, and his skill at blindfold chess. He also happens to have been an outstanding writer whose books MODERN IDEAS IN CHESS and MASTERS OF THE CHESS BOARD deserve to be read even today.
Until recently the only editions of these books that were readily available were Dover reprints of the originals from around 70 years ago in English Descriptive notation. Fortunately that situation has been partially corrected by the publication of MODERN IDEAS IN CHESS: 21ST CENTURY EDITION edited by Bruce Alberston.
MODERN IDEAS IN CHESS consists of 45 essays dealing with the evolution of the game from the Romantic Era of Anderssen and Morphy, continuing through the Classical School of Steinitz, Tarrasch and Lasker to the Hypermodern Revolution – a 70-year stretch from 1852 to 1922. The foreword by Andy Soltis puts the book into context of the time it was written – a period when the classical canons of chess were being challenged. This was the era when the Alekhine, Gruenfeld and various Indian Defenses were all being seriously tested at the top levels for the first time. Réti’s victory over Capablanca with his trademark 1.Nf3 followed by 2.c4 at New York 1924 only added to the excitement.
This new edition should appeal to those that feel that every chessplayer should have a solid grounding in how the game has developed.
Alexander Alekhine is known as not only one of the greatest players ever but one of its finest writers. The tournaments on NEW YORK 1924 and NOTTINGHAM 1936 are two of Alekhine’s most famous works, but like MODERN IDEAS IN CHESS they are largely unfamiliar to English speaking chess players of the last 30 years as they were only available in English Descriptive notation. This has changed with the publication of NEW YORK 1924 and NOTTINGHAM 1936.
Andy Soltis explains how important both tournaments were for their time and why they are remembered today in thought provoking forewords for both books. Why is that these two events are remembered today but some of the great Linares events of the past decade are seemingly already forgotten? Soltis explains that part of this can be explained by the much faster pace of the chess world today. 75 years ago there were few big events with the result that the strongest ones tended to be remembered long after they were played. This is true, but there is something more that makes New York 1924 and Nottingham 1936 memorable, a certain magic that has lasted.
New York 1924 was a special event that is remembered primarily for the great result by 55-year-old Emanuel Lasker, who followed up his victory at Maehrisch Ostrau the year before with another great success that challenged conventional wisdom that a player’s best days were behind him when he reached his mid-40s.
The event is also remembered for how World Champion Jose Capablanca rebounded from a fifth round loss to Richard Réti to chase Lasker down to the wire, several times closing to within a point of his rival but never able to fully close the gap. The margin between Lasker with 16 points, Capa with 14.5 and Alekhine in third with 12 shows how the two dominated.
Nottingham 1936 was a much different tournament. The first to feature four current or former World Champions (Alekhine, Capablanca, Euwe and Lasker) this event featured a photo finish with the first 6 players separated by only a point and Lasker and Flohr only half a point back of them. Capablanca ending up sharing top honors with a young Botvinnik but should have been clear first had not tail-ender William Winter of England given a gift half point to Botvinnik whose last round play revealed he had yet to develop his iron nerves.
NEW YORK 1924 and NOTTINGHAM 1936 feature improved layouts, particularly NEW YORK 1924 the original of which featured an antiquated numbering system putting the score to the game and annotations on different pages. If you like tournament books featuring one of the greatest annotators of all time you will enjoy these books.
