Koltanowski, George, and Milton Finkelstein. Checkmate! The Patterns of the Winning Mating Attacks and How to Achieve Them. New York: Doubleday and Co., 1978.
Tal, Mikhail, and Victor Khenkin. Tal’s Winning Chess Combinations: The Secrets of Winning Chess Combinations Described and Explained by the Russian Grandmaster Mikhail Tal, trans. Hanon W. Russell. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1979.
Checkmate! (1978) and Tal’s Winning Chess Combinations (1979) are remarkably similar in approach. Each takes an individual piece and offers game conclusions where that piece delivers the check that is mate. Then, individual chapters concern certain groups of pieces: both texts have chapters on two rooks, rook and bishop, rook and knight, two bishops, two knights, and queen and knight. Tal and Khenkin* continue this scheme with queen and bishop, queen and knight, and three pieces. In contrast, Koltanowski and Finkelstein offer chapters on certain patterns—Boden’s Mate, Epaulettes Mate, Long Diagonal Mates, Greco and Damiano Mates, and a chapter on double check. These pattern-oriented chapters are followed by chapters arranged by the piece that is sacrificed to set-up checkmate. There are additional chapters on pawn promotion, drawing resources, and how masters use checkmate threats.
There is a difference in the expectation of the target audience evident in advice about how to read the books. Koltanowski and Finkelstein repeatedly suggest that a reader should set up the position on a board and play through the moves in order to plant the patterns into memory. Tal and Khenkin, in contrast, suggest that readers study the book without a chess board to improve visualization skills, using a chess board "when you're really stymied" (14).
Legall’s Mate appears in both books. Tal and Khenkin have it in the chapter on three pieces, while Koltanowski and Finkelstein place it under queen sacrifices. These books differ on the game score of Legall — St. Brie, as well as the date. Tal’s Winning Chess Combinations has the game played in 1787 when Legall was 85 years old (351). Checkmate! states that the opening trap was first recorded about 1750, but does not explicitly state the game was played then (197-198). Koltanowski’s penchant for dubious stories makes its appearance here in the claim, “Légal was one of the first players to record his games” (197). If he recorded his games, what happened to them? Today, we cannot even be certain of the moves in the sole surviving example of Legall's play.
Checkmate!
Checkmate! was brought to my attention in response to my assertion in the Facebook group Chess Book Collectors that the best books for teaching checkmate patterns are George Renaud and Victor Kahn, The Art of the Checkmate; and Victor Henkin, 1000 Checkmate Combinations (see below). My claim provoked some interesting discussion. One commenter identified Checkmate! as a book that helped him learn these skills. Bruce Pandolfini also commented that Milton Finkelstein "was a wonderful chess teacher". On the strength of such recommendations, I found a copy and bought it.
The chapters in Checkmate! typically begin with some elementary illustrations and an impressive combination from master play. The authors describe conditions and rules for executing the checkmate in question, often producing numbered lists. For instance, the "four conditions necessary for mate with a rook":
1. The enemy king lacks escape squares.The bulk of each chapter consists of exercises with a number of blanks on which a student can write the moves--workbook style. The introduction of each exercise typically offers clues, and in some cases the final position is shown. The book contains a bit over 550 exercises in total. Answers are in the back of the book. Here is an example from the chapter, "Boden's Mate", that is simple when you know the pattern, but has vexed many of my students over the years (151).
2. A rook can attack it on a rank or a file.
3. The rook is immune from capture.
4. The rook check cannot be blocked by the interposing of a protected piece or pawn. (41)
White to move
Often there are historical anecdotes about a player whose combination is featured. These anecdotes in Checkmate! are entertaining, but unreliable. We learn, for instance, that Akiba Rubinstein was confined to Berlin during World War I, "went bankrupt and then developed a persecution mania that broke his powers of concentration" (47). A more credible work, Akiba Rubinstein: Uncrowned King (1994) by John Donaldson and Nikolay Minev, places Rubinstein in Warsaw, limited to a playing local opponents in that city and in Lodz. Donaldson and Minev offer crosstables and games from the war period. They also note that Rubinstein married in 1917 and had a son born in 1918, both events taking place in German occupied Warsaw (254). There should be no question that Rubinstein's postwar play was inconsistent, as suggested by Koltanowski and Finkelstein, but they leave the impression that he did not play at all after the war. In fact, he won several strong tournaments in the 1920s. His performance in St. Petersburg in 1914 suggests that inconsistency cannot be wholly pinned on difficulties during the war years.
