Chess Book Reviews

Logical Chess Move by Move (Paperback)
216 pages, Publisher: B.T. Batsford Ltd , Language English ISBN: 0713484640

This is a chess classic in which 33 games are analysed in minute detail move by move. This means that even the first move is explained every game. Yes, e4 and d4 are explained extensively several times!

To give you some idea of the variation in the annotations one of the d4 explanations lasts half a page, other times you get bullet points, or just a quick sentence. But every move of every game is always explained. This may seem like overkill but I think it works a treat. I really think I started to learn some chess!

I feel that for me this frequent repetition really seems to help to absorb the language of chess. And the author agrees with me! .

I feel that for me this frequent repetition really seems to help to absorb the language of chess. And the author agrees with me! . "After you have been told again and again that in the opening White's king's knight works best at f3 and that rooks should control the open files, you will know that such stategy, such development of these pieces is generally good."

He goes on .

"You will aquire the habit of making good moves as easily as a child absorbs a language - by hearing and speaking it, and not by studying its rules of grammar. Each game that you play through will be an exciting adventure in chess in which courage, wit, imagination, and ingenuity reap their just reward. It is by appreciating and absorbing what they teach so pleasurably that we can best learn to play Logical chess move by move."

Of course lots of books could adopt this approach, but it is the quality of each annotation that makes this a classic. Although it was first written in 1957 it sounds fresh, clear and current today ... as if you were being taught at your kitchen table by an expert. Well the fact is that you are.

As you go through the games the same themes come up time and again. You know what I mean, "knights before bishops" etc etc. But make no mistake, this is not "superficial thoughtless chess", the author explains clearly when and how to defy convention as you go move by move.