From Ukraine with Love for Chess

En spontant laget bok om det sterke sjakklivet i landet Ukraina som nå er i en grusom situasjon. Overskuddet går til krigsofre i landet. Mange av landets beste stormestere bidrar med partikommentarer til boka.

Her er også omtaler av de tre sjakkolympiadene der Ukraina har gått til topps, i åpen klasse i 2004 og 2010 og i kvinneklassen i 2006. Boka konsentrerer seg om ukrainsk sjakkhistorie og ikke minst flotte sjakkpartier fra 1960-tallet til i dag.

Fra 60- til 80-tallet handler det om Leonid Stein, Vladimir Savon, Gennady Kuzmin, Vladimir Tukmakov, Alexander Beliavsky og Oleg Romanishin.

Fra nyere tid Vasyl Ivanchuk, Ruslan Ponomariov, Pavel Eljanov, Zahar Efimenko, Viktor Moskalenko, Mikhail Golubev, Vladimir Baklan, Alexander Moiseenko, Mykhaylo Oleksiyenko, Yuriy Kryvoruchko, Anton Korobov, Alexander Areschenko, Andrei Volokitin, Yuriy Kuzubov, Anna Ushenina, Anna Muzychuk, Mariya Muzychuk og Kirill Shevchenko. Sist i boka en bukett ukrainske sluttspillstudier presentert av Jan Timman.

Forlagets egen omtale:

The Ukrainian chess community is helping Ukraine in the war against Russia. The chess genius Vasyl Ivanchuk is giving online simuls to raise funds. European champion and Olympic gold medal winner Natalia Zhukova is working as a politician in Odessa. And FIDE World Champion Ruslan Ponomariov coordinated this wonderful collection of chess games from Ukrainian players, published by New In Chess. All games were nominated and annotated by the players themselves. The proceeds of this book will support Ukrainian charities.

The book also covers the three legendary Olympic victories by Ukraine, in 2004 and 2010 for the men’s team and 2006 for the women’s team. Oleg Romanishin remembers his training match against Mikhail Tal. And Jan Timman has a look at his favourite Ukrainian study composers.

With contributions by Vasyl Ivanchuk, Ruslan Ponomariov, Anna and Mariya Muzychuk, Anton Korobov, Vladimir Tukmakov, Pavel Eljanov, Andrei Volokitin, and many, many others.

Forordet:

First of all, thank you very much for purchasing this book. All funds from the sales will be used to help the Ukrainian people. By doing something good, I hope you can also enjoy and share a passion for chess with us.

I remember well the day of February 24 when I woke up, as usual, to prepare my kids for school and start the working day. But the morning was not happy at all. My smartphone was already receiving messages in non-stop mode – the war in Ukraine had started.

I was deeply shocked and depressed for the first week. What to do? How to help? Leave my family safe and join the military forces?

When Peter Boel contacted me on 7th March with an idea to make a book on Ukrainian chess, I didn’t think for long. At least now I could do something. And chess is what I have dedicated my whole life to.

In your hands is the work of many authors and contributors. It was not a simple task, as it would be in normal circumstances. Some of them had fled from their homes without knowing what would happen on the next day. Some were hiding in a bomb shelter, trying to survive. But we managed to do it!

This book is not an Encyclopedia of all Ukrainian chess players. I am sure, for example, Vasyl Ivanchuk could write a book just with his own best games. But I hope that everyone can find something interesting here: middlegame ideas, complex positions for calculating, psychological tricks over the board, etc. What’s the secret of the ‘Ukrainian chess school’?

When I just started to learn chess as a small kid, replaying annotated brilliancies over the board was always inspiring for me, and it helped me to study and play better myself.

I hope we can meet one day in happier circumstances, and we can discuss chess in person or, if you are a book collector, all contributors could sign your copy of the book.

Well, farewell, my dear reader.

Ruslan Ponomariov