My, how times have changed! The first chess book I worked through was “A Complete Chess Course” by Fred Reinfeld. I just checked www.amazon.com and … it’s still in print, descriptive notation and all! My advice is to avoid it – it is now pretty much obsolete.
How I wish I had “A World Champion’s Guide to Chess” by Susan Polgar back then! It’s designed to take you from near-beginner to competent tournament player. My guess is that if you diligently work through this book once or twice, there is very little else you would need to do to become a 500-600 USCF rated player. (Of course playing and taking notation would be two other things!).
Her book is divided into 4 major sections, with a prelude and a couple of supplements. The prelude is a set of tutorials that teaches how the pieces move, how to win or draw a chess game, how to take notation, and so forth. The last section (Basic Principles of Chess, 2 pages) should be read by everyone, and then you are ready for the meat of the book.
Section I (almost 200 pages) is a gem that is divided into eighteen chapters. This is her lesson on tactics and covers over half the book – highlighting the importance of tactical practice to the improving chess player. She already demonstrates how practical a book this is in the first 3 chapters: “Checkmate in One Move with Each of the Pieces”, “Capturing Pieces”, and “Getting Out of Check”. These kinds of “pre-tactics” are usually skipped over by others and it’s good to see them included here. They also serve to introduce us to the format of this section: a brief description of the goal and a set of 20 problems to practice on and learn from. The first chapter is a minor exception since there are 5 different pieces that can checkmate – a total of 100 problems in that chapter. In later chapters there will be 16 ‘easy’ problems (one move), 3 ‘harder’ problems (2 moves), and a ‘hardest’ problem (but still doable!).
The next 6 chapters cover what we know as basic tactics: forks, pins, skewers, discovered attacks, and the ultimate killer move – double checks. Even here she introduces some originality, with a chapter on “Making Pins” and a separate one on “Using Pins”.
To jump to the end for a moment – many might wonder what a world champion brings to a “beginner’s book” - even after reading another classic “Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess”. In Susan’s case she brings the memory of a training program that was incredibly successful, the knowledge of exactly how that program helped her in her journey to world-class, and the experience of transporting that program to another culture (ours) and perfecting it with children who may not desire to be world champions. There are lots of grandmaster biographies out there – each with their own individual insights. This book is special in that the program is proven to work – with three Hungarian sisters and with 100s of kids in the United States.
Back to tactics! The second half of this section continues to delight with quite a few surprises: “Trapping Pieces”. “The Back Rank”, “Intermediate Moves”, “Castling, Underpromotion, En Passant”, “Stalemate”, “Perpetual Check” (in case the purists start jumping up and down, she has already made clear in the tutorial that perpetual check only leads to a draw by repetition of position or agreement), “Proper Defensive Choices” (a very well done chapter on picking the best alternative of several), “Defending by Check or Pin”, and finally “Pattern Recognition”. This last chapter gives improving students an insight into further study – working from a simple tactic to positions where that tactic is 1 or 2 moves away.
Section II devotes thirty plus pages to 32 key endgame positions. World Champions from the beginning have recommended studying tactics and endgames for two reasons. First – they allow you to win games. Second – you learn how pieces cooperate with each other. In this section, Susan covers basic mates (even K+B+N vs K), the basic K+P vs K positions, and some multi-pawn endgames with recurring themes, basic queen (or rook) and pawn endgames (one of which occurred in one of the games at the September Slugfest tournament yesterday!), and characteristic positions for a bishops of opposite color endgame, a bishops of same color endgame, and a knight and pawn endgame.
Section III is 45 pages of practice! Fifty checkmates-in-one, 50 checkmates-in-two, and 20 checkmates-in-three.
Section IV consists of some general tips on strategy in each phase of the game, and two full games of Susan’s where each move is annotated in the style of “Logical Chess: Move by Move” (one of the most recommended chess books ever).
The book closes with two supplements of advice – one to players and the other to parents and coaches.
Well – what’s missing when you compare it to the Reinfeld book I had 4 decades ago? There is no opening survey – but I don’t think that’s appropriate for a beginner book anyway. There are lots of good ones out, but they should only be read after a bunch of games have already been played (I used to think that if you explained general opening principles and showed kids a couple of “real” games that they would just emulate them. I think we all have a genetic tendency to play 1.a4 and until we lose like that all the advice in the world won’t help!).
There was one typo that I found (on page 107). One could argue that some simple deflection exercises should have been included – but you have to draw the line somewhere. She is working on another volume with more advanced exercises in it – I can’t wait!
All in all I highly recommend this book – I think the approach is refreshing and will be successful, and it has lots of nice touches to it. The tactical section is more complete and thorough than any I remember seeing in a beginner’s book. If you are serious about your chess, and just thinking about playing for your school club or in a tournament – read this book!
Let me also mention that Susan’s father wrote an excellent book if you’d like further practice: Chess: 5,334 Problems, Combinations, and Games, by Laszlo Polgar. It’s an incredible collection of problems!
And remember – feedback of any kind is always encouraged and appreciated!
Yours for chess, Bob