English Chess Forum

What would be your top half dozen Bob Wade era hardback Batsford books?

I'm thinking of the white hardback titles which are amongst my favourites.

His book on the Kasparov v Karpov match in 86 is the only one I remember reading with affection.

MJMcCready wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 04, 2021 11:15 pm

His book on the Kasparov v Karpov match in 86 is the only one I remember reading with affection.

As a co-author of that particular book, I can assure MJMc that it was not a Batsford publication.

Roger Lancaster wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 05, 2021 11:10 am

MJMcCready wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 04, 2021 11:15 pm

His book on the Kasparov v Karpov match in 86 is the only one I remember reading with affection.

As a co-author of that particular book, I can assure MJMc that it was not a Batsford publication.

The co-authors of the above book published by Chequers Chess Publication (Aly Amin) are given here:

David Bronstein. Tony Miles, Bob Wade, Les Blackstock, Andrew Martin, Bill Hartston, Roger Lancaster (who was responsible for most of "Off the Board")

and

Hilary Thomas (who changed his name to Richard Pentreath and committed arson amongst other crimes) and still owes me for a subscription to "International Chess"

Photographs by Mark Huba.

At the time the London Chess Centre's address was:

c/o Granada Social Club
58, St. John's Hill
Clapham
SW11

for a reason that is unknown to me.

I consider the best books of the Batsford Contemporary Chess Openings series published under the General Editorship of Bob Wade to be:

The King's Indian Defence by Leonard Barden, William Hartston and Raymond Keene. (1969)

The Grunfeld Defence by William R. Harston (1971)

The Modern Defence by G.S.Botterill and R.D.Keene (1972)

The Pirc Defence by G.S.Botterill and R.D.Keene (1973)

The French Defence. Main Line Winawer by John Moles(1975)

French Winawer: Modern and Auxiliary Lines by John Moles and Kevin Wicker (1979)

John Upham wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 05, 2021 11:34 am

Roger Lancaster wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 05, 2021 11:10 am

MJMcCready wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 04, 2021 11:15 pm

His book on the Kasparov v Karpov match in 86 is the only one I remember reading with affection.

As a co-author of that particular book, I can assure MJMc that it was not a Batsford publication.

The co-authors of the above book published by Chequers Chess Publication (Aly Amin) are given here: David Bronstein. Tony Miles, Bob Wade, Les Blackstock, Andrew Martin, Bill Hartston, Roger Lancaster (who was responsible for most of "Off the Board")

and

Hilary Thomas (who changed his name to Richard Pentreath and committed arson amongst other crimes) and still owes me for a subscription to "International Chess"

Photographs by Mark Huba.

At the time the London Chess Centre's address was:

c/o Granada Social Club
58, St. John's Hill
Clapham
SW11

for a reason that is unknown to me.

I can't throw any light on the location of London Chess Centre but the inclusion of Hilary Thomas in the team remains something of a puzzle to me. Back in 1986, computer-assisted printing didn't [to the best of my recollection] exist so every page of a book had to be typeset manually. Hilary was recommended to Aly Amin by Bob as a good typesetter, which indeed proved to be the case, but [and it's a long time ago but my recollection is fairly clear] no chess player so I was later surprised to find that he had been the author of a Batsford biography of Mikhail Tal. My assumption, which I think must be correct, was that this could only have happened on Bob's recommendation. News of Hilary's criminal activity didn't break until well after Bob's death but I imagine he would have been as astounded as the rest of us at the revelations. None of this detracts from the 1986 book despite the fact that it had to be produced at speed in order to hit the bookshops ahead of a publication written by another team.

The London Chess Centre was at the Granada Social Club in Clapham for a while. They certainly had a range of books, equipment etc at that site because I remember buying some books from them.

"Hilary was recommended to Aly Amin by Bob as a good typesetter, which indeed proved to be the case, but [and it's a long time ago but my recollection is fairly clear] no chess player "

I played an HC Thomas in 1981 and he was graded 200 or so - I assumed he was the one now incarcerated? Are there two of them?

Kevin Thurlow wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 05, 2021 2:47 pm

I played an HC Thomas in 1981 and he was graded 200 or so - I assumed he was the one now incarcerated? Are there two of them?

Must be the same man - and in fact I've now searched this site and found others mention him in connection with the short-lived "International Chess". So he seemingly was a decent player and it's slightly odd that he was relegated to the role of typesetter. All of which is something of a diversion from the topic, for which I apologise.

