On The Attack - Jan Timman Review

I convinced my local library to buy On the Attack by Jan Timman. It contains representative games of the Modern Masters of Attack (during the last 25 years). He made it a point to select only games where the attack is sound ( I like it anyway). The games are annotated with a few concrete variations but with alot of discription about the position, tournament, strategy and some of his personal opinions and asides . Unlike Kasparov's My Greatest Pred's, this does not read like a Fritz chart.

This book is written for players at a higher level than I but I still feel with work I can get something out of it. I look to spend some time on it when I am done my Art of Attack.

It contains 30+ complete games which run 3-5 pages each with 2-3 games of each highlighted Modern Attacking GM as well as 30+ fragments of attacks.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1012326

Of particular interest to me is the Keres Attack against the Sicilian -first game Karpov-Sax. The potential of the pawn storm keeps the King in the center, it's timing and coordination of the moves, a passive knight sacrifice and a combination that springs from the position is a beautiful thing.

I feel at some point when I start understanding these games and their quirky positional play and exchange sacrifices , I will understand chess a lot better.

Honest BDK it's a good book ! You can trust me 8)