La novità (di un libro di 50 anni fa) è che spiega con una chiarezza esemplare, senza disperdersi nell'analisi di mille varianti possibili, ma facendo entrare davvero nella logica del gioco. A student in the chess club I started at school this year managed to win the right to represent our province at his grade level in next month's Canadian national chess tournament, so time to get some new training materials.

Playing through these games and explanations gives a real insight into the power of the pieces and how to post them most effectively. The author splits the games into three chapters, dealing with kingside attacks (16 games), queen's pawn openings (7 games), and other concepts (10 games). I would've liked a summary of all the italicized quotes, because I feel like those are the main key take aways. I get they want to save space/ink but sadly it seems visual mediums are more suitable for explaining chess moves.

Modern chess is a little bit different and to understand why GMs break the rules could be interesting. None of us were particularly good, playing without tactics or logic, but rather just throwing pieces here and there, hoping for the best. I'm used to the letter Algebraic Notation K, Q, N etc, but got used to the symbols for the pieces very quickly. I found the print in this reprint to be a little light for my taste, and the diagrams a bit too small. So I think a lot of the main concepts were really hammered in - especially in the beginning section on king side attacks - stuff like "don't move your king pawns" etc.

The games are simple to follow, and combinations easy to visualize -- as opposed to more advanced and subtle games better suited to more experienced players. Chernev had a good point, but personally this 'fixation' with not moving pawns in front of castled king held me back for a while.Why endgames are so poignant - When material advantage, force a mutual destruction of pieces, endings with only pawns are easiest to win. My instruction has been: this book, the ChessMaster game academy tutorial by Joshua Waitzkin, a lot of youtube videos from Ben Finegold and commentary on games by other players.

After reading this you don't feel you have to be really intelligent or highly educated to play an enjoyable game of chess. Even in intermediate or advanced games, the principle that pawns can't move backwards, that it creates weaknesses, is all still useful because you weigh that up against the benefits of such a move.I used Chernev's book "Logical Chess" 45 years ago when I was a kid trying to improve my game, and now as I am trying to re-learn the game, an e-book copy of "Logical Chess" is as clear and helpful as it was when I was young. A better name for the book might be "Logical DEVELOPMENT" since the outcomes are so clear by the middle game. Analyze moves as much by where the pawn has moved as by what space it has left empty: pawn moving out-of-step leave a diagonal for B to infiltrate, and has left its post of defending the knight. I think, without being sure, when I read in my book, Silman-The Amateurs Mind I only move the mainlines, but reading all. As the subtitle says, the explanation really is move by move, meaning each move is followed by a solid paragraph of explanation and thought.

I was thinking on studiying a basic ending book after this one, I find it more attractive than tactics. At first I was going through every variation on my head (I'm lazy to do it on the board and I thought it might help my concentration), but now I'm actually just moving the pieces and reading the commentary, just ignoring the variations. Above all others I'd recommend this to people who have a bit of chess interest but think reading a book will be too hard. You're not here for cutting edge theory, so some of the analysis won't hold up under scrutiny, but there's still a lot of chess wisdom here waiting to be tapped for the chess player who wants to learn. therefore , one who wants to improve as fast as possible should read this book and really absorb all that it tells you [ and obviously one should play others as much as he can to put your studying to practice ] therefore play a lot!

The players you will encounter are Capablanca, Tarrasch, and Rubinstein rather than Karpov, Kasparov, and Kramnik. It may not be everything you need - another book or two to cover tactics and endgames would also be helpful for a new player.