1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations [Paperback]

Fred Reinfeld (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Wilshire Book Company (January 1969)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879801115
• ISBN-13: 978-0879801113
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #402,077 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

88 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Middle Level Tactics Workbook, September 16, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: 1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations (Paperback)

When it comes to studying tactics there are three types of books, Mechanical Instruction book on tactics that spend a great deal of time telling what the mechanical parts of each tactic is with some examples (perfect for a beginner), Opening Traps books that cover from move one moves leading up to the tactic (effective for learning the ideas in your favorite openings as well), and tactics workbooks which give hundreds of different puzzle positions to solve. This book falls into the last catagory.
Why is this specific book bood,
1) Provides a large number of tactics (1001),
2) Breaks each different type of tactic (with brief commentary on the mechanics of it) into separate chapters.
Why there are weaknesses of this specific book,
1) Old English Descriptive Notation,
2) You must go all the way to the back of the book each time you must find the solution to each puzzle,
3) Lost of mistakes in the correct result and solutions to the puzzles. At least 1 out 4 has a major improvement not shown in the solution.
Worthwhile? Yes! Even though this book has weaknesses it is very helpful in improving your tactics. Workbooks and Trap books are really the best two ways to improve tactical learning.

126 of 135 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Cautious Recommendation, April 12, 2001

By 

dwadefoley "dwadefoley" (New York, New York United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations (Paperback)

Reinfeld's "1001" compendia are two of the enduring classics of chess literature. There is no doubt that they are a valuable addition to your chess library. Most of Reinfeld's books (i.e. the ones in which he wrote something) are slapdash and contain outdated and misleading opening advice, valueless annotations, and sweeping generalities that are helpful to noone, and could actually set the learning curve of some players back. Fortunately for Reinfeld, he chose to write this series, which has only diagrams and (with the exception of the introduction) no writing, and thus made a lasting contribution to the chess world.

Consisting of 1001 diagrammed positions, the book calls for the reader to find the sequence of moves that leads to a win for either Black or White. The diagrams are organized by tactical theme (i.e. pin, fork, x-ray, etc.), and thus give the reader a hint as to the solution. There is no indication as to difficulty, and order of appearance in the chapter seems to have nothing to do with it. The benefits of this are obvious. Here is a book which can be stashed in one's pocket and taken anywhere, and studied without the benefit of a chessboard. Solving these diagrams can, and in most cases will, greatly improve the tactics of any player, and may help the more advanced player keep his or her tactical eye sharp. In addition, the sequences tend to be somewhat flashy, the kind of swashbuckling, romantic combinations that even the stodgy positional player (perhaps secretly) enjoys, so there is great entertainment value to the book, as well.

This having been said, one must still have a healthy respect for the limitations of this work. Because it includes no exposition on how to scent the possibility of a combination, the book will not help us realize when a combination is in the offing in everyday or tournament play. No one is there during an actual game to whisper in our ear "There is a combination here and it has an x-ray attack in it". Thus, another book on middlegame or combination play, one that talks in more depth about what preconditions make combinations possible, will prove to be a helpful companion to this book. For this purpose, Silman's "How to Reassess your Chess" or Znosko-Borovsky's "Combinations-The Heart of Chess" would be good choices. The introduction, the only real piece of writing in the book, is another case of misleading generalities on Reinfeld's part. He says that tactics are "just what we need to become first-rate players" and intimates that "Tactics is 99 percent of chess...and 99 percent of the fun, too!". And towards the end of the introduction, he writes that "The first step toward mastery is to become familiar with many types of tactical motifs. The second step is to study...examples of these tactical themes." "So chess mastery is a two-step process", thinks the novice. Another set of sweeping unilateral statements from Reinfeld, whose incautious wording completely negates the value of positional play as an element in the mastery of the game. I am not suggesting that Reinfeld should have included an exposition of position play here-obviously that is not within the scope of this book. However, tactics should have been presented as merely one (albeit indispensible) facet of becoming a good player-not as the alpha and omega of chess mastery. For the more advanced player, an indication of where the diagrammed positions came from (i.e. the players, the tournament, the year) would be an aid in researching the positions-how they were arrived at, and who played the games, would be interesting and helpful to know. With all due respect to those players who still cling to descriptive notation ('B-KN5 dbl ch'?? Give me a break!), this book would be more accessible to the general public and to most modern players if it were translated into algebraic notation. All in all, I highly recommend this book-as long as the buyer realizes its limitations, and that it should be used as one useful tool-not as the whole toolbox.

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Greatest of all time!, January 11, 2002

By 

rationalist "rational one" (Shreveport, LA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations (Paperback)

I am currently a 1400-1550 player in standard games on the ICC. I started my adult chess interest about 6 months ago, my initial rating being 900 for several weeks. I have read many books and played many games in the last six months to make this modest improvement I've made. I've read them all, Silman, Nimzovitch, the Microsoft Chess books, etc (all good in their way), but this one book took me from 1200-1500 in one week, by far the biggest single jump of all (about 300 points or so). And that level of play has stuck, showing it's really in the head, for good. It's basically like strength training for your chess muscle. Just carry it around, do random puzzles to keep from getting bored. Work on the same puzzle (sometimes for days . . .) until YOU get it. Then check the answer. If you spend three days and can't get it, don't look it up, just go to a different one. If you use it in this disciplined way, it is incredible what changes occur in the WAY you look at the board. All the positional concepts that I currently know are really are about getting your pieces active, and avoiding potentially dangerous positions for your pieces. If you can't extract tactics out of a good position, the best position in the world won't help you. While I'm sure at a higher level of chess, there is really more to positional chess than just tactical potential, for anyone like me, or really anyone from 1100-1800 this book would be indispensible for improvement. Simply the best chess book (for us average joe's) EVER written, hands down, just look at the other reviews!