Chess Books

I have read "Voina i Mir" in its original language several times, and every time I'd find something new and amazing.
The novel is grand and epic, moving and intimate, philosophical and romantic. For Tolstoy, a simple peasant Platon Karatayev is as interesting as Napoleon I or Russian Emperor, Alexander I. Historical figures share the space on the pages of his book with the fiction characters and all (hundreds of them) have their own unique faces, voices, and personalities. He finds something very human in almost every character. I loved the descriptions of palaces and balls, duels and huntings, massive battle scenes and love stories. I know greatness when I see it and "Voina i Mir" (War and Piece) is great literature.

I have read "Voina i Mir" several times in its original language, and every time I'd find something new and amazing.
The novel is grand and epic, moving and intimate, philosophical and romantic. For Tolstoy, a simple peasant Platon Karatayev is as interesting as French Emperor Napoleon I or Russian Emperor Alexander I. Historical figures share the space on the pages of his book with the fiction characters and all (hundreds of them) have their own unique faces, voices, personalities. He finds something very human in almost every character. I loved the descriptions of palaces and balls, duels and huntings, massive battle scenes and love stories. I know greatness when I see it and "War and Piece" is great literature.

My five year old daughter, started playing chess several months ago, and is intrigued by the strategy of the game. Not only did 'Little Pawny' clarify the integration of the pieces as a working unit, but it also highlighted the importance of repect for all people, regardless of their position in society. Moreover, since my daughter is an avid reader, 'Little Pawny' is written and presented in a refreshingly unique style that sets it apart from many of the books on her shelf.

If you happen to have a young child that is interested or you would like to become interested in chess, this is the book for you.Full of moves,vocabulary and fun dialog,Dr. Chess has succeeded in writing a great book that covers chess from head to toe.A great gift at this price!

This is a good collection of tactical patterns, sorted by piece and theme. Very well written. If you don't want to read all the games, diagrams are shown from basic position.
The only drawback is that in the paperback says is the first of two volumenes, and I haven't able to find the second one.

As someone who is having a hard time improving my chess tactics, I found Minev's "Mastering Tactical Ideas" to be a godsend. By presenting tactical ideas from full games rather than just in "puzzle" format, Minev has created an instructive, interesting, and entertaining games collection. The book has over 200 full-length games, with just enough comments and annotations to help you understand what's going on.

The chapters are organized by "piece": The Pawn, The Rook, etc. And each chapter has subchapters based on a particular theme (i.e., The Kamikaze Pawn in the Pawn chapter, or The Lineal Mate in the Rook chapter).

The games themselves are in algebraic notation, and NOT all are grandmaster games. There is a good mix of games from Masters, IMs, and amateurs. The ones I personally find most interesting are the grandmaster vs amateur games. It always amazes me to see how a grandmaster takes advantage of the smallest details which I wouldn't notice myself!

In short, highly recommended for anyone who is trying to improve their tactical abilities or is looking for a nice collection of games with a lot of "WOW!" moments.

A "CLASSIC" One of the very best books on explaning the
Ruy Lopez opening..

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I hope this under-appreciated book does Not go out of print.
This book deserves 4-5 stars. I am giving it 5 because it is as innovative as any chess opening book I have ever seen.

The chapter names will give you a feeling for the relatively innovative approach of these two authors:

1. Tension in the Centre
2. The Blocked Centre
3. The Exchange Centre
4. The Mobile Centre
5. The Little Centre
6. The Open Centre
7. The Marshall Centre
8. The Fischer Centre
9. The Schliemann (Jaenisch) Centre
10. The Bird Centre
Table of Variations

If you are interested in the Ruy Lopez gambit or "open" variation (5...Nf6:e4), you will eventually figure out it is covered in the chapter "The Open Centre".
If you are interested in the variation 3...Bf8c5, you will learn it is partly covered in chapter 1, continued in chapter 4, ch 6, and finally ch 9. Hummm, good and bad.

