Sheroff

Hi all -

I am pleased to announce that my new book "Australian Chess Brilliancies" has just been published, and is now available to all keen Aussie attacking players. The book is 96 pages, and contains twenty-nine sparkling sacrificial attacking games in the main section, plus about two dozen extra supplementary games and positions scattered throughout the book. It features the very finest attacking chess played by Aussies in the past 30-40 years. Each and every game is an absolute gem!

Reviews will be appearing on the excellent The Closet Grandmaster and ChessExpress blog sites, as well as in numerous overseas locales, including British Chess Magazine, Scottish Chess, Jeremy Silman's website, and plenty of others (I promise to let you all know when and where as they all come out).

Getting your copy of Australian Chess Brilliancies is quite easy, and pretty fast. Just send $19.95 plus $3.00 postage and handling ($22.95 total) to Kimberley Publications, PO Box 6095, Upper Mount Gravatt, QLD 4122. You can pay by cheque or Australian Post money order. You can also pay by credit card, but only through PayPal (what all the ebay folks use). Direct Bank Deposit is okay too.
My email address is kimpub@bigpond.net.au if you need it.

If you want the book autographed, just let me know what you'd like me to write (if you want something specific or it's a gift for someone else), and I'll be happy to put a personalised scribble in it for you).

I hope to get a photo of the book up on this forum soon...

Cheers everbody! It's an exciting moment in Australian chess!!!!! Get 'em while they last - this first print run won't last long! Get in early.

Kevin Casey
Kimberley Publications

Sheroff

I've attached an ORDER FORM for the book - you can just print it off and post it along with payment.

Cheers everybody

Kevin

Attached Files

ORDER FORM - Australian Chess Brilliancies.doc (73.0 KB, 3 views)

Just2Good

Fantastic!

And that's for the autographed copies, right?

__________________
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"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."

~ Isaiah Berlin ~

Sheroff

Yes indeed.

Just2Good

In blood, or ink?

__________________
.
"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."

~ Isaiah Berlin ~

Lekko

Sign it in your blood plz!! I wish to cast a spell on you!

Do you accept paypal?

Sheroff

Yes, you can pay by PayPal. That's how all my overseas customers are paying.
Just pay to Kimberley Publications at kimpub@bigpond.net.au

Cheers, Kevin Casey

Sheroff

A few book reviews are starting to appear - there's one at the Chessexpress blog site, and a longer one on the Closet Grandmaster blog site. Should be a few popping up at USCF, chesscafe.com, Seagaard's chess reviews and jeremysilman.com shortly as well.

Just2Good

I thought the review on TCG was a little too critcal. Also, I agree that the chess played in Australia pre-1960 isn't of a good enough quality to be in the book!

Best Regards,

Alex

ps- Weren't you a former CAQ President? If so, you should put your hand up for that role again. The CAQ could certainly use a good president.

__________________
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"The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing."

~ Isaiah Berlin ~

Sheroff

GM Ian Rogers has also reviewed my book - in the Canberra Times (last Sunday) and in the Byron Echo. It also gets a mention in last weekend's Sun- Herald.

I actually liked the Closet Grandmaster review (and the Chessexpress review). I love getting feedback! As far as the book not having any pre-1970s games, it was more about actually locating them for inclusion. Unless you have a stack of old, musty Aussie chess magazines lying around, it's not always easy finding the more vintage games (though there were no doubt a few good ones back in the day...).

Many of the old games are not in databases, and even if they are, it's not a feasible operation to play through every single one to find that one gem amongst them. That would take more years than I left on this earth!!

No, Alex, I was never a CAQ President, or any other official office-bearer. I was the editor of Queensland Chess magazine way back in 1998 though.

The next issue of Brian Jone's Australasian Chess magazine will also have a review, as well a a little author interview action.

PS - I'll be at the Broadbeach tourney this weekend - my first event in years that isn't either blitz or Rapid. Hopefully I still remember how to play the slower stuff! Either way, it's always fun to play the lean, mean, Gene (Nagauchi ) machine...

Kevin Casey

PS - If you're an Aussie, and you haven't bought your copy of Australian Chess Brilliancies, get crackin'....

Sheroff

Here is GM Ian Rogers' review of Australian Chess Brilliancies, taken from the Byron Echo and Canberra Times:


"Australian chess books have been as rare as Anand blunders, so to see two appear in the past year seems like an embarrassment of riches. However, while 2008's bestseller Moral Victories was Australian only through its author, David Lovejoy, the latest publication - Australian Chess Brilliancies - is 100% local content, setting out to showcase Australia to the world.

