Wednesday, January 4, 2023

"Checkmate!" by Ben Graff

Ben Graff has written a new book Checkmate! [Whitestar Publishers, 2022, 208 pages], a departure from The Greenbecker Gambit which was a work of fiction.  The subtitle of Checkmate! says it all: "Great Champions and Epic Matches from a Timeless Game." 

This is a book for your coffee table.  Or, if you teach chess at schools as I do, you might consider bringing Checkmate! to class and let your students browse through the book, a good way to introduce them to famous chess players.  There are chapters on each of the male world champions, as well as chapters on the female players Vera Menchik, Nona Gaprindashvili, and Judit Polgar.  

Many of the pictures in Checkmate! are ones that I had never seen before.  I enjoyed reading quotes from the world champions, such as this one by Anatoly Karpov: "Chess is my life, but my life is not chess."

Finally, there is a chapter on chess playing computers.