Irving Chernev (January 29, 1900 – September 29, 1981) was a chess player and prolific Russian-American
chess
Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...
author. He was born in
Pryluky
Pryluky ( uk, Прилу́ки ) is a city and municipality located on the Udai River in Chernihiv Oblast, north-central Ukraine. It serves as the administrative center of Pryluky Raion (district). Located nearby is the Pryluky air base, a ma ...
in the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
(now in
Ukraine
Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...
) and emigrated to the United States in 1905. Chernev was a
national master-strength player and was devoted to chess. He wrote that he "probably read more about chess, and played more games than any man in history."
Arnold Denker
Arnold Sheldon Denker (February 21, 1914 – January 2, 2005) was an American chess player and author. He was U.S. champion in 1944 and 1946. In later years he served in various chess organizations, receiving recognition from the United States ...
; ''The Bobby Fischer I Knew and Other Stories''; Hypermodern Press 1995
Chernev's deep love for the game is obvious to any reader of his books. Chess historian
Edward Winter commented:
:Although
Chess Notes items have shown that he sometimes cut corners, he was active at a time when writing and scholarship were not regarded as a natural pairing and when anecdotes and other chestnuts were particularly prevalent. Few were interested in sources. Above all, in the pre-digital age the work of writers in his field was far harder; they could not fill in gaps in their knowledge with press-of-a-button 'research'. …
: Chernev's output — clear, humorous and easy-going — gave the impression of effortlessness, but much industry lay behind it all. …
: Although his prose was often conversational, it was literate and carefully structured, bearing no resemblance to the ultra-casual 'I'm-just-one-of-the-lads' stuff increasingly seen in chess books and magazines since his time. We have also been struck by the scarcity of typographical errors in Chernev's writing throughout his life.
He wrote 20 chess books, among them: ''Chessboard Magic!'', ''The Bright Side of Chess'', ''The Fireside Book of Chess'' (with
Fred Reinfeld), ''The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played'', ''1000 Best Short Games of Chess'', ''Practical Chess Endings'', ''Combinations: The Heart of Chess'', and ''Capablanca's Best Chess Endings'', the last of these being highly regarded by Edward Winter:
:Published by the Oxford University Press in 1978 and reprinted by Dover in 1982, ''Capablanca's Best Chess Endings'' by Irving Chernev presents (in full algebraic notation) sixty complete games, annotated with emphasis on the final phase. Well over half are absent from the
Golombek volume, a fact which underscores not only the inadequacy of Golombek's selection but also Chernev's readiness to embrace newly-found material. Written with deceptive casualness, ''Capablanca's Best Chess Endings'' was, perhaps, Chernev's finest book, combining hard analytical work and his customary screwball levity. Only Chernev could write annotations like (page 169) '“Don't simplify against Capablanca!”, I keep telling them at the office'.
[Edward Winter's "Capablanca Goes Algebraic", ''Chess History'', 1997](_blank)
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In 1945, he and Kenneth Harkness
Kenneth Harkness (byname of Stanley Edgar; November 12, 1896 – October 4, 1972) was a chess organizer. He is the creator of the Harkness rating system.
Life and career
He was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He was Business Manager of the United Sta ...
wrote ''An Invitation to Chess'', which became one of the most successful chess books ever written, with sales reaching six figures. Perhaps his most famous book is ''Logical Chess: Move by Move'', first released in 1957. This takes 33 classic games from 1889 to 1952, played by masters such as Capablanca, Alekhine, and Tarrasch, and explains them in an instructive manner. An algebraic notation version was published by Batsford in 1998, with minor alterations to the original text. Chernev died in San Francisco in 1981.
Books
*''Chess Strategy and Tactics'' (with Fred Reinfeld); Black Knight 1933[ Library of Congress]
*''Curious Chess Facts''; Black Knight 1937Kenneth Harkness
Kenneth Harkness (byname of Stanley Edgar; November 12, 1896 – October 4, 1972) was a chess organizer. He is the creator of the Harkness rating system.
Life and career
He was born in Glasgow, Scotland. He was Business Manager of the United Sta ...
); Simon & Schuster 1945[ Edward Winter; ''Kings, Commoners and Knaves: Further Chess Explorations''; Russell 1999]
*''200 Brilliant Endgames''; Simon & Schuster 1989
Notes
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chernev, Irving
1900 births
1981 deaths
Russian chess players
American chess players
Jewish chess players
American chess writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American male writers
American male non-fiction writers
20th-century chess players
Soviet emigrants to the United States