The attacking prowess of IM Dr Colin Crouch (1956-2015)

I have learnt yesterday from IM Gary Lane's and GM Simon William's twitter that one of my favourite chess authors, Dr IM Colin Crouch has just passed away.

His writing style is more thematic, discussive and commentary-laden (- a style which the Brits are particularly good at) than most as opposed to variations based analysis.  And that suited me perfectly on a long bus or train ride where I could read without getting a headache trying to sort out lines. Here is a list of his works.

I don't know him personally but I do read his blog and follow him on twitter.

You can find out more about his chess, doctorate work and life on his earlier blog. His later blog comprised his political musings and his take on the world class chess scene.

Colin wrote Attacking Technique (Batsford, 1996) and  Chess Secrets, Great Attackers (Everyman, 2009). Thus I thought it would be appropriate to showcase 2 of his best attacking efforts against formidable GMs.

The following game started as a model example of how to conduct the QGD Exchange minority attack and Black's kingside demonstration was pretty sad looking. Suddenly, Colin sacrificed two pawns and turned the game around, forcing 4 time British champion GM Julian Hodgson to lay down his arms before inevitable checkmate.

One more scintillating attacking game by Crouch was this all out effort against Polish GM Krasenkow who never found time to complete his development here.