Customer Reviews

Chess Fundamentals (Algebraic)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is the best way to jumpstart a beginning to chess mastery. Capablanca gives a mild technical backdrop before presenting some of his own games. Capablanca synthesized positional ideas when the rest of the world was trying to figure out how to out calculate their opponent. This book gives an introduction to the system of thought that gave legends like Fischer, Karpov, and Kramnik their start. Warning:Opening theory has evolved to make the games most of the games in this book obsolete from the standpoint of theory. But if you want to know how an intuitive chessplayer thinks, read this book.

Only few words we know about Capablanca himself of his conception of the game. This book is an absolute classic. Like the books of Lasker and others of their time, they are best to get their view of the game than to learn how to play.

I have been investigating the thinking methods of the old champions and this little book introduce the concept of the calculation by visualizing future positions. Capa doesn't expose details about it, but his writing help us to get the concept: visualize the goal position in mind and then try to construct it at the board. That method was repeated in Lasker's Manual writing about positional and combinatory players. In our days this conception is regained by Silman and Beim as new concepts and without proper credits to the old guys.

As any classic, get this book!

Chess Fundamentals is a book anyone can find space on their shelf for. However, before going further, I'd like to remind people this is a self-teaching book, not a reference. Many have complained that this book is sparse on explanations and that Capablanca left the student to find most variations. They seem to have lost the point that this book is meant to teach through hands-on experience, the best method, rather than by just telling everything.

Treatise aside, this book is superb. It has a great focus on endgames and explains the opening well. The only fault I could find was that the middlegame section focused too much on combinations and not enough on positional play--however, positional play could take 100 books to fully explain, so it doesn't really matter. After reading this book, my rating on playchess.com rose by over 300 points! I highly recomend it.

The strength of this book lies in its endgame instruction and in 14 annotated games, but even here Capa tends to be a bit sketchy.

The book isn't much help for the opening. Also, the chapter called "Planning a Win in the Middlegame" has nothing to do with planning. In it, he has a brief section called Attacking Without Knights in which he simply shows two short tactical combinations that don't involve knights. No attempt is made to provide any prinicples about attacking without knights. It's the sign of an author who apparently doesn't understand the difference between instruction and description.

Maybe four stars is too generous. This is not, IMHO, an "essential" chess book.

I am beginner to intermediate level. Great book for me! Capablanca explains every move. I learned simple things I thought I knew, but in fact I never got completely. Making much less mistakes now and improved my play in very short time, because I start winning endgames against slightly better players where I never knew what to do before! There is an edited version available where only part of the text is Capablanca's original, but I don't know that one. This here is the original, only the notation is edited to algebraic, and I can really recommend this book!

The Turkish editions of this book and "Judgement and Planning in Chess" changed my ideas on chess. Till that time, i have read a few tactics books but i knew nothing about the other aspects of chess. As an endgame expert, Capa emphasizes the importance of endgame and introduces basic ideas on endgames like "opposition" with some more advanced topics. He also shows the importance of development and initiative in openings. The major drawback is that, he does not explain the subjects in detail. Good for 1000-1600 players.

I found the whole book helpful, especially the complete games and their annotations, which don't go into a long and boring analysis like some other chess books, which makes this book perfect for beginners.

great overview of analysis, but not enough depth.

Capablanca goes through how his mind works, which is pointed and logical, but doesn't give enough examples to be an instructional manuel.

There's a reason why this is a classic of chess literature and there's a reason why the title was "Chess Fundamentals" every student of the game should understand what is contained within the pages of this book. I have seen many player's who have neglected to understand such fundamentals losing/drawing in won positions. Don't let the gaps in your knowledge hold you back from more win's. Get this book. Enjoy this book. Improve with this book.

Recommended for any player!

There is plenty of good chess in the book. Capablanca is not as inspiring as Lasker or Nimzowitch, but the book is very instructive and gives a good taste of the thoughts of one of the strongest chess players in the history of the game.