The glaring weakness of this book concerns the inadequate "Table of Variations". It is only a few pages long, skimpy, and it is an eye-sore. For instance, some variations are listed starting with move 6, and reading the table to figure out which moves 1-5 it relates to is like reading a bus schedule.
But even this section shows innovative intent, by rating each chunk of variations in win-loss-draw percentages, strategy numeric ratings and tactical numeric ratings, and relative frequencies. Opening books need MCO-ish tables of moves, sorted the way Eric Schiller sorted opening variations in his physically huge book Standard Chess Openings: a powerful presentation, like what we get from computer databases. If I cannot quickly lookup a variation in the book, its practical value to a weekend warrier like me is significantly reduced. The move tables were not the problem with MCO, it was their utter lack of textual explanation for each line that has caused that style to fall out of favor. But the newer styles have thrown out the good with the bad.

The book has many diagrams. These are smartly chosen, and they are illustrated with arrows that accurately map to the nearby explanatory text: very nice. I have seen somewhat similar books, and they trumpet the style by labeling it the "Read and Play" method. Here authors King & Ponzetto have outperformed the other authors that have tried to utilize this style.

The usage of center pawn structure types to organize the whole book is innovative. However, without the MCO-ish move tables, this book cannot serve low rated players (below USCF 1500). The is great info in this book, and lots of explanations of plans. How can anyone say Reuben Fine's good book about the "ideas behind the openings" really has the ideas when one has been spoiled by this book -- there is no comparison! If Fine's book deserves 4.5/5.0 stars, then this book deserves 11.5/5.0 stars.

The drawback of this book makes mining the great info in this book real hard work. An above average memory will help you too. It seems odd to hear myself say that an extra good memory is important when reading a book that delivers the conceptual ideas of an opening in clear rich explanatory text complete with arrowed diagrams; yet who among us amateurs can seriously hope to remember 248 pages of explanations of 10 different game types? Chess is a hard game.

Perhaps the "mistake" of this book is in devoting this style to such a difficult opening. The Ruy Lopez is more complex than most openings, so this book has more ground to cover than most people have time to study this deeply. I would like to see these two authors write a similar book on say the Petroff / Russian Defense, maybe narrowing their focus down to one 3rd White move per book (e.g. 3. Nf3:e5).

It seems a shame that those mediocre EveryMan opening books sell by the boat load, while the excellence of this book goes unnoticed. EveryMan must be succeeding by keeping the info it presents to a minimum, so as not to overwhelm its customers and make them feel bad -- instead they leave them wanting more info.

Thank you.

I was hesistant for a while before actually purchasing this book. After all, it's hard to know if you will really enjoy a book before perusing through it yourself. On top of that, Max Euwe is known as one of the "lightweights" of the world champions as he only held the title for two years. But I'm glad I finally did! What a wonderful book. The guys at New in Chess have once again produced an outstanding treatise. I would say that this book is up there with Winter's biography of Capablanca. Munninghoff really brings Euwe to life. It's hard to imagine a better biography on this player being produced. The format of the book is also very attractive as it is laid out in double-column fashion with several diagrams and great photos. Strongly recommended for lovers of chess history and biographies in general.

Max Euwe was one of the finest players ever to come to the game of chess. He was also a living proof that one could indeed be a World Champion of the game without being an egotistical prime-donna. For lovers of the game and its history this is a fascinating read.

The last guy to review this book down below apparently meant to give it 5 stars, but instead gave it zero. Oops!

This book, along with Book 1 on Static Features, was a very big reason why I made it up to a USCF Expert rating.

Buy these two books. Study them. Watch your rating climb!

I just finished both volumes and feel I know chess a lot better.
I am currently rated 1800 and it took me over 2 years of off again on again study to complete both books. Sometimes I would play over the games twice but the time is worth it if you want to improve at chess. There are other great books on chess like My System by Nimzovitch or Chess Strategy by Pachman, but both are turgid and boring going compared to this modern classic. It covers the entire sweep of chess history and discusses most middlegame concepts like the minority attack or asymetric pawn structures or development vrs material advantage or the art of defense. I can go on and on. I would say you cannot go wrong with these 2 books. Also if you have chessbase the Ossimitz chess site has a good download site where you can download this whole book in chessbase format. Stydying chess could not get any easier.

This is a necklace of fine gems. It contains over 400 problems composed with 7 pieces or less. Even though the problems are small, they have been selected on the basis of their technical merit and beauty. This remains one of the finest collections of its kind. Solutions are well explained and accurate. This is the perfect airport companion for the chess player. Does not require batteries.