Queensland author Kevin Casey has collected 29 of the most spectacular games ever played by Australians, both at home and abroad, and provided his own comments.

Some of the games are already well known, having won international prizes, but Casey has found some hidden gems - games that would have been acclaimed worldwide had the winner's name been Kasparov or Anand.
Australian Chess Brilliancies also provides game annotations which include relevant and topical information about the players and their achievements.
Casey also provides an amusing introductory essay on defining a chess brilliancy, the primary purpose of which seems to be to give examples of near-misses from the author's own games.

So how good are the games in Australian Chess Brilliancies? Very impressive indeed, is the short answer.

One could quibble about some selection criteria: perhaps there are too many one-move wonders, and why only two games pre-1980? How is it that no game by 'the Australian Tal', Doug Hamilton, made the cut?

However, as an example of high voltage chess, this book is hard to beat and Casey should also be thanked for rescuing some epic Australian games from obscurity.

Reading Australian Chess Brilliancies gave a similar feeling to that I experienced when reading Tibor Karolyi's "Judit Polgar - The Princess of Chess"; I kept thinking 'Amazing stuff! Why isn't that game famous?'

(KC - Ian then goes on to provide his own annotations for one of the games from the book - Goldsmith-Prods, 1981, then concludes...)

Australian Chess Brilliancies is available from Kimberley Publications (kimpub@bigpond.net.au) "



A review by IM John Donaldson will also be appearing soon at jeremysilman.com Keep an eye out on Seagaard's Chess Reviews site and chesscafe.com Reviews there shouldn't be too far away....


Cheers!
Kevin Casey

Sheroff

And the rave reviews keep pouring in...

This one is from well-known American chess book author IM John Donaldson (who used to be co-editor of Inside Chess magazine along with GM Yasser Seirawan, way back when it was a hard copy magazine). He writes chess reviews for Chess Today, jeremysilman.com and a many others. Here is his recent (16 June 2009) review of Australian Chess Brilliancies, which is now being sold throughout the USA by the US Chess Federation:

Kevin Casey’s Australian Chess Brilliancies: Creative Attacking Chess from Down Under (Kimberly Publications, PO Box 6095, Upper Mount Gravatt, Queensland 4122, Australia - kimpub@bigpond.net.au, 96 pages, algebraic notation, paperback, pricing information at the end of this review) is several books in one. Part games collection and part informal attacking manual, it also includes biographical information on leading Australian players including Grandmasters Ian Rogers, Darryl Johansen, Zong Zhao and David Smerdon.

The well travelled Mr. Casey, who grew up in California and spent time living in Hawaii, Alaska and Washington before settling permanently in Australia in 1991, is a big fan of entertaining and instructive attacking chess. The 29 featured games range from Sztern v Purdy 1974 to Mijatovic v West 2009 and are all deeply annotated with a nice mixture of prose and concrete variations. The analysis is often based on that provided by the players for this volume. A few of the games, like Ian Rogers’ celebrated victory over Brazilian Grandmaster Milos at the 1992 Manila Olympiad – an effort that should have won him the first brilliancy prize until Garry Kasparov started lobbying – will be known to many, but the vast majority will not be widely known.

Australian Chess Brilliancies: Creative Attacking Chess from Down Under is nicely produced, with a clean two column layout, good paper and a sturdy flexi cover. The price for a signed copy is $19.95 Australian Dollars, and shipping to everywhere outside of Australia or New Zealand is $7.90 AUD, so the total is $27.85 AUD ( roughly $23 US dollars) for readers in the USA, Britain, Europe etc., with Paypal being the most convenient way to pay.

Of course, the above ordering info is for overseas (Yank) readers. For Aussies it's still just $19.95 plus three bucks postage and handling ($22.95 total). For those hapless souls who are still dithering in getting their own copy of this fine and historical Aussie chess book, you can send cheque or money order to Kimberley Publications (aka Kevin Casey, the author) or pay by PayPal or direct bank deposit.

Kimberley Publications
PO Box 6095
Upper Mount Gravatt QLD 4122

Any questions at all, please contact me at kimpub@bigpond.net.au

Cheers people!

Kevin Casey

Thomas Bishop

Great book Kevin!