Historical errors are distracting, but do not destroy the book's pedagogical value for learning checkmate patterns. Nor do the errors in Checkmate! make the book unique. The list of errors that could be produced from thorough fact checking of Renaud and Kahn also would be lengthy (see "Pillsbury's Mate").
One of the simple illustrations of a final check by a rook in Checkmate! is identical in concept to one that I use often with my beginning students, and with which I became acquainted through Bruce Pandolfini, Pandolfini's Endgame Course (1988).
White to move
Classifying and organizing checkmate patterns is not a simple matter. In my own efforts, guided by half a dozen books and a few websites, I separated the dovetail and swallowtail checkmates from epaulette, listing all three as checkmates with the queen. Renaud and Kahn use the term Guéridon for the two bird mates and include this pattern with epaulette. Koltanowski and Kinkelstein lump them together under epaulette mate, but do not limit the pattern to a final check with the queen. This position credited to a Russian player surnamed Usachev illustrates (67-68).
Black to move
1...Bc3 2.Ke2
Black could avoid checkmate at the cost of a rook, the authors note. Stockfish shows that both rooks will disappear if Black plays the superior move 2.Kc1. After 2.Ke2, Black has a mate in two that starts with a queen sacrifice and ends with a knight check. Four White pieces occupy the king's escape squares, serving as ornament rather than protection.
Checkmate! includes a substantial number of checkmate examples. Had I acquired it when it was first published during my teen years and devoted myself to working through the book, I may have become a much stronger player.
Unfortunately, whatever the merits of the book, the authors were ill-served by their publisher. The very first diagram in the text is wrong (2). It appears that the image negative was flipped before printing--there is a dark square in the lower-right corner. Black's 4...K-K4 is an illegal move as there is a pawn on that square. The mismatch between the original position and the final position showing checkmate with a pawn alerts the attentive reader to the problem, so the error can be overcome. The publisher also exercised poor quality control over the printing process. Too much ink was allowed to flow, creating many pages where the dark squares are so dark that the Black pieces on them nearly disappear. Many pages have crystal clear diagrams, but a large percentage are dark and even blurred from inattention by the printer. These problems will be even worse in the Ishi Press reprints, which are notorious for poor print quality.
Tal's Winning Chess Combinations
After 24.Bf7+ Kh8 25.Be8, Black resigned.
Tal's Winning Chess Combinations is notable for how it builds understanding of many possibilities related to a simple pattern. Applying what we know from backrank checkmates, the author notes that kings can be hemmed in by their own pieces on a file as well as rank. Even a file away from the edge of the board can become a deadly corridor. Goldenov -- Zakharian 1960 is a memorable example (34).
Black could avoid checkmate at the cost of a rook, the authors note. Stockfish shows that both rooks will disappear if Black plays the superior move 2.Kc1. After 2.Ke2, Black has a mate in two that starts with a queen sacrifice and ends with a knight check. Four White pieces occupy the king's escape squares, serving as ornament rather than protection.
Checkmate! includes a substantial number of checkmate examples. Had I acquired it when it was first published during my teen years and devoted myself to working through the book, I may have become a much stronger player.
Unfortunately, whatever the merits of the book, the authors were ill-served by their publisher. The very first diagram in the text is wrong (2). It appears that the image negative was flipped before printing--there is a dark square in the lower-right corner. Black's 4...K-K4 is an illegal move as there is a pawn on that square. The mismatch between the original position and the final position showing checkmate with a pawn alerts the attentive reader to the problem, so the error can be overcome. The publisher also exercised poor quality control over the printing process. Too much ink was allowed to flow, creating many pages where the dark squares are so dark that the Black pieces on them nearly disappear. Many pages have crystal clear diagrams, but a large percentage are dark and even blurred from inattention by the printer. These problems will be even worse in the Ishi Press reprints, which are notorious for poor print quality.
Tal's Winning Chess Combinations
My Facebook assertion in favor of the value of Henkin, 1000 Checkmate Combinations was grounded in study of Tal and Khenkin, Tal's Winning Chess Combinations, which I have found quite good. My view also stems from superficial examination of the newer translation in Kindle format. Others have assured me that the newer edition is a better translation of The Last Check (more on that below).
