Customer Reviews

The Chess Kid's Book of Checkmate

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

 

 

I am reviewing several books that teach checkmates including Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess, Art of Checkmate and 1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate.
I am placing this book side by side Fischer's book. The Chess Kids Book of Checkmate at least attempts or organize the types of checkmates by pattern. There is simply not enough explanation to go along with the examples. There is not enough material to cover the most important types of checkmates in a comprehensive matter.
Most sadley the book doesn't always show the most efficient way to checkmate. For example: taking a look at the King and Queen versus lone King mate. The book takes about twice as long as neccessary to do this simple checkmate! In an endgame the King should be used as an active fighting piece. Instead the Queen does the work then the King is brought in at the end. When the actual material being covered is incorrect then there is a serious problem. It is a wonder why someone didn't point these flaws out before it got into print.

I agree with the other reveiwers. I have some big issues with the way the writer of the "Checkmate" covers the material (which is lacking for starters). As a 4 grader and a good player at my school chess club I got this book to help me. But, I became confussed by the explaining of things. I did read the other reviews and it is absolutely true that the writer does not know how to checkmate with the King and the Queen against a lone Queen properly - he doesn't teach using the king to make it fast. I could teach this to the writer of this book and improve it. The writer must learn to play chess good before trying to teach kids or he will teach kids wrong like he does in the book. I looked the writer up on the chess federations website and he is not a master or even a chess expert. Very sad and probabably one reason why there are so many mistakes in the book. Chess books should be writen by good players. You should not buy this book and make the same mistake I did.

My father and I both have been using this book for about one week. I have found so many mistakes in the way it is set up - I am an advanced beginner I would say - rated about 700 by the United States Chess Federation.
I will start by saying that I learned to use my King in the endgame. The books shows me how to move the Queen a Knights move away to force checkmate without the King. This takes me much longer. The checkmate with the Rook boxes in the King in the book - I learned to line up the Kings and check with my Rook from my chess teacher which is so much better.
I also spotted that the same positions were reapeated two times in the book (see pages 7 Diagram B and page 46) a big mistake.
The sample moves for games sometimes shows where the mistake was made and sometimes it doesn't. I want to know where the player when wrong in the opening moves that allowed the checkmate and know what should have been done. This is not covered.
My favorite book covering checkmates called ART OF THE CHECKMATE is much, much better (though it used the old form of chess notation). Talking about notation of moves this book suddenly starts using a long form of chess notation toward the end of the book when they should have kept it the same.
I cannot help joking and saying I will give this book away to a player at our school who is good and challenges me, so he can learn the mistakes in the book and then I can beat him! I am sorry to put this book down (this is a pun) but I must be honest in my review.

I returned this book after getting it when it came slightly damaged in the mail (a good excuse to get my money back). This book does not compare in how it covers checkmates to THE ART OF THE CHECKMATE. Get that one instead because after spending an hour trying to read the kids book of checkmate I did teach me very well. So I ordered THE ART OF THE CHECKMATE that is just great.

"How could the David McKay Chess Library Publish this?" is the first question I asked after getting this book?
Super OVERSIZED diagrams in an obvous attempt to "cover up" the obvious lack of material. Poor organization, inferior ways to accomplish what should be made simple for kids and a lack of telling the how and why of what is going on charactorized this "masterful work" of duping the public. I can recommend this book to noone.

I had purchased the same author's Chess Kid's Book of Tactics and though wasn't that pleased decided to take a chance and get his book on checkmates. I am not that advanced in chess and need help with the basics. My father has been helping me, but said I should get some books to study from too. I thought that maybe this book would have improved in the ability of the author to explane things. Not so.
I agree with the revewer that said that the way this book shows checkmate with a King and a Queen is slow. My father showed me how to use my King to help with that checkmate and make it much, much faster. I want to learn to do things the best way from the start.
I also found some of the things in the book to be very confusing.

I've read some of the other reviews and I would have to say this book is just not that bad. First of all this is not for the absolute beginner, but for a beginner who at least knows basic rules and how to move the pieces. It has a nice easy feel to it; information is to the point and never drags on. It is basically as the title says a good review of checkmate information that the beginners should know. Some of the various mates reviewed are Anastasia's, Morphy's, Pillisbury's, Lolli's etc. There are just a couple of mistaken answers that didn't bother me one bit. The chess board diagrams are not quite 2"x2", not over sized. I give it 3 1/2 stars, with a little more details and a few more examples this would have easily been a 4-5 star book.

This is a book containing checkmate puzzels designed for children. A fair number of the problems contain important patterns which are useful for finishing your game.
The book contains some serious flaws. The demonstration of how to use a Queen to force checkmate against a lone King uses a slow and inefficient method, which takes about 2 times as long as it should to force the checkmate. Kids should be shown how to check mate efficiently. This very example stops numerous moves before the checkmate and then jumps to an example of the final checkmate position! It doesn't show the entire mate to save space in the book. To save space in the book the publisher should have not had such oversized diagrams.
The book is also lacking in organization and is not as complete in material as it could be.

My son received this book as a prize at chess camp a few years ago. He loves the puzzles in this book. I started a chess club at his new school and bring the book into the club and the kids ages 5-15 LOVE to work the puzzles in this book. I love the way the chapters are focused and then the kids get to reinforce the topic with the puzzles.

Despite the numerous downgrading reviews, I'm sorry to say but I LIKE this book.
I like the big diagrams. I like the presentation!
I like how checkmate is described and approached. Take an example: At the very beginning, the author explains that there are different types of checkmates. one is Support mate, another is convergence. These are very simple. As a beginner and a teacher of chess, I find this exemplary, because we have to remember patterns. Simple patterns and simple explanations are easy to remember.That's the main point of the teaching in this book: simple patterns that you can remember, presented in big enough diagrams.
Alright, if you have not got enough exercises, you can complete this book by another simple one for novices: A.J.Gillam "simple checkmates". These two books are VERY simple. But I believe that simplicity will make it easy to remember the patterns.
(For the other reviewers, when you have built simple patterns in your memory, you can learn to combine them in more complex patterns. I believe that is how Judit Polgar learned chess. I think that is an incentive enough!) If you want to learn from simple patterns, buy this book with confidence. if you are already knowledgeable, then you do not need this book!
A valuable teaching book.