Ken Norman wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 05, 2021 12:16 pm

I consider the best books of the Batsford Contemporary Chess Openings series published under the General Editorship of Bob Wade to be:

The King's Indian Defence by Leonard Barden, William Hartston and Raymond Keene. (1969)

The Grunfeld Defence by William R. Harston (1971)

The Modern Defence by G.S.Botterill and R.D.Keene (1972)

The Pirc Defence by G.S.Botterill and R.D.Keene (1973)

The French Defence. Main Line Winawer by John Moles(1975)

French Winawer: Modern and Auxiliary Lines by John Moles and Kevin Wicker (1979)

Is there a complete list of books in that series?

Roger Lancaster wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 05, 2021 2:59 pm

Kevin Thurlow wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 05, 2021 2:47 pm

I played an HC Thomas in 1981 and he was graded 200 or so - I assumed he was the one now incarcerated? Are there two of them?

Must be the same man - and in fact I've now searched this site and found others mention him in connection with the short-lived "International Chess". So he seemingly was a decent player and it's slightly odd that he was relegated to the role of typesetter. All of which is something of a diversion from the topic, for which I apologise.

Like others above, I too was astonished and sad to read for the first time about the later criminal career of Hilary Thomas/Pentreath, about which I knew nothing until I saw the sample pages from Nigel Short's new book on the Quality Chess website.

I wouldn't say Thomas was "relegated to the role of a typesetter". In 1976, long before there was true computer typesetting of the WYSIWG variety, there were electronic typesetting machines where you could see the current line of type in a little window, in order to make any corrections necessary before saving the line and moving to the next. I believe Tony Gillam had something like this in Nottingham and for Hilary Thomas it was a business investment to buy one and I vaguely recall visiting his home in Charlton and he showed it to me.

His idea was to use this machine to typeset chess set books and also his magazine which unfortunately was over-ambitious and under-capitalised, hence leaving many disappointed customers who only received two issues.

As for the Batsford publications, it would take some research to compile a complete list, even of the hardbacks. I have many of them but not all in my library.
One of the very first - if not the first - was O'Kelly de Galway on the Najdorf Sicilian.
Concerning Ken Norman's nominations, the Pirc book was largely by Botterill and the Modern Defence largely by Keene, because the original concept of one book was soon seen to require a split.
I certainly made good use of Hartston's Gruenfeld book at one time; there was a second edition. Indeed many of the titles came out first in descriptive and were then rewritten in algebraic.
John Moles's first book on the Winawer main lines was indeed a work of immense scholarship, but I'm not sure how much of the second volume was his writing (as opposed to research) because by then he was launched on his academic career, had left Oxford and had got married.

Roger Lancaster wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 05, 2021 11:10 am

MJMcCready wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 04, 2021 11:15 pm

His book on the Kasparov v Karpov match in 86 is the only one I remember reading with affection.

As a co-author of that particular book, I can assure MJMc that it was not a Batsford publication.

Apologies, not read it in a very long time.

The Games of Robert James Fischer has always been my Bible.

Tim Harding wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 05, 2021 4:24 pm

One of the very first - if not the first - was O'Kelly de Galway on the Najdorf Sicilian.

The Sicilian Flank Game (Najdorf Variation) by A. O'Kelly de Galway was published in 1969 and has an ISBN of 0 7134 0351 9

The King's Indian Defence was also published in 1969 and has an ISBN of 0 7134 0367 5

However, in the 1969 BCM, page 118 we have a review of the KID book as follows:

"This is the first volume of a welcome new series under the general editorship of R. G. Wade, aiming to give the latest master-play rather than a historical perspective of each defence...." by AS Hollis.

It was priced at 36s and 8d. The review was in the April 1969 issue.

The review of The Sicilian Flank Game was on page 339 in the November 1969 issue and was priced at 47s and 3d by JM Aitken.

That suggests (and that is what I had thought without research) that the KID book was the very first but the ISBN sequencing confused me.

The Benoni from WR Hartston was published at a similar time to the Flank Game. It has an ISBN of 0 7134 0352 7 which only adds to the confusion!

Therefore, maybe the O'Kelly book was the first to be commissioned by Bob but the KID was published first. Pure conjecture on my part.

The opening books seem so dated now, but of course they were indispensable at the time.