Tal's Winning Chess Combinations is more challenging than Checkmate! This position from Adams -- Torre, New Orleans 1920 (given as 1921 in the text) and the winning idea is richer than most of the combinations in Koltanowski and Finkelstein (19).**
Tal's Winning Chess Combinations is more challenging than Checkmate! This position from Adams -- Torre, New Orleans 1920 (given as 1921 in the text) and the winning idea is richer than most of the combinations in Koltanowski and Finkelstein (19).**
White to move
White offered his queen for six consecutive moves in the effort to divert Black's queen from the defense of e8. The idea reappears as exercise 8 (37) from Guldin -- Bagdatev (1963), a position I remember from Lev Alburt, Chess Training Pocket Book, 2nd ed. (2000).
The initial example in each chapter of Checkmate! is usually comparable, but the rest of each chapter is less demanding. It did not take me more than ten minutes to blaze through the 13 exercises in the rook chapter, and every example was a forced checkmate. In many of the examples in Tal's Winning Chess Combinations, mate threats can be parried with significant sacrifice, still leading to a lost game.
Tal's Winning Chess Combinations also has a clearer demarcation between the instructive section and the exercises. Each chapter begins with diagrams showing the elementary pattern, and then proceeds through instructive and entertaining examples. Most chapters repeat this sequence with more checkmate patterns and game fragments. The object is showing a range of possibilities with the piece or pieces in question. As in Checkmate!, Tal's Winning Chess Combinations presents game endings where a queen did not deliver the final check in an epaulette mate.
This one is presented as Korchnoy -- Petrosyan 1965 (281).
The initial example in each chapter of Checkmate! is usually comparable, but the rest of each chapter is less demanding. It did not take me more than ten minutes to blaze through the 13 exercises in the rook chapter, and every example was a forced checkmate. In many of the examples in Tal's Winning Chess Combinations, mate threats can be parried with significant sacrifice, still leading to a lost game.
Tal's Winning Chess Combinations also has a clearer demarcation between the instructive section and the exercises. Each chapter begins with diagrams showing the elementary pattern, and then proceeds through instructive and entertaining examples. Most chapters repeat this sequence with more checkmate patterns and game fragments. The object is showing a range of possibilities with the piece or pieces in question. As in Checkmate!, Tal's Winning Chess Combinations presents game endings where a queen did not deliver the final check in an epaulette mate.
This one is presented as Korchnoy -- Petrosyan 1965 (281).
White to move
White has a forced checkmate in four moves with a queen sacrifice on the second.
The bulk of the book is devoted to instructive examples. An idea is presented, then a few position, then a variations on the idea and more illustrations. The Adams -- Torre position above is the ninth instance of a combination exploiting a weak back rank in the chapter on the rook. This chapter begins with a simple illustration of a back rank checkmate. The instructive portion offers fifteen combinations to divert defenders from protecting the vulnerability. Diversion is combined with a second threat in some combinations. Further examples offer other tactical ideas, such as "line interference" in Reti -- Bogoljubow 1924 (22).
The bulk of the book is devoted to instructive examples. An idea is presented, then a few position, then a variations on the idea and more illustrations. The Adams -- Torre position above is the ninth instance of a combination exploiting a weak back rank in the chapter on the rook. This chapter begins with a simple illustration of a back rank checkmate. The instructive portion offers fifteen combinations to divert defenders from protecting the vulnerability. Diversion is combined with a second threat in some combinations. Further examples offer other tactical ideas, such as "line interference" in Reti -- Bogoljubow 1924 (22).
White to move
Tal's Winning Chess Combinations is notable for how it builds understanding of many possibilities related to a simple pattern. Applying what we know from backrank checkmates, the author notes that kings can be hemmed in by their own pieces on a file as well as rank. Even a file away from the edge of the board can become a deadly corridor. Goldenov -- Zakharian 1960 is a memorable example (34).
Black to move
Tal and Khenkin's chapter on the rook offers 45 instructive positions and then 17 exercises at the end of the chapter for the reader to solve. This abundance contrasts with a total of 13 exercises following four instructive examples in Koltanowski and Finkelstein. Checkmate!, however, offers 25 chapters to the 14 in the other text. The total of 271 exercises in Tal's Winning Chess Combinations are far fewer than more than 550 found in Checkmate!, but many offer greater challenge. On balance, I prefer Tal's Winning Chess Combinations, but expect to lift some examples from Checkmate! while creating worksheets for my students.
