Hunting the Castled King

Book Description

This book is a collection of attacks in chess against a castled king position. The author, a FIDE rated chess master and a professional chess coach and teacher, writes: "In the course of my many years of teaching at all levels from elementary school to graduate school. I have often found it useful to use source books containing materials around which I could build lessons. This book I have collected a large number of lessons dealing with the intermediate topic of how to attack a well defended king. These lessons can be used to teach students who already have some idea of how to attack a weak, uncastled King. It is much more difficult, of course, to attack a well defended King, and the best way to acquire the skill is to review examples of successful attacks by advanced players.

When teaching the art of attack, I usually boil it down to just a single rule. Remove the defenders! This is easy enough. When a player has an overwhelming advantage in attacking force, but not so simple when there are many defenders, and not so many direct attackers. It is often necessary to bring in reinforcements from the other side of the board. And this must be done with great speed. Often this can be accomplished by sacrificing a small amount of material, just to enable the distant pieces to get to the other flank. In addition, the attack can be accelerated by sacrificing material to set up a pin. Then you can bring in additional forces to pile pressure on the pinned piece. You will see some spectacular examples of this tactic in many of the games."

Eric Schiller (born March 20, 1955 in New York City) is an American chess player, trainer, arbiter and one of the most prolific authors of books on chess in the 20th century. In 1974, Schiller was the Illinois Junior Champion. Schiller played for the University of Chicago team several times at the Pan American Intercollegiate Team Chess Championship. He was an organizer of the Hawaii International chess festivals 1994-98 including 1998 US Open California Champion 1995. Later that year, he appeared as a chess adviser for the music group Phish on some of the stops for their "Chess Tour" where they played an ongoing game of two chess moves per tour stop and some "band vs. audience" partial games as part of their stage performance.

Schiller was an arbiter at several notable games and championships including the FIDE World Chess Championship 2000. While Vladimir Kramnik and Garry Kasparov opted not to participate in the event, they had both endorsed Schiller for this sensitive role during the planning stages. As of April 2009, Schiller has a FIDE rating of 2166. He is also an International Arbiter and International Trainer. Schiller's expertise and publications in the Flohr-Zaitsev Variation made him a sought-after expert when Gary Kasparov used that opening at the second game at the World Chess Championship 1990.