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Analyse Your Chess, by Colin Crouch, 2011 Everyman Chess, Figurine
Algebraic notation, Paperback, 235pp. $26.95 (ChessCafe Price $22.95)

For what is ostensibly a text devoted to analyzing one's games, Analyse Your
Chess is a remarkably personal book. Author and international master Dr.
Book Colin Crouch writes in his Preface as follows:

Reviews "I knew I wanted to write this book, but I was not quite sure how I was
going to handle it. I had just written How to Lose in Chess, based on
serious mistakes I made while playing in 2006 and 2007. This was in
part a psychological exercise. I had suffered from a stroke at the end of
2004 [at a relatively young age], and I lost most of my eyesight. Many Why We Lose at Chess
players in such a condition would want to give up the game, but my by Colin Crouch
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instincts were to play chess seriously, to recover my thought processes.
Sometimes the blunders I made were painful. Of course, in my book I
tried to make light of this, but they were painful.

"For this book I went through fifty games from 2009 and early 2010,
aiming to isolate many weaknesses in my play. I have included all my
losses in that period, plus games in which I did not lose, but in which I
have made identifiable mistakes…I go on the basis that if I had not
understood something over the board, most readers will have had similar
difficulties."

In all, twenty-eight deeply annotated games are included. Crouch includes an

adequate number of alternative variations, but he especially excels in Modern Chess Move by Move
immersing the reader in his thoughts and emotions during the course of these by Colin Crouch
Rating Chart games. Anyone who has played a tournament or match game can relate to the
emotional highs and lows, and the occasional clarity or cloudiness of thought
Awful –
one encounters.
Poor –
Each game offers something informative, as the author breaks down where he
Uneven – or his opponent went wrong. In some cases, there is quite a bit of information
to work through. Game Twenty-five, for example, offers over twenty pages of
Good –
analysis.
Great –
Let's take a look at a portion of Game Five, in which Crouch had the black
Excellent – pieces. He bypasses the earlier part of the game and begins his analysis at this
point. I include selected annotations; the actual text contains more.
Chess Secrets: Great Attackers
A.Walton – C.Crouch by Colin Crouch
Amersham Open, 2009
 [FEN "2rq2k1/1nr3pp/p3p3/Pp1p1p2/
1Q1P1P2/R1PBPP2/3K2RP/8 b - - 0 36"]

In the diagram position, there is an obvious similarity to the Nimzo-

Indian. I was able to exchange bishop for knight on both c3 and f3,
weakening pawn structures on both flanks of the board. It helped that I
was able to win bishop for knight early on, in what was effectively a
symmetrical Slav. Without White having the bishop pair, Black is often
happy to exchange off bishop for knight, if he can thereby weaken his
opponent's pawn structure.

That is the basic positional theory. The implementation can often take a
long time, since on each of White's slightly weakened pawns, he has as
many piece defenders as piece attackers. I was unable to find, for
example, a way of winning the pawn on c3, however tempting the attack
there might be. The next stage is for Black to swing his pieces, putting
pressure on two or more weaknesses, making it difficult for the defender
to defend all his weaknesses.

36…Qe8?!

With the idea of alternating the attack, with …Qh5, attacking pawns on
f3 and h2, as well as keeping pressure on the c3-pawn.

On reflection, this is over-elaborate, as there is a clear and obvious

weakness in White's play, the c3-pawn, which he has to defend
uncomfortably. Black has a straightforward plan with 36…Nd6,
followed by …Rc6, …Qc7, …Nc4, and if there is a minor piece
exchange, then …Rc4 and …b4. It is difficult to see how White can
defend, in the long term.

Play on the kingside, with …Qe8-h5, is close to irrelevant, in that Black

cannot attack there. Sometimes it is better to aim hammer blows rather
than a few glancing hits.

37.e4?!

White hits out quickly, but prematurely. If White were to defend quietly
with, for example, 37.Rb3 Qh5 38.Ke2 Rd7, what can Black do next?
The queen will most likely end up returning to the queenside.

37…Qh5

I carried on with my plan.

38.Ke3?!

This should have lost, almost immediately.

[FEN "2r3k1/1nr3pp/p3p3/Pp1p1p1q/
1Q1PPP2/R1PBKP2/6RP/8 b - - 0 38"]

38…Qh4?

