Herman Grooten wins ChessCafe Book of the Year 2009 Award
10 February 2010, 23.12 CET | Last modified: 12:59 | By Arne Moll | Filed under: Reports | Tags:
Herman Grooten’s outstanding Chess Strategy for Club Players – The Road to Positional Advantage has won the ChessCafe Book of the Year 2009 Award. After four weeks of voting, Grooten’s book beat Viktor Moskalenko’s Revolutionize Your Chess and David Rudel’s Zuke ‘Em.
In what ChessCafe calls “a battle between Spain and the Netherlands”, Dutchman Herman Grooten took an early lead over Viktor Moskalenko “and never relinquished it”. Both finalists were reviewed on ChessVibes, while the third shortlisted Zuke ‘Em author David Rudel published an article on our site about one of the book’s main lines of the Colle, leading to interesting discussions in the comments.
In our review of Chess Strategy for Club Players, we praised Grooten’s ability “to explain things are that sometimes (or rather often) taken for granted in analysis. (…) Grooten does exactly what many students want from any author: give a clear and logical overview and subsequent evaluation of the position at hand.” ChessCafe reviewer Steve Goldberg praised it as “an outstanding positional primer” and reknown chess author and book reviewer Jonathan Rowson said of it: “I like the book, which appears to be one of the best in its genre.”
We’d like to congratulate Herman Grooten and New in Chess for winning the ChessCafe Book of the Year 2009 Award with their wonderful contribution to any club player’s library.
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Congratulations to Herman Grooten from an old chess colleague (Brabant championships around 1980)
[Completely off-topic but at least I don't interrupt ongoing discussions in this thread - and why not using the blog network:]
@Rini Luyks: Can you tell me where to find some info on the Portuguese chess scene? Would people be willing and able to communicate, in the beginning, in English or French with a foreign newcomer?
The reason I ask: Within a few months I will probably move from the Netherlands to Lisbon for professional reasons (originally I am German). German and Dutch will probably be of little use, my Spanish is basic and my Portuguese non-existing – this will change but take some time … .
Obrigado, Thomas
@Thomas, you will be most welcome in the Portuguese chess scene
, which as you will understand cannot be measured by North-european or Spanish standards (actually several Portuguese players participate in Spanish competitions). There is a national (Federação Portuguesa do Xadrez) and local (Associação de Xadrez de Lisboa) organization, the links you can find at the “Favoritos Nacionais” of my blog http://ogatodoalekhine.blogspot.com/, the “unofficial” blog of Grupo de Xadrez Alekhine, my club (the oldest and most active club in Lisbon)
The best site for Portuguese chess news is at the moment “Xadrez64″, http://www.xadrez64.com/index.php.
Understanding Spanish you will be able to read Portuguese I guess, speaking it is a different matter…
In order not to abuse of Chessvibes for chatting, you can leave any question as an off-topic comment on the “Gato”-blog in Dutch, English, German…
Greetings and maybe see you, Rini