HOW CHESS GAMES ARE WON AND LOST
Author: Lars Bo Hansen
Gambit (2008)
254 pages
$27.95

Reviewed by Jeremy Silman

Danish Grandmaster Lars Bo Hansen got rave reviews for his first two books for Gambit Publications, FOUNDATIONS OF CHESS STRATEGY and SECRETS OF CHESS ENDGAME STRATEGY. I liked both books, but with his new HOW CHESS GAMES ARE WON AND LOST I’ve gone from “like” to love! Yes, the title is a bit gimmicky, and the idea that chess has five phases instead of the traditional three didn’t wow me either. However, the author’s very personal notes and his ability to explain things with lively, crystal clear prose makes this not only fantastically instructive, but also (in my opinion) a strong candidate for 2008 chess book of the year.

HOW CHESS GAMES ARE WON AND LOST is literally filled with fascinating and important topics, and all of them are presented in stellar fashion. A few of the things he covers:

* How to Distribute Your Time in Chess Training
* Preventing or Obstructing the Opponent’s Plans
* The g4 Revolution
* Where Does the Opening End?
* The Soundness of an Opening Repertoire
* Fitting the Opening Repertoire to Your Style
* Fitting the Opening Repertoire to Your Playing Strength
* Broad of Narrow Opening Repertoire?
* How My Opening Repertoire Evolved
* Transition From Opening to Middlegame
* The Concept of Advantage
* Steinitz’s Principle of Defence
* Looking for a Swindle
* Steintiz’s Principle of Attack
* Transition from Middlegame to Endgame
* How to Work With Computers in Analysis
* Time Management

And this list is just the tip of the iceberg! 

I was very impressed with his excellent advice concerning the creation of an opening repertoire. In fact, much of it is exactly what I teach my own students, or recommend in lectures. For example, in my recent Thanksgiving lecture I voiced (almost verbatim) the following words from his book: “To my mind, the single most important feature of an opening repertoire is that it should fit your style. It is often much better to be slightly worse after the opening but feeling comfortable with the position than being slightly better but without a clue as to how to proceed.”

Lars Bo Hansen then gives a personal and spot-on example as to why the above paragraph is true. And, of course, he also reinforces it with more extremely valuable discussions and examples that pound the lesson home. I started reading this book a few days ago, so imagine my surprise when I saw that the author had put “my” ideas on paper in such an entertaining and erudite manner! I am working on a new edition of HOW TO REASSESS YOUR CHESS and have already written a chapter on this very subject – it was more than a little vexing to see someone publish this material before I did!

There isn’t any chapter in this book that disappoints. For example, in Chapter Four (Transition From Opening to Middlegame), Mr. Hansen presents an absolutely wonderful discussion of the minority attack where he talks about a trick Korchnoi used (as Black) to beat Spassky. He then shares an analysis between Karpov and Kasparov where they each discuss the importance of the Korchnoi idea in relation to the position the two Ks reach in their own game. Other games follow that show us how Black can combat the small edge White’s minority attack plan usually offers.

There is so much rich material in HOW CHESS GAMES ARE WON AND LOST that I could gush on forever. However, suffice it to say that this book is a must buy for players rated 1700 and above (titled players will also love it).

Click to buy (or get more information about) HOW CHESS GAMES ARE WON AND LOST

Other books by Lars Bo Hansen:

FOUNDATIONS OF CHESS STRATEGY ($19.95)

SECRETS OF CHESS ENDGAME STRATEGY ($25.95)