by Xie Jun, 224pp. (Gambit Publications, 1998)

 

Xie Jun’s meteoric rise to stardom is virtually unprecedented in chess history. Born in 1970, in 1988 she was just a promising junior who had never even seen a Grandmaster, let alone beaten one. Yet in 1991 she became Women’s World Champion by decisively beating Maya Chiburdanidze, Champion since 1978.

This book provides a fascinating and frequently amusing look at the chess world through the eyes of a young Chinese woman, as she describes her unique life and career to date.

Since she came to (western) chess via the highly tactical Chinese form of the game, it is no surprise that Xie Jun's style of play is extremely aggressive in nature. Her success shows that direct attacking play can be extremely effective in practice, and the reader is invited to sharpen his or her own skills by studying the 40 deeply annotated games and 12 puzzle positions in this book.