Customer Reviews

The Basis of Combination in Chess

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book shows how each individual piece can contribute to combinational play. It also shows how pieces work together in certain situations to deliver checkmate or win material.

The only downfall I see is that most combination books, this one included, fail to appreciate the power of removing enough force from a piece or square to capture material cleanly. Yes, double attacks, pins, and forks are an integral part of tactical play, but interference, clearance, and removal of guard themes are the real keys to becoming tactically proficient.

This book was first published in 1938 and is surprisingly effective as a learning tool. Pay close attention to a sentence in the very front of the book, one easily skipped over, about how to best use the book: the advice is to mentally play through the examples, from the diagrams, while using the book, and then play them through again, setting them up on a board, this time without using the book. This technique is very effective in teaching and reinforcing the principles described.

The book looks at combinations based on the unique abilities of individual pieces, first separately and then in various groupings. The examples are generally easy enough to follow and favor clarity over complexity (although of necessity the material in the latter parts of the book gets rather involved).

A close study of the book is helping me with visualization as well as gaining understanding of the "inner workings" so to speak of each chess piece.

Why bother with "yet another" tactics book, when there are so many out there? Why put up with old-style descriptive notation? (Come on, it's not so bad.)

Because this is decidedly not "yet another" tactics book. While basic tactical motifs get covered, this is almost incidental, because the focus is on the chess pieces themselves. The tactics arise out of the unique ability of the pieces. This seems to be a very intuitive approach and quite different from "let's study skewers" or "let's study discovered attacks." In short, the focus of the book is quite unique and even at nearly 70 years old, new insights can be found.

One star off, giving a rating of four, because at times the prose is less than completely lucid.

Definitely worth the $10 or so the book commands on the used market. It has won a place on my study table, where only a small handful of books reside.

This is a dated book, but one of the very best at teaching combinations for chess mastery. I recommend this book to anyone who already grasps the game of chess, but would like to up his game from beginner to intermediate. This is elementary to an advanced chess player but even they will appreciate the scope of how this book teaches combination moves to annihilate your opponents.

The best thing one can do is get a chess board out and set up the pieces just how this book illustrates and go through the motions. I guarantee if you do this at least 3-4 days a week your chess game will double or even triple in tactics. Highly Recommended from a chess club champion(myself)

It is much better to use a real chess set instead of an online program. You really get the feel of how the moves interact with one another.
I am giving this book 5 stars because it deserves it and is one of the more
obscure books you never see at a library, but extremely helpful.

This book shows the unique abilities of each piece and the typical ways to combine the action of pieces to build combinations. The many examples are taken mostly from actual grandmaster games. This book will amply reward the time spent studying it. I found myself spotting combinations much more often and actually able to plan using pieces together after reading it. It is better suited to a beginner. Upon rereading it recently, my own understanding has increased since my original review and it is likely too elementary for players above 1000. It is useful to focus on the typical ways of using a piece in addition to knowing about pins, skewers, forks, etc. These motifs are all discussed by the author when illustrating the power and action of the pieces.

The author translated both volumes of Alekhine's My Best Games into English. He credits Tartakower with help in preparing the book. The late Ken Smith, owner and publisher of the Chess Digest brand, wrote that Mr.du Mont told him that Alekhine himself helped a lot with the book.

It is a shame that this classic has gone out of print. Perhaps, some publisher will reissue it and even translate it into algebraic notation. If you can find a copy, buy it.