Logical Chess : Move By Move: Every Move Explained

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I have to reveal a secret tonight. As a kid, I loved pretending to be the general of the army of toys I used to lay on my bed. In my mind, I would simulate a war, making toy pieces fight with each other. My army would always win the war. Growing up I realized (especially after learning how to play chess) that in real life it's not possible to win every battle, but we must be prepared. This book is the first step towards your preparation. When I used to follow the games from this book, I used to feel the same adrenaline rush that I would feel like a kid general with his toy army.

Why? Because there are few books aimed at beginners, but which will still entertain you as you get stronger. Not only that, but Chernev is a witty writer. Okay, maybe not laugh out loud, belly laugh type material. But you will love the way he describes the games. How much scarier is AI if it thinks strategically about controlling areas and subtly pulling apart target pieces rather than a brute force Laplace Demon. At least in the latter noone is screwed until everyone is screwed at the same time. I'm not sure why I read this book, but I bought it a few years ago for some reason (probably mentioned by some Youtuber) and so I finally finished reading it. Took a long time. Primarily because I have to play it out on an actual board (even though every couple of moves or so, Chernev includes a diagram), so there was decently high activation energy to read it. Bishop b7 the Fianchetto - commanding long diagonal while still maintaining pressure on strategic E4. Solid state physics Quantum theory Chemical bonds SCIENCE Physics Condensed Matter Física do estado sólido Mecânica quânticaHow fianchettoing kingside actually makes the king safer, despite requiring the g-pawn to be pushed. This actually wasn't a major theme of the book, but the author mentioned off-hand at one point that the foanchettoed bishop helps protect the king. After that, I started noticing how many standard mating patterns don't work with the bishop there. Aim for small advantages and accumulate them, only later search for ways to combine them because these must exist, however deeply hidden I had heard of games leaving impressions on people before, but after playing chess more than 40 years, it had never happened to me. Now, I get to say that Rubinstein-Salwe, Lodz, 1908 (game #20) left a deep impression on me. I found it in least a half a dozen other books, annotated by everyone including Kasparov. It was called a perfect model game - and here it was, in this book that I first saw it, despite having known about Rubinstein for a long time. Why endgames are so poignant - When material advantage, force a mutual destruction of pieces, endings with only pawns are easiest to win. Defense + Relieving the pin (get between piece and king) preferable to simple defense (get ahead of the piece).

Since the book was written decades before I was born, I wish I had seen it when I was 10. At least then I would not have had such an ego problem and there were no chess engines to argue with. I would have also had time to play over the games again and again.This is a classic chess book explaining every move in easy to understand words. Just by repeating the basic principles one already memorizes and adapts them easily and I caught myself looking at a position on the chess board in a different way. The book is clearly for Beginners and suffers a little bit from using old example games (and I really mean old!) and allowing no exceptions to the rules. Modern chess is a little bit different and to understand why GMs break the rules could be interesting.

I had truly written this book off as: a) old with old fashioned explanations; b) written by someone who just "popularized" chess, and not a real player; and c) rumored to be full of errors. Also Mentioned: Episode 221 with Chris Callhan, Lichess Study Featuring Logical Chess Move by Move: https://lichess.org/study/Wn7aMkPy, Jen Shahade, Mike Klein, Capablanca’s Best Chess Endings, The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played It has its own share of problems though. First, you can only truly understand what's written if you are actually recreating every move on a chessboard in front of your eyes. (If you are a superhuman by any chance who has a super eidetic memory and can follow every move in your mind's eye, this comment is not for you). The knight’s excursion has cost valuable time, having moved 4 times to capture a bishop that only moved once.It's not perfect. Describing every move is a great idea in principle, but it does get a little wearisome having to read about 1.e4 for the umpteenth time. The games themselves are as old as the hills. That's not too much of a problem when it comes to the tactics, because tactics never go out of fashion. But you'll sniff at some of the openings which feel like wind-up gramophones in an I-pad age. It also has to be said that some of Chernev's advice is a tad suspect.