But here I was lazy. A few more seconds of thought would have told me
that 38…fxe4 39.fxe4 Qh3+ 40.Rg3 Qxh2 would have gained an extra
 pawn without fuss.

I played something which looked highly promising, but it turned out that
there were hidden tactics, and I did not handle them well.

39.Rf2 fxe4 40.fxe4 Rf7

40…Qh3+ is a move too late, in terms of forcing a quick win. 41.Kd2

escapes with the king, although Black is still better.

41.Ra1 Rcf8 42.Raf1

[FEN "5rk1/1n3rpp/p3p3/Pp1p4/1Q1PPP1q/
2PBK3/5R1P/5R2 b - - 0 42"]

42…g5?

This throws away my advantage.

I saw that 42…Rxf4?? would have been a blunder, in view of 43.Qxf8+,

and so I decided I needed to add pressure to the f4-pawn. The trouble is
that White's pawn advances, and shields the pressure on the square
behind. Meanwhile, Black has weakened his own kingside.

Black has veered from over-elaborate positional manoeuvres to wild

attack in too quick a time. Having decided on positional play, he should
continue the quiet positional pressure with, for example, 42…dxe4!? 43.
Bxe4 Rd8.

43.f5

White is about to create a good passed pawn, and with a pawn which
used to be weak.

43…exf5 44.exf5 Re8+

I was reasoning that in compensation for White's pawns being less

weak, White's king is exposed. This argument might be acceptable if it
could be argued that I have given away one advantage in return for a
bigger advantage. If, however, my move has quite simply been a
mistake, then the assumption that has been made is possibly dubious.

44…Rf6 covers White's passed pawn, and should still be equal.

45.Kd2
 [FEN "4r1k1/1n3r1p/p7/Pp1p1Pp1/1Q1P3q/
2PB4/3K1R1P/5R2 b - - 0 45"]

45…Qh3?

Still angling for an attack, although the king is moving towards safety.

45…Rf6 is simple enough, and a good equalizing line.

46.Qb3?

This must have been very tempting, suddenly trying to win the central
d5-pawn, and in doing so making Black's initiative seem absurd. Black,
though, has his counter-counter-initiative, along the sixth rank, and it
turns out to be good.

White has overpressed, which is unfortunate as for the first time since
the opening moves, he had the chance of playing for an advantage,
pressing the passed pawn with 46.f6!. It is not just the pawn itself that
matters. It is also that the absence of the pawn opens up the f5-square,
for the bishop. If 46…Re6 47.Bf5 Qe3+ 48.Kc2 Rc6 49.Bd3 Nd6, for
example, White looks better after 50.Re2 Qh3 51.Rf5 h6 52.Rxd5 Rxf6
53.Rde5. This is unlikely to be decisive, but it adds to unwelcome
pressure for Black, who for most of the game has been on top.
Psychologically, this is a dangerous part of the game, the chance of a
swing from winning to losing, a 'double-dip crash.'

46…Re3!

But now Black is on top again.

Crouch continues with a fair amount of additional analysis; after a blunder by

White, Black won several moves later.

Analyse Your Chess is aptly named. Crouch shows the reader how an
international master reviews his own games, looking for errors, great and
small, on either side of the board. The idea, of course, is to identify one's
weak spots and avoid repeating them. In the author's case, he found that he
needed to spend extra effort working on rook and pawn endings in particular.

Diagrams are generously provided throughout the book, to the extent that
readers may not require a board and set to follow most of the games.

One thing that would have been helpful would be to provide the players' FIDE
ratings, if available. As is, it is hard to gauge the strength of Crouch's
opposition in the games. In addition, there weren't many typos I came across,
but the book could have used just a bit tighter editing. On page eighty-two, for
example, I came across a line of analysis that included the sequence "29.b5
Rd5 30.b4" (I believe 29.c5 was meant).

But chess books with significant analysis can be as notoriously difficult to

edit with unerring precision as it is to play a game with unerring precision.

Good players spend time reviewing and analyzing their games. If you can't
spot your errors, your weak spots, it will be hard to improve. Analyse Your
Chess demonstrates how one strong player accomplishes this important task.
This title is also available as an ebook in ChessBase format.

My assessment of this product:

Order Analyse Your Chess

by Colin Crouch

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