Chapter 1: The Development of Modern Chess

Summary: In this first chapter, Pachman walks us through the history of chess to help us better appreciate the rise of contemporary play.

The rules of chess have evolved through the centuries. Notable advancements included the expansion of range in the movements of the queen and bishops. (For comparison, the equivalent of the bishop in Chinese Chess must move exactly two squares along a diagonal, and is restricted to its original side of the board!) These changes allowed rapid development and sharper attacks than before. The dearth of defensive theory at the time enabled punishing middlegame attacks on the king, as demonstrated in Game 1.

Game 1: Polerio-Domenico, Two Knights Defense

France gave rise to an opposing school of thought, championed by Philidor. He believed that pawns were key to any game and took great care in advancing them in close support of one another, even prioritizing their movement over the development of the minor pieces. His flaw was in underestimating the potential of the pieces, but his theories concerning pawns surpassed his peers by generations. The following game demonstrates these ideas.

Game 2: Brühl-Philidor, Bishop's Opening

The radical ideas of Philidor were not passed on by his successors. Instead, the Italian school continued to reign, with La Bourdonnais as one of its proponents. Skillful was he in dominating the center and planning attacks based on a breakthrough in the center. The accuracy of his combinations surpassed that of the Romantic Italians who preceded him.

Game 3: MacDonell-La Bourdonnais, Sicilian Defense

Anderssen was known for the gambits he played. By giving up material, he gained time and space on the chessboard. He had a solid understanding of tactics, and used them to plan and execute combinations with greater depth and perception than those before him.

Game 4: Anderssen-Dufresne, Evans Gambit

The chess legend Paul Morphy had a splended feel for combinations that capitalized on the inexactitudes of his opponents. He knew how to maximize the effectiveness of his pieces by opening up diagonals and files. Despite this, he was willing to resort to converting so much as a pawn advantage in an endgame. While unsurprising and perhaps even expected in modern times, his contemporaries criticised the dryness of his style.

Game 5: Lichtenhein-Morphy, Scotch Game

Chigorin brought the open game to new heights. By playing gambits with logic and sucess during a time that the defensives against them had improved, he advanced the theory of such openings during his chess career. He took great risks to create active play, gracing the chess world with many artistic games.

Staunton, on the other hand, represented the English school of chess. He aimed to achieve sound positions and only made sacrifices with clear-cut consequences. The following is an example of his play.
Game 6: Cochrane-Staunton, Queen's Gambit

Anderssen representing the Continental style defeated Staunton in the London tournament of 1851, representing the triumph of the Italian over the English school. Modern chess strategy, according to Pachman, began with Steinitz who began under the Italian school. Later on in his career he began to question historical games that the chess community regarded as masterful works. Steinitz criticized aimless attacks that succeeded only due to careless defenses and strived to develop strategic principles for correct play:

Positions are equilibria
Sharp attacks can only arise from disturbances in these equilibria
Attacks must target weak points
Defenses must require minimal pieces for the sake of efficienc

Steinitz's weakness was in his stout belief in his principles, which caused him unnecessary defeats when he underestimated the potential of dynamic play that contradicted his principles. In other words, his guidelines failed to account for the positional advantage of dynamism.

His successor Tarrasch attempted to carry out such principles through practical play, and was criticized by Nimzowitsch (who, ironically, authored a famous chess book titled My System).

Lasker took the teachings of Steinitz in a different direction and applied chess principles with greater precision. As perhaps the greatest chess psychologist of all time, he viewed the game as a struggle between two individuals, and considered human error as an inherent component of the game.

The chess exemplar Capablanca employed Tarrasch's ideas of simplification with razor-sharp accuracy. His unparalleled technique encouraged many of his contemporaries to believe that chess was nearly 'solved'.

Nonetheless, the Neo-Romantic movement arose during his reign, and gave birth to the hypermodern defense. Instead of directly contesting the center, these 'Indian Defenses' originally named as a joke strived to attack the center from the flanks. Their rejection of principles allowed them victories over older masters, but the bizarre and unnatural setups that they employed prevented them from prevailing over Capablanca's precision.

Dr. Alekhine injected a spark of brilliant creativity back into the world of chess with his combanitive play, only possible with his tactical and positional mastery. Armed with this, artist triumphed over technician in the championship between Capablanca and Alekhine.

In post-war years, an overwhelming number of Soviet masters dominated the chess scene. These included Bronstein, Tal, and Geller, who played with a style reminiscient of Alekhine's brilliance, Smyslov, Petrosian, and Taimanov who played with precision similar to that of Capablanca. Others, such as Botvinnik, Keres, and Spassy, demonstrated a versitality of style.

The key factor that enabled the success of the Russian masters was the systematic preparation and analytical approach that they applied towards the study of chess. Only when foreign nations began to adopt similar methods of preparation could they begin to compete with the Russian players. These included the American Bobby Fischer (World Champion at the time Pachman's book was published) who possessed the technique of Capablanca, and dared to obtain double-edged positions and rely on human errors in the same way that Lasker did.

Brilliant Combinations

Super Admins