Red Letters: The Correspondence Chess Championships of the Soviet Union

This is an important work for chess history and also will be of great practical interest as numerous previously unknown or forgotten master chess games are made available in the West for the first time. The Correspondence Chess Championships of the Soviet Union were a series of high-level postal chess events held continuously from 1947 onwards and involving many leading masters and grandmasters of chess from the USSR. Many players who then or later were famous as professional grandmasters or opening theoreticians competed in these events at one time or another. On the break-up of the USSR in the 1990s, the preliminaries of the last two championships had begun and these were completed by the Russian federation with players from other nations of the former USSR. The final of the last championship was due to end in December 2001, about 10 years after the break-up of the Soviet Union; the quarter-final stages had just begun ten years earlier. Sergey Grodzensky profiles the champions and other leading personalities and presents the best games from the events. The games were collected by Tim Harding with assistance from his co-author and from German journalist and correspondence chess grandmaster Herman Heemsoth who presented all his notebooks representing many years of research. The book will have English text, selected games and some photographs. The CD-Rom will have all known games from these events, and also other games from relevant Soviet events such as team championships and women's championships. The games will be available in all the main chess database formats. The CD will also include Mr Grodzensky's original Russian text in Adobe PDF format and all relevant photographs and other material collected by the authors relating to correspondence chess in the USSR. Sergey Grodzensky's original text has been translated by well-known chess editor and translator Ken Neat.

Table of Contents:
Preface (by Tim Harding), List of Illustrations, The Uncrowned Champions, Championships 1-19 (text, results, games for each) The Romanov Memorial (20th Championship) The Rozinov Memorial (21st and final Championship) Tactical Exercises, Miniature Games, Index to Players Index to Openings of the Games CD-ROM: Russian text by Sergey Grodzensky (Adobe PDF) Photographs Games of the championships (in various chess formats) Supplementary games (in various chess formats) Other relevant material (in PDF or HTML)

About the Author :
Correspondence Chess International Master Tim Harding is a well-known author of chess books since the 1970s and editor of the Chess Mail magazine and website since 1996. His monthly column "The Kibitzer" at www.chesscafe.com is one of the most-read regular series of chess articles on the Internet. He is recognised worldwide as one of the leading experts on the history and practice of correspondence chess, in which moves are made by post, email or other form of electronic transmission. Correspondence Chess Grandmaster Sergey Ya. Grodzensky is a well-known chess historian and the chief organiser of correspondence chess in Russia, where he has had many books published. With I. Romanov, he wrote 'Khod v Konverte' (Fizikultura & Sport, Moscow 1982), the standard history of correspondence chess in Russian. His other books in Russian include 'Chess in the life of Scientists'. This is his first work to be published in English.

Review :
What a feast! That's my feeling about "Red Letters", a new 160-page action-packed book by Tim Harding and Sergey Grodzensky, whose respective Correspondence Chess (CC) titles are Senior International Master and Grandmaster. The authors' years of research into the CC Championships of the former USSR have resulted in a fascinating work comprising 84 richly annotated games pleasingly interspersed with biographical details, tabulated data, photos and puzzles that bring the reader excitingly close to the Soviet stars whose battles really make this a red-hot book. - GM Paul Motwani, Scottish Chess A well-produced work, with much information about tournaments, crosstables and biographical material about the participants... A labour of love, and excellent value for money. - John Saunders, British Chess Magazine I found this book a very satisfying combination of historical anecdotes and fascinating chess. The authors are to be warmly commended for their painstaking research and reassembly of the cross-tables and game scores...I think the complete package represents really good value... Handily timed for the Christmas market - it's definitely a potential present for the chess enthusiast! - Iain Mackintosh, Scottish Correspondence Chess Red Letters has set the standard and set it high. For correspondence players, for lovers of exciting chess, for those who enjoy the history of chess, buy this book! - Alex Dunne, Correspondence Chess News There is more bonus material on the CD, among others thousands of games, many with comments, from other CC events in the Soviet Union. Those are a goldmine. - Lars Grahn, Korrschack (Sweden) I with great interest read your remarkable book Red Letters. This book is interesting to me not only by the excellent chess and historical content, but also as recollections about the tournament, which became the part of my life. - Grandmaster Mikhail Umansky (13th USSR Correspondence Chess Champion)