From Newsgroup: rec.games.chess.misc

This is the second collection of games by Dr Nunn. The first was the excellent "Secrets of Grandmaster Play", which I may review if I can
ever find my copy.

It is a very serious games collection by a player who was near or among
the top ten of his day but strained very hard to remain there.

No wonder given his style. These are not calm Karpovian wins. Every
game is tense, with sharp openings like the Sicilian and King's Indian featured. I've never seen a collection of GM games where so many game comments end with "and mate in six".

I recommend this book even for those who are not serious students of the
game. It's aesthetic value alone was worth my time. The games are
studded with sacrifices. often played against the world's greatest. It's
a rare Sicilian where he doesn't sacrifice a knight on d5, or threaten
to. For beauty alone it's worth the price.

Nunn does tend to go off on marathon studies of his sharp openings. If
you're just here for the sacrifices, skip them (although many beautiful
lines are contained therein they do tend to make me forget about the
actual game).

I haven't studied these lines in detail, but I've been getting crushed
by stockfish 6 in the KID lately, and paying some attention to Nunn's
openings lead to this game:

https://lichess.org/y5litRYf#0

I apologize for posting a game in which I made less than my usual ten blunders, and I note that Stockfish made some very dubious moves in this
game, but those same dubious moves were beating me just last week.

Note that stockfish 15 recommends Qh1 mate, whereas I played Qh2 mate. Principle of economy, why take the effort to move the extra square?

So although I read the book for aesthetic purposes, I may well have
learned something.

Next up, a review of Dr Nunn's first book:

"Some problems in algebraic topology"

William Hyde

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