THIS is a serious chess-bock, disarmingly presented. We learn that
the first eight years of the author's, working life were spent at Kew Observatory, where he acquired a love of exact classification. Here is his honour- able endeavour to provide an exact classifica- tion for the gambits in chess.
Allowing for a certain amount of looseness in chess literature whereby openings may be called gambits or counter-gambits (leg-pulls on the other leg), there are, according to Mr. Fletcher's criterion, eighty-four chess- openings to be examined. A difficulty instantly confronts the uninitiated as to nomenclature. I have great difficulty in remembering the names of flowers which are familiar in the garden, and to such as me it is hard indeed to bear in mind that Gambit 44 is the Hamppe-Allgaier-Thorold, or that Number 80 is the Schara-Hennig Counter. I am defeated to think of chess in such labels.
But having hit one very hard in the beginning with the nomenclature, Mr. Fletcher progressively eases up, and a very good chess-book emerges. No startling laws emerge to classify the gambits, but the mixed bag of games at the end, each chosen to illustrate one of the eighty-four openings, is delightful.
This is a friendly book, then, which does not claim to be a major work, but if you live with it awhile it contains pleasure. The level to which it is addressed is intermediate between the duffers and the tops. I ant tempted to make an appalling pun about the excessive desire to provide labels for all openings. In spite of that, Thank Kew.
F. V. M.
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