Monday, April 03, 2006

Practical Chess History

A fascinating post, Chess Restoration and the Usable Past, by Michael Goeller at the Kenilworthian:

As the writings of modern players also become lost to the dustbins of chess history, the lines that interested them are also forgotten. When we recognize that practically every opening book on the market these days is essentially a repertoire book, where the author has (either explicitly or not) left out anything he did not consider relevant (including a bibliography of sources!), we realize that "lost variations" will only multiply in the future....which means that those who take pleasure in chess restoration still have many treasures to unearth.

This is just one of the reasons why chess is an inexhaustible lifetime pursuit, never growing stale, unless we do...

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hi Robert, it's also the reason I study older masters, as I already realized that forgotten lines are not necessarily bad as they are unfashionable. Nice post! Eric