The New Book
Henkin, Victor. 1000 Checkmate Combinations, trans. Jimmy Adams and Sarah Hurst. London: Batsford Chess, [2011] 2022.
I cannot assess the quality of the translation. I lack both the resources (a copy of the Russian edition of The Last Check) and the competence (knowledge of Russian). However, I prefer the recent Batsford edition for several reasons. Tal's Winning Chess Combinations blurs the lines between Khenkin's work and Tal's contribution. 1000 Checkmate Combinations explicitly states that the book is Henkin's work. The title page reveals that Victor Henkin owns the text copyright. Batsford also asserts copyright ownership. The publisher owns all rights in the 1979 translation by Hanon Russell; there is no mention of the authors on the copyright page.
Tal’s Winning Chess Combinations begins with an Introduction: “Don’t Reinvent the Wheel”, co-authored by Tal and Khenkin (9-14). 1000 Checkmate Combinations has “Don’t Reinvent the Bicycle” by Tal (5-6) followed by “Before You Open the Book” by Henkin (7-9). The joint introduction in the earlier translation contains most of the content presented in the two introductions in the later text. In addition to clarifying authorship, the most notable differences are that Tal ended his introduction in the Batsford edition with a quote from Richard Réti, Masters of the Chessboard. This quote is absent from Russell’s translation. Russell also inserts Legall’s game into the introduction, while Adams and Hurst do not.
In Tal's introduction to the Batsford edition, we find:
There hasn't been a book like this before in our chess literature. The author has done an enormous amount of work selecting and systematizing the material. An experienced master, who in the recent past himself participated in competitions and had a reputation as a staunch tactician, he has retained a particular taste for the last check. (6)This text is absent from Tal's Winning Chess Combinations. 1000 Checkmate Combinations is clearly the work of Henkin, lauded by Tal. Henkin's authorship is attested in Vladimir Barsky, A Modern Guide to Checkmating Patterns (2020), which is dedicated to Viktor Khenkin, whose pioneering organization in The Last Check is the model for Barsky's text.
Tal's Winning Chess Combinations presents a decisive mating combination played by Vera Menchik against George Thomas in 1932, and then imitated by David Bronstein against Paul Keres 18 years later (32-33). In both books this combination follows Capablanca -- Raubitschek 1906, to which it is comparable. 1000 Checkmate Combinations adds Tal -- Andersson 1976, where Tal's threats to bring about Menchik's combination provoked a series of exchanges that simplified into an ending with queen against knight and rook (25).
White to move
After the immediate 25.Qh6, the combination falters because Black's resources with 25...Rg8 and 26...Nf8 hold the position together. Tal first set out to remove the knight.
25.Bb6 Rc8 26.Qh6 Rg8 27.Rd4!
Henkin writes, "So Ulf Andersson gives up his queen for rook and bishop, which, however, doesn't save the game" (25).
27...Nxb6 28.Rxd5 Nxd5 29.Rf3
With Tal renewing the mating threat, Anderrson is forced to exchange rooks.
29...Rc3 30.Rxc3 Nxc3 31.Qe3 b4 32.Qa7 Rf8 33.Qc5 Rb8 34.Qd6 1-0
This long combination with checkmate threats parried, but still leading to a decisive advantage is a characteristic of Henkin's work. Both translations of his work bring this out, but the more recent text does so in greater abundance.
Detailed comparison of the first chapter of both books shows that the 45 positions in Tal and Khenkin expands to 62 in 1000 Checkmate Combinations. I count five in the older translation that are missing from the newer edition. My count of 15 in the Batsford edition that are absent from Tal's Winning Chess Combinations reveals there is something askew with my counting (15+5 > 17). But there is no doubt that the newer edition has more material. The 1979 text has three sets of basic patterns followed by examples from games and studies. The Batsford edition has four. Above, I credit Tal's Winning Chess Combinations with showing corridor mates on files as well as ranks. The idea is there, but is is made more explicit in the section found only in the newer book.
Although many passages in the two books make it abundantly clear that they are derived from the same Russian text, the language employed differs. The familiar term luft is found in Russell's translation, but becomes "the little window" in the work of Adams and Hurst. Diversion becomes deflection. Line interruption becomes interference.
