Book Recap #13: Simple Chess by GM Michael Stean

We are back with another bonus podcast edition of Chess Books Recaptured. This month I am joined by Jonathan of The Abysmal Depths of Chess Blog to discuss a classic book, Simple Chess, by GM Michael Stean. Simple Chess is an excellent positional primer which features succinct and helpful annotations for the club player. Over the past couple of months, Jonathan has been blogging about each of the 30 games in the book, so he knows the material inside and out, and I was very glad to have him share some highlights of what he has learned from studying Simple Chess so thoroughly. As always, we discussed improvement takeaways, favorite quotes and lessons distilled from this excellent book. You can get all of the details, timestamps and hyperlinks below.    0:00- Why did Jonathan volunteer to discuss Simple Chess?  Mentioned: Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, Perpetual Chess Episode 201 with FM Peter Giannatos, Perpetual Chess Episode 195 With GM Keith Arkell,  The Chess Dojo ranks: Classic Chess Books: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRETstfHyDE, Fred Wilson books    6:30- What is the format of the book?  GM Anatoly Karpov, GM Wolfgang Uhlmann, GM Lajos Portisch, GM Samuel Reshevsky, GM Tigran Petrosian, GM Bobby Fischer   12:30- What should we know about the author, GM Michael Stean  Mentioned: Sicilian Najdorf by GM Michael Stean, GM Viktor Korchnoi , End Game: Kasparov vs. Short by Dominic Lawson, GM Ray Keene, William Hartston    17:30- For what rating is this book most helpful? (Probably around 1300-1900) Mentioned: Recap of Winning Chess Strategies with Neal Bruce,  Mastering Chess Strategy by GM Johan Hellsten, Link to Jonathan’s blog post about  Karpov-Westerinen 1974   24:00- Check out our new sponsorAimchess.com, which gathers your games from the major chess sites and generates reports to let you know which aspects of your game need work. If you decide to subscribe, be sure to use the promo code Chess30 to save 30%.   25:00- Why is Karpov Westerinen from the book Jonathan’s favorite game