In this famous book Nimzowitsch describes the system which he worked out for himself to combat the ideas of the old school and which he developed with so much success.

In Book I of this classic study, Max Euwe and Hans Kramer examined the static, or positional, features of the middle game. In this companion volume, they turn to its dynamic and subjective features. While the potentialities of a given position, its dangers as well as its opportunities, can be assessed, the manner in which they are handled varies widely according to the intellect and temperament of the player. Indeed, there is no single road to success. Book II examines the iniative, the different types of attack on the king, the arts of defence, manoeuvre and liquidation, and the common failings over the chess board to which even great players are occasionally subject. The final chapter is devoted to a survey of the personal styles of thirty-eight grandmasters and world champions.

The middle game presents the chess writer as well as player with the most formidable problems. Its theory is particulary difficulte to formulate, with the result that, as Dr Euwe explains, it has received less than adequate treatment in chess literature. The Middle Game was first conceived thiry years ago and required many years of intensive study by the former world champion and his collaborator, the Dutch international master Hans Kramer. Book One is devoted to what the authors call the "static features" of the middle game. The character of a position alters with every move ; it is the authors' purpose to identify those features of a given position which have more or less lasting properties and from them to assess its potentialities. The relative value of pieces, centre formations, closed, open and half-open formations, the struggle for open lines, weak pawns -- all are exhaustively studied, the illustrations coming entirely from master play.

"The games of Capablanca," says Mr Golombek, "have serenity, a lucid crystal clarity, a type of model perfection present in no other master ... This simplicity of perfection was the product of supreme art. Playing through a Capablanca game and fully understanding it after close study constitues a liberal education in the art of chess. For this reason, I have found it necessary to annotate the games as exhaustively as was within my power. With Capablanca every move is significant and his games will reward the closest study by the freshness and clear beauty of the conceptions they contain... Has any other player the chess world has yet seen produced such a mass of games impregnated by that inner logical harmony that to my mind consitutes the essential quality of the great game of chess?"