English Chess Federation Book of the Year 2024

This year’s book was first published in Dutch in 2011 and was acclaimed as a classic grandmaster chess autobiography. The book was translated into English to enable this remarkable work to reach a wider public.

In Black and White
Paul van der Sterren
New in Chess pp754 £38.95

Paul van der Sterren (born 1956) was a talented young Dutch chess player who progressed through the ranks to become an International Master and later Grandmaster. He won the Dutch championship twice in 1985 and 1993, represented the Netherlands in eight Chess Olympiads and played a Candidates match in 1994. But this was by no means a smooth career progression; there were many setbacks as well as successes on the journey.

Van der Sterren analyses with great personal honesty, using over 300 of his games and fragments, to examine why he sometimes played well and, on other occasions, badly. Was the cause technical, emotional, stamina, tiredness, personal events? Van der Sterren was a chess professional, and his income and reputation depended on success at the board, so this analysis was important to him. Much of the value of In Black and White resides here.

The book also gives an insight to the hard routines of the daily life of a chess professional. Van der Sterren ensured a regular income by writing monthly for the predecessors of New in Chess. He was writing in the days before computers so had to do the analysis himself. Most days he was sitting at the chess board either playing or writing. Van der Sterren gives a realistic picture of the very different chess world from today in the 1980s and 1990s.

However, towards the end of the 1990s the chess world was changing – computers were making an impact (Sterren describes the last tournament adjournment analysis he did), game time limits were getting faster and more importantly a new generation of younger players was emerging, Michael Adams being an example. Van der Sterren’s enthusiasm for chess was also declining as other interests began to take up his time. Van der Sterren finally gave up playing in 2001 and the last chapters in the book have elegiac feel to them.

It is not possible to mention all the many aspects of life and chess, and the relationships between the two, covered in this extensive book. Sterren has written a unique contribution to chess literature.

— Ray Edwards, Jovanka Houska, Sean Marsh – October 2024