Author: Rudolf Spielmann (1883-1942) edited by Jack L Spence
Year: 1961
Publisher: Alfred Kalnaj's Printing
Place: Chicago
Description:
256+[2 errata]+[3 contents]+[games cited]+[ diagram correction] pages with diagrams, portrait, tables, portrait illustrations and figures. Small octavo (7" x 5") bound in original publisher's red cloth with gilt lettering to spine and cover in original pictorial jacket. First edition.
Rudolf Spielmann was an Austrian-Jewish chess player of the romantic school, and chess writer. He was known as "The Master of Attack" and "The Last Knight of the King's Gambit". His daredevil play was full of sacrifices, brilliancies, and beautiful ideas. This was exemplified, for example, in the 1923 Carlsbad tournament, where he did not have a single draw (with five wins and twelve losses). Spielmann was inordinately fond of the King's Gambit and continued using this opening after most elite players had abandoned it; he was also the last master to make any serious use of the Center Game. By the late 1920s, his opening repertoire increasingly focused on 1.d4 openings as contemporary chess fashion dictated. Despite the strong opposition at that time, with players like Alexander Alekhine, José Raúl Capablanca, Emanuel Lasker, Siegbert Tarrasch, Akiba Rubinstein, Aron Nimzowitsch, and Savielly Tartakower, Spielmann managed to score well in numerous tournaments. He won 33 of the roughly 120 in which he played, including Abbazia 1912 (an event devoted to the King's Gambit), Stockholm 1919; Bad Pistyan 1922; and Semmering 1926. He is also remembered as the author of the classic book The Art of Sacrifice in Chess.
Condition:
Gently bumped corners. Jacket spine ends chipped, lightly soiled, edge wear with chips and tears else very good in about very good jacket.
SOLS 2022