Description
Raduga Publishers, Published 1987. Hardcover, 296 pp; 19 cm; reprint with correction; English translation from the revised Russian text, 1987; illustrated with black-and-white chess diagrams throughout.
Rare, out-of-print & unusual books · Since 1997
112
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Catalog notes
Condition & notes
In Very Good condition, no dust jacket. Tan paper-covered boards with brown lettering and stylized chess piece illustration to front and rear; mild shelf wear with light bumping to corners and some color loss along the edges. Original bookseller's silver label from Labate's Chess International, Anaheim, California, on rear board. Binding tight. Previous owner's dated notation in ink on front pastedown. Pages clean, with minor spotting to rear endpaper. Otherwise unmarked.A comprehensive chess primer by Soviet International Master Alexei Pavlovich Sokolsky (1908-1969), a Belarusian-Ukrainian opening theoretician and noted correspondence chess player. Originally published in Russian as Vash Pervyy Khod by Fizkultura i Sport (Moscow, 1977), revised for Progress Publishers' 1981 English edition, and reissued with corrections by Raduga Publishers in 1987. Translated by Arthur Krivovyaz, edited by Paul Kotsubinsky, designed by Vladimir Noskov. Among the closed openings covered is the Sokolsky Opening (1.b4, also called the Polish Opening or Orangutan), the author's own contribution to opening theory. Closes with a chapter on chess history covering Tchigorin, Steinitz, Lasker, and later Soviet players, followed by solutions to the book's exercises.Contents: Rules of the Game; The Simplest Endings; Some Basic Concepts; How to Start a Game; Short Games and Traps; Middle Game; Endgame; Chess Composition; The Opening, comprising Open Openings (Philidor's Defence, Petroff's Defence, Scotch Game, Giuoco Piano, The Greco Analysis, Two Knights' Defence, Ruy Lopez, King's Gambit), Semi-Open Openings (French Defence, Sicilian Defence, Caro-Kann Defence, Alekhine Defence, Ufimtsev Defence), and Closed Openings (Queen's Gambit, Verseov Opening, Group of Indian Defences, Dutch Opening, English Opening, Réti Opening, Sokolsky Opening); Chess: Past and Present; Solutions to Exercises.