If you find this book, buy it and keep it. Hard to find a chess composition book on-line, much less in hard cover.

This reprint revives writings by Yuri Averbakh, Edmar Mednis, Eduard Gufeld, Jan Timman, Jon Tisdall and John Watson, among others. A host of material by ingenious theoreticians, which has not only stood the test of time, but may well form a devastating arsenal of secret weapons for your own games. Modern Chess Theory magazine, under the editorship of Grandmaster Ray Keene was originally published from 1980-1982.
Raymond Keene is a British Chess Champion,and the first British Player to achieve a FIDE (World Chess Federation) Grandmaster norm. He was awarded the OBE for services to chess in 1985. He is Chess Correspondent of The Times,The Sunday Times,The Spectator, and The International Herald Tribune. He is a prolific author of chess books, several of which are classics of the genre. He has organised three World Chess Championships.

with contributions from garry kasparov and jan timman this openings manual is bound to be of great use in improving your results. it contains a good article virtually refuting 1g4.

As an enthusiastic twenty year old trying to learn all he could about what was for him a completely new mode of angling, I recall, with some nostalgia, having read Charles Waterman's "Modern Fresh and Saltwater Fly Fishing", my introduction to the sport. The book was remarkably honest, with the right handed Waterman admitting that he can appreciate the challenges of learning how to double haul by trying to accomplish this through casting with his left arm and hauling with his right arm. Similar such revelations about the author's "human side", with respect to fly fishing, make this book great for the beginner, who may wrongly have the sense that fly fishing is an activity for only those possessing super-human coordination. Such not-take-myself-too-seriously revelations are very encouraging to the novice. The sections on fly lines, rods, and leaders are simple and just what a beginner needs. Albeit, Waterman's book, written in 1972, makes no mention of graphite rods and many other technological advances that are now commonplace among today's fly tackle market. But the reader will learn of these upon visiting the fly shop. Covering most apsects of fresh and saltwater fly fishing in a general, straightforward way, the book is still a useful introduction to the sport of fly fishing while also being a throw-back to what constituted modern fly fishing at the end of the fiberglas era. No doubt the nostalgia bug should bite quite hard for many of us who read and reread this book with a view towards the post bamboo and pre-graphite times of our fly fishing heritage.

I have had two copies of this book, and have let both of them get away from me. Unlike most "how to" fly fishing authors, Charles Waterman focuses with a wide angle lens which takes in all of sport fishing, not just fishing for trout. Like Ray Bergman's Trout, this book is useful for the beginner as a primer, and for the journeyman as a reference. I hope that Modern Fresh and Saltwater Flyfishing is back in print soon.

Frank Marshall's watchwords were brilliancy and attack! For decades he was the leading USA grandmaster and he succeeded in scalping most of the world's elite during that time. Noted as a successful tournament rather than match player, Marshall's hit and run tactics will repay careful study by those who consider entering the hurly burly of tournament chess. For those content to sit by the fireside and play through an entertaining grandmaster game hours of enjoyment are to be derived from Marshall's blitz demolition of his opponents' carefully constructed strategic artifices. As Lasker once said of Dr Tarrasch "if chess were made of glass Tarrasch would be the greatest of us all." Marshall was the iconoclast who revelled in proving again and again that the palaces of crystal could be spectacularly shattered by a well timed blow.
Frank Marshall - many times US champion,grandmaster and conqueror of Lasker, Capablanca, Rubinstein and virtually all the greats of his day - was the heir to Morphy and Pillsbury and the forerunner of Fine, Reshevsky and Fischer. Under his leadership the USA also won the gold medals in the chess olympiad. Marshall's style was direct, almost brutal, but easy to understand and supremely effective -if you want to learn attacking techniques then the games of Frank Marshall are ideal models.

the author was usa champion for many years and collected the scalps of the greats including lasker, capablanca ,nimzowitsch, rubinstein, schlechter and tarrasch. sometimes marshall was strategically outplayed but he was always ready with a tactical riposte which cd bowl his opponent over. a highly enjoyable book and the games are explained in a jovial fireside manner.