by Bruce Harper and Yasser Seirawan, 314pp. (HC) (2008 Chess'n Math Association)

Chess on the Edge is a three-volume work which contains all of Canadian Grandmaster Duncan Suttles' tournament games found as of the time of writing. The first volume contains 100 games organized by theme ("The Suttles Style", "Pawns", "The Center", etc.), plus 7 supplemental games. The second and third volumes contain another 513 games organized by opening (219 games in Volume 2, 294 games in Volume 3), plus 3 and 4 supplementary games, respectively.

All the games are annotated in depth. There are 628 diagrams in Volume 1, 585 diagrams in Volume 2 and 472 diagrams in Volume 3.

 

The first volume consists of 100 games, ordered by theme. The authors’ intention is to help the reader explore various positional ideas and strategies, or particularly good or bad results, in a single place. The main goal of the first volume is to help the reader understand Suttles' unique style, but there may be instructional or inspirational value in this volume as well.

The second and third volumes consist of 513 full Suttles games, ordered by opening, plus 7 supplemental games. In addition, the first ten moves of the 100 games in the first volume are given in the appropriate location. Here the idea is to let the reader see how Suttles handled different openings and the positions arising out of them. Some of the games in the second and third volumes are annotated briefly, but many have very detailed notes. Where a game appears in the second and third volumes, it is referred to in the usual manner, with the players' names, the location and the year. The absence of a game number indicates the game is not one of the 100 selected games in the first volume.