Book Review- The Fine Art of Chess

When the phrase "chess innovators" is mentioned, the mind tends to wander to names such as Steinitz or Nimzowitsch- great masters of the past whose teachings are still relevant today. But what about more modern influencers? Is there anyone alive today who is able to offer interesting or even revolutionary ideas about the game we all love?

One person who would surely lay claim to this title would be Lyudmil Tsvetkov.

Once an active player in his home country of Bulgaria, Tsvetkov was able to achieve the rating of Candidate Master in 1998. His last active rating was around 2100, from over a decade ago. However, he claims to have increased four-fold in strength since then by quitting work, and playing and analysing chess with engines for 16 hours per day. 

Hefty claims! Have they been backed up with sufficient evidence? Well, Tsvetkov's doubters- and there are quite a few- have said that the only way he'd ever be able to show his strength would be by returning to OTB chess. Those who believe LT say that his analyses and books alone sufficiently prove his claims. 

These mentioned books include works like The Secret of Chess, which is a manual of positional chess based on pattern recognition, featuring concepts such as pointed pawn chains, twice backward pawns, penetration points, semi-outposts, and many others. Then there is Human Versus Machine, a game collection featuring the author's victories against top engines such as Stockfish and Komodo. LT gives strategies that the reader can implement in order to achieve similar successes.

But now there's a new kid on the block and its name is The Fine Art of Chess. Today I will attempt to review this book.

Essentially, the book is an attempt to demonstrate the teachings of LT's previous works in the format of books like Irving Chernev's 'Logical Chess', with move-by-move commentary.

It is clear that TFAOC is a superior work in almost all aspects, though.

While Chernev's book gives 33 games, LT presents 50; Chernev mostly addresses games from the Giuoco Piano or the QGD, LT covers a vast range of systems, from Bird's Opening, to the King's Gambit, to the Nimzo Indian; Logical Chess looks at players of a certain period, namely the early 20th century, when Capablanca and Alekhine reigned supreme; The Fine Art of Chess features 'gamers' (as LT would call them) from all eras- Morphy, Alekhine, Botvinnik, Fischer, Kasparov, Carlsen and even Stockfish are all present.

The list could go on, but I think I've made my point. Logical Chess is a terrific book, don't get me wrong; it's just that The Fine Art of Chess is a step ahead.

Let's delve a little deeper, now.

What does The Fine Art of Chess have to offer in terms of openings? Well, as has already been mentioned the book includes a variety of different openings- 24 in total. And it's not as if there's just a brief skim of some of the names of the main subsystems either. In fact, LT goes as far as to even give small essays on some of the openings. The monograph on the King's Indian in Game 49 was particularly impressive. It spanned multiple pages and addressed what characterises the opening, who has played it in the past and gave multiple options that White can try with assessments of each one. Valuable knowledge.

It feels appropriate to mention that a lot of LT’s comments about openings we would see as normal are often very unique: for example, he views 1...Nf6 as sub-optimal, and feels the same way about the Caro-Kann.

How about strategy? The book is divided into 7 chapters covering Initiative, King Attack, Outposts, Space, Endgames, Pawn Structure, and Deeper Strategic Concepts. Of course, these chapters include relevant games from top GMs of the past so that the reader is able to understand each concept to at least a reasonable level. My personal favourite sections were the ones on King Attack and Deeper Strategic Concepts, although all of them were thoroughly enjoyable.

It is worth mentioning that the first few games are easier to understand- the sort that you'd expect to see in games collections for beginners like... Logical Chess! However, the difficulty increases as the book progresses and by the end you find yourself dealing with concepts like 'twice-backward shelter pawns' and 'pointed pawn chains'. LT claimed in a forum that this evolution makes the book "So that, when you grab the book as a rank beginner, at the end of your reading journey you will emerge a fully-fledged GM." Of course he wasn't being 100% serious though, since he accompanied this statement with a hearty "Lo-ooool".

I suppose this brings us along nicely to the next part of the review: what is LT's writing style like? Honestly, it's a bit of a mixed bag, or "like marmite" as we like to say over here.

The book is a bit like journeying through chess history in a way no one ever has before; with LT as your tour guide (and Stockfish as the sidekick), you will be in great company as you spectate instructive games from the past.

In terms of tone of writing, on one hand, LT can be totally serious- just giving out plain and simple chess wisdom; on the other, he can be light-hearted and jokey with "facepalm" and "Lo-ooool"s a-plenty. However, on the other end of the scale, some of the comments cross the line of being funny and verge towards being innapropriate, more than anything. In parts, LT says "Follow me on Twitter, like my Facebook" a few times. This is just a joke, since LT isn't actually trying to promote his social media, but I don't understand the purpose of lines like this. If I am not mistaken, a Knight was even described as "sh*tty", which I thought was unnecessary. Unfortunate. Maybe I just don’t understand LT’s sense of humour, in places.

However, I do have to say that the author’s recurring feud with Stockfish was quite amusing. LT believes that he is superior to the current top engines in certain positions, so often called the computer ‘Stuckfish’ when its evaluations were wrong.

How did I read the book? I bought the e-book version of The Fine Art of Chess, which is the first time I had done so with any chess book. I found that the number of diagrams was sufficient for me to run through the games mentally. However, if I had a board and pieces to hand I would go through the games with them. This made wading through the jungles of sub-variations easier. I would advise you to go through the games with a board and pieces unless you feel reasonably comfortable with mental visualisations, when the book alone should be enough.

The book has impacted my own chess in the sense that it has piqued my interest in computer chess. Since reading the book I have started working more with Stockfish and Komdo as both sparring partners and analysis assistants. 30+10 games with detailed analysis and annotation have become part of my chess routine, while I have enjoyed going through top-level games from a database.

I truly believe that this book has a lot of interesting ideas and chess wisdom on offer, as long as you are willing to put in the effort needed to appreciate it. I would seriously recommend purchasing this book if you are interested in improving your chess.

Steinitz, Nimzowitsch .... Tsvetkov??? That's for you to decide!