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Normal Topic New revision of "Chess Fundamentals"? (Read 2320 times)
Smyslov_Fan
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Re: New revision of "Chess Fundamentals"?
Reply #5 - 10/08/05 at 19:34:49
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This revision doesn't interest me at all.  Unless I go through it at a bookstore and it turns out to be as useful as a book by Watson, it's going to stay on the shelf.  Of course, I'm curious to see what sort of revisions de Firmian makes, but I'm not willing to invest my money in such an enterprise.  (That is, buy the book.)
  
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lost highway
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Re: New revision of "Chess Fundamentals"?
Reply #4 - 10/08/05 at 16:39:28
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Woofwoof, I agree 100 percent.  I think De Firmian is a pretty honest guy and won't stoop to any cheap tricks just to make a few bucks.  He doesn't write too much, but his introductions and summaries of the openings in "Modern Chess Openings-14" are very good.  Maybe if he took some of Capablanca's views about specific aspects of the game and then compared them with what some of our contemporary players have said about the same topics...that would be interesting. For example, Capablanca's thoughts about material, time, and position are fascinating...what did (do) Fischer, Karpov, or Kasparov think about the same elements?

Anyway, the book won't cost much.  I've already found one site where you can pre-order it for $10. 

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woofwoof
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Re: New revision of "Chess Fundamentals"?
Reply #3 - 10/08/05 at 15:58:01
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'I didn't think of that mostly because the analysis in Capa's book is so simple.  You know, "fundamental".'

Well, Capa always had this uncanny knack of making chess games look very simple. Simple opening strategy, very clear middlegame positions, no indulgence in highly complicated tactical/combinational play unless it was the simplest way to win & even so his combinations were simple ones. Needless to say his endgame technique seemed effortless. which all adds up to the beauty of his games.

But you could be right about the addition of extra material too. If that's the case it wld be more appropriate to just call it 'extended' rather than 'revised'. 'revised' to me means updating the existing material eg descriptive notation to algebric & more dubiously improving upon original analysis& attributing it to the original author. Imo that is pretty disrespetful to the original author even if he has long  returned home to the Lord.
  

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lost highway
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Re: New revision of "Chess Fundamentals"?
Reply #2 - 10/08/05 at 15:27:31
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Quote:
I suspect he used computer assistance to update Capa's analysis just like what Batsford & John Nunn did to Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games.

woofwoof -

Perhaps.  I didn't think of that mostly because the analysis in Capa's book is so simple.  You know, "fundamental".  I hope De Firmian hasn't stuffed a whole lot of examples into the book from current games (Anand, Topalov, Kasparov, etc.) to demonstrate the validity of Capablanca's teachings.  That would just distract from the pure thoughts of Capablanca.

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woofwoof
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Re: New revision of "Chess Fundamentals"?
Reply #1 - 10/08/05 at 14:55:59
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I suspect he used computer assistance to update Capa's analysis just like what Batsford & John Nunn did to Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games.
  

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lost highway
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New revision of "Chess Fundamentals"?
10/08/05 at 09:02:31
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Does anyone know about this book, scheduled to be published in April 2006?  http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780812936810

What could De Firmian possibly have done to “revise” this classic book?  The 1994 version of it is already in algebraic, so that can’t be his revision.  The 1994 version was 121 pages.  De Firmian’s revision is supposedly 256 pages.  How can a “revision” more than double the length of the book?  By reducing the page size?  I hope he didn’t mess with Capablanca’s actual words.  De Firmian is very good, but he is no Capablanca.

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