Domination - Chess Strategy E-Book

Domination!
by Victor Charushin

A ChessCentral E-Book

Volume 6 of The Tactician's Handbook focuses on "Domination" - the trapping or confinement of a piece. Simple examples include a Knight trapped on a1 after capturing a Rook, or the position of a Knight on a4 hemmed in by an enemy Bishop on the d4 square. But here Charushin elevates the "Domination" theme to a new level, classifying the combination and illustrating it with games and compositions by top chess players. We can now witness the evolution of this attractive motif across the centuries, from a mere tactical trick to the modern culmination of deep strategic thought. Charushin has especially in view the development of "Domination" in the chess games of World Champions, where the idea is refined into an art form. On display here is another glimpse into Charushin's unique vision of the tactical building blocks of chess.

Indeed, this volume is a worthy addition to The Tactician's Handbook series, and impresses even more when we consider the conditions under which the author labored. Steve Lopez, who assisted in preparing "Domination" for publication, observed that the "...manuscript of this book was presented to the publisher in handwritten form. Charushin wrote the entire book longhand on lined legal-sized sheets, with diagrams created using an ink stamper for the boards and with the piece figurines hand-drawn on the proper squares." These aged and brown papers featured tape, glue and inserted newspaper columns - then were tied together with old string for shipment to America. Yet upon turning these pages one is struck by a powerful sense of order and system, of method and, perhaps, of magic.

We are proud to have introduced Victor Charushin to the English speaking world, where he at last found an audience for the contents of his shoebox filing system and encyclopedic knowledge of chess history. This prophet of chess beauty found little honor in his own country, but as IM Sergey Bystrov recalls of Victor Charushin, "What can be done, if our researcher in chess history proved in the last years to be more needed over the ocean than in his own Fatherland."

System requirements:
You will need ChessBase 6.0 or higher, or Fritz (Komodo, Houdini, etc), or download the free ChessBase Reader here. Also: Pentium 1 GHz, 512 MB RAM, Windows 10, 9, Vista, or Windows XP (Service Pack 2)