1000 Best Short Games of Chess [Paperback]

Irving Chernev (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 564 pages
• Publisher: Fireside; Rei Sub edition (July 15, 1955)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671538012
• ISBN-13: 978-0671538019
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #496,500 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Catalog of Opening Traps!, October 14, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: 1000 Best Short Games of Chess (Hardcover)

This is a very useful book in that it gives you 1000 games won in the openings. This is really a book on opening traps. You will find games impossible to find elsewhere. I know this is a hard to get classic but my dad has a copy from many years ago and it is fun to go through the different short games. It doesn't have much analysis unlike "Winning Chess Traps for Juniors", but it does have more games than any single book I have seen. I think the tactics in the openings found in this book will really help you improve both what you know about openings and what you know about tactics in action!

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I love this old book!, August 25, 1998

By 

N. Beach "romansperson" (Chapel Hill, NC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 1000 Best Short Games of Chess (Paperback)

This book is a lot of fun to play through. It is also very instructive to watch bad chess be punished so quickly and severely! One master I read about recommends that his students memorize 400(!) of these games rather than study a bunch of opening tomes and strategy books. I'm not 100% sure I concur with him, but any student that plays through this massive book from end to end will come away a much better player.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Valuable Anthology of Historical Chess Games, September 27, 2002

By 

Brian A. Glennon "BAG" (South Boston, Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 1000 Best Short Games of Chess (Paperback)

1000 BEST SHORT GAMES OF CHESS: A Treasury of Masterpieces in Miniature (c.1955) by Irving Chernev is more than just a collection of quick chess games, it contains the games of several important historical figures such as: Leo Tolstoy; Jean Jacques Rousseau; and Napoleon Bonaparte.

It also contains the game made famous in Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey', known as the POOLE vs. HAL 9000 game to Kubrick fans - it is game #322, Roesch v. Schlage in 1910 Hamburg, Germany, 0-1, on page 148 in the c1955 Chernev edition.

By using short games as played throughout chess history, the reader can follow chess before popular defences were invented, such as the defence (#167) Remusat used against Napoleon, 0-1,1802 Paris; and readers can also learn solid chess moves such as dazzling sacrifices, picturesque long range mates, and epaulette mates. The book also contains some interesting blind folded plays, correspondence chess, and a few checker games thrown in.

The 1000 SHORT GAMES OF CHESS (c.1955) by Irving Chernov is useful enough and interesting enough for modern chess players that they might want to browse through second hand book stores to add this copy to their chess libraries, or keep it close to the recliner for a learned reading at night.