Chess World Championships
by James H. Gelo
2000 (2nd Edition), McFarland & Co., softcover, algebraic notation, 838 pp., $25.00

Gelo's reference work contains all games played in world championship competition from 1834-1998. This includes important games played before the "official" world championship began, such as Labourdonnais vs McDonnell, Saint-Amant vs Staunton, London 1851, and matches contested by Morphy and Anderssen. The games end with Karpov vs Anand 1998.

Algebraic notation is used, which is especially nice for the older games, which are usually given in the outdated descriptive notation in most books. Each game is accompanied by a diagram at a crucial moment of the battle. The diagrams are clear and the pieces are standard. Included are a bibliography of books and magazines consulted, and a detailed opening classification.

I find myself picking this book up and thumbing through it repetitively. It works well for a general overview of the development of chess over the past 150 years. I can discover at a glance what openings were played, how long the games lasted, who played whom, and when. What's not to like? I have no answer.

I spot checked a number of games at random against the scores given in the ChessBase Big Database 2000. In the game Lasker-Capablanca 1921, 10th match game, Gelo has 41. Ne3 while ChessBase give 41. Nc3, no problems arise with the score either way. In Petrosian-Botvinnik 1963, 3rd match game, Gelo gives 21... Rfb8 while ChessBase has 21... Rab8; then Gelo give 26... Rab8 while ChessBase has 26... Rfb8. And Gelo gives 52. Kg1 while ChessBase has 52. Kg2. Those were the only differences in the games I checked. The point of my little survey is to merely note that their are some minor discrepancies between a few game scores in Gelo and ChessBase, not to assign blame to either one.

There is no detailed analysis in this book, not even a "!" or "?". The book already tops 800 pages as is; any significant analysis would double its size. The book is a compilation of the game scores themselves, and little else. There is nothing here in the way of commentary, "atmosphere," or biographies of the players. The reader will need other books for those kinds of details.

One would have thought that in this day of computer databases a book like this would be unnecessary or pointless, but I see that this is not the case. Databases are fine for compiling statistics and annotating games, but a reference book which brings together all the games and results of the world championship matches still is a valuable addition to the library of chess book aficionados.

Reviewed by Stephen Leary.

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