Some readers will object to the small size of the diagrams in 1000 Checkmate Combinations. They are indeed small at 35 mm. Only a few books have smaller diagrams, such as the training positions in Antonio Gude, Fundamental Checkmates (2016), measuring 34 mm. Other chess books typically have diagrams from 40-50 mm, and the main part of Gude's book comes in at 45 mm. Diagrams in Tal's Winning Chess Combinations are 41 mm. They are 43 mm in Checkmate!
In the Kindle edition of Henkin, the figurines in the notation are a larger font than the text. I have found this ebook difficult to read, but the print text is a delight, even with the small diagrams. At least the diagrams are very clear with appropriate shading of the dark squares and clear pieces.
Notes
25.Bb6 Rc8 26.Qh6 Rg8 27.Rd4!
Henkin writes, "So Ulf Andersson gives up his queen for rook and bishop, which, however, doesn't save the game" (25).
27...Nxb6 28.Rxd5 Nxd5 29.Rf3
With Tal renewing the mating threat, Anderrson is forced to exchange rooks.
29...Rc3 30.Rxc3 Nxc3 31.Qe3 b4 32.Qa7 Rf8 33.Qc5 Rb8 34.Qd6 1-0
This long combination with checkmate threats parried, but still leading to a decisive advantage is a characteristic of Henkin's work. Both translations of his work bring this out, but the more recent text does so in greater abundance.
Detailed comparison of the first chapter of both books shows that the 45 positions in Tal and Khenkin expands to 62 in 1000 Checkmate Combinations. I count five in the older translation that are missing from the newer edition. My count of 15 in the Batsford edition that are absent from Tal's Winning Chess Combinations reveals there is something askew with my counting (15+5 > 17). But there is no doubt that the newer edition has more material. The 1979 text has three sets of basic patterns followed by examples from games and studies. The Batsford edition has four. Above, I credit Tal's Winning Chess Combinations with showing corridor mates on files as well as ranks. The idea is there, but is is made more explicit in the section found only in the newer book.
Mating situations in which the rook delivers a linear blow can also arise on the files. In these cases it is as if the board does a 90-degree turn. (20).At the end of the chapter on rooks, the exercises have expanded from 17 to 43 in 1000 Checkmate Combinations.
Although many passages in the two books make it abundantly clear that they are derived from the same Russian text, the language employed differs. The familiar term luft is found in Russell's translation, but becomes "the little window" in the work of Adams and Hurst. Diversion becomes deflection. Line interruption becomes interference.
Some readers will object to the small size of the diagrams in 1000 Checkmate Combinations. They are indeed small at 35 mm. Only a few books have smaller diagrams, such as the training positions in Antonio Gude, Fundamental Checkmates (2016), measuring 34 mm. Other chess books typically have diagrams from 40-50 mm, and the main part of Gude's book comes in at 45 mm. Diagrams in Tal's Winning Chess Combinations are 41 mm. They are 43 mm in Checkmate!
In the Kindle edition of Henkin, the figurines in the notation are a larger font than the text. I have found this ebook difficult to read, but the print text is a delight, even with the small diagrams. At least the diagrams are very clear with appropriate shading of the dark squares and clear pieces.
Notes
*Both Khenkin and Henkin appear as the spelling of this writer's name in different places. I favor the spelling used by the book under discussion. Vladimir Barsky dedicates A Modern Guide to Checkmating Patterns (2020) to Viktor Lvovich Khenkin and offers The Last Check as the English title of the Russian work upon which both Tal's Winning Chess Combinations and 1000 Checkmate Combinations are based. Barsky's book follows the general outline of these two, but with far less instructive material. Rather the instruction is provided as exercises. While Khenkin is the spelling on the cover and title page of Tal's Winning Chess Combinations, games played by the author are presented in the text with the spelling Henkin.
**In all likelihood, this game was analysis, possibly by the alleged victim of the combination as instruction for the alleged victor. See Edward Winter, "Adams v Torre -- A Sham?" Chess Notes (updated 14 December 2021).
"The little window" is a rendering of Russian "fortochka", a small window inset at the top of regular windows. It allows some air circulation in winter when windows are sealed shut. The term is also used for what German/English players call luft.
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