Customer Reviews

Chess Strategy for Club Players

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

 

 

This work not only covers strategy for the club player (as title aptly indicates) but also covers how to formulate a plan based on positional factors with an overall strategy in a position. Proper strategic/positional thinking is also addressed. Given sudden-death time controls, combining planning factors with strategic/positional analysis aids tremendously in time management.

The author, an experienced player (an IM) and trainer (has coached younger players -- several becoming GMs), utilizes Steinitz' Elements (updated with a modern view-point/perspective) to "coach" the reader in an exceptionally friendly, humble conversational manner. It is comprehensive and well worth the price (not one of those "skinny" over-priced books). One gets the impression that this was a "labor of love" for the author and a commitment to present and cover his topic in full.

As a Class Club player (best rating around 1830 -- current 1738) I can heartily urge adult class club players like me to get this book!!

Make no mistake, if you're a club player that wants to have all the basic teachings related to Steinitz in one book, there probably is no better book around that systematically goes through the material. It is ironic that the publisher "New In Chess" published this book because most of the ideas are 100 years old. With that said, you can win a ton of games with these ideas and players over the last 100 have done just that.

The book primarily uses game and game fragments to illustrate the execution of strategic plans and reaction of those plans to the opponent's moves. It is quite obvious that Grooten is very experienced chess coach and I'd gladly take a lesson from him any time. With that said, this book is a bargain at less than 20 dollars for all the valuable information in the book. It really is a one stop shop for a complete Steinitz principles.

With that said, I did give the book only four stars and it was for a reason. There were times when Grooten simply does not ask enough questions to really penetrate the finer strategic points of a position. Translating that into chess terms, he doesn't look for the really challenging moves in certain positions and then provide a clear and coherent positional assessment on why one side is better. In fact, very few authors have the ability to really elucidate why one side is better but instead provide assertions with no proof. This is a shortcoming of this book as well, albeit a minor one. Also, there were times during the book when the author presented the material as if he had been the original discover. Theory of two weaknesses was one such example. I know that he was simply trying to exhibit how HE discovered it, but plenty of material is already devoted to exploiting two weaknesses dating back to at least Nimzowitch. This could have been a problem with the translation from Dutch to English, but I'm not quite sure. Finally, certain subjects are just glossed over with limited discussion. This is forgivable because the book is already 400 pages and I'm sure that the publisher has something to say about a 700 page book for something under 20 dollars.

In summary, this is an excellent book for those who are good at self study. It actually is even decent for those who like ideas and information spoon fed to them much in the vain of Pandolfini. I would highly recommend this book to anyone really interested in understanding the basic principles so they can later on understand the exceptions (which is what Grandmasters do in almost every one of their games because they are tactically skilled and understand that dynamic chess is the part of the Steinitz school that really wasn't integrated very well). So, go and by with the confidence that if you spend time really systematically reading this book, the strategic ideas will become second nature.

First of all, the material in this book is not very well organized.
The author also tends to combine ideas in a way that isn't very lucid.
The chapters tended to mix themes and the author needed to focus better on the lesson at hand.
Chernev, for example, was great at this. Take one concept, give a few basic examples, then more advanced ones.

In the beginning he shows some games played by his students and talks about their brilliant moves.
Excellent play, for sure, but its not very educational.
Why start a book on strategy for club players with such advanced games? Its much more instructive to show the themes in clean, simple forms first and THEN the advanced, complicated version. Patzer first, then Grandmaster.

The concepts the author discusses ARE essential to good positional play, but I didn't find it engaging or in any way superior to other books such as Silman's "Reassess Your Chess" or Seirawan's series.

In particular, I think McDonald's recent book "Chess Secrets: The Giants of Strategy" was MUCH more interesting as well as more instructive. In fact, I would recommend the ancient classic "My System" by Nimzowitsch over this book. Or really any collection of well-annotated games by players such as Capablanca or Smyslov.

That said, there IS good material throughout, it has excellent production quality, and it is certainly not a bad book. It is a nice thick, pretty book :)
But there are better, cheaper books out there.
I wanted to like it more, but it just seems standard to me. Oh well...

I imagine many of us are looking for the book that speaks to us. I am only half way through the book and I am definitely looking forward to the second half.

Many books on strategy are either beyond me (Watson), or the examples are contrived (Nimzowitsch),or over simplistic to make a point. This one does the trick for me. The analysis of the sample games are very complete, the examples are convincing and as a result the ideas come across with great clarity. Thank you!
The book is well organized. The first chapter sets the agenda and each following chapter explores one classical theme. The individual chapter start by setting the terminoligy and giving an idea of what lies ahead. This is followed by sample games and finally the chapter concludes with a small problem set. If anything one would have wished for a few more problems but there are enough books out there with middle games problems to solve. The organization of the test helps when like me you have to steal time here and there to make it through the book because it becomes easy to continue were you left off.

The target audience is described as club players, that seems very reasonabe albeit a bit broad. I would narrow it down to USCF 1800 to 2200.
Yes this is the book I have been waiting for. Now I need to find some more time to practice what I have been tought. My response shows how the authors years of experience as a trainer have paid off. Not only do I feel I gained new insights but the impression is so strong that I feel motivated and this is definitely more that I get out of most chess books.

Finally, when considering all of the above the book is not only reasonably priced, no it is underpriced. In short if you are in the USCF range which I indicated and you are looking to deepen your understanding of positional analysis then this is bargain for you.

The author has done a good job in collecting the positions in this book. You will recognize a lot of them, but for instance as a chess coach it is very useful to have all the positions in one place. I can't really say that the author makes any other contribution than the collecting itself.

It's a little soon for me to give a through review of this book. But at first blush it appears to be one of the best chess books I have come across and I have read many.

The book takes you beyond chess openings and into positional chess, which is where I need to be.

this book is the real deal,a clear, lucid, easy to understand exposition of positional play for players up to expert level.if you dont have that rating yet,this book will help you get there.have added over a hundred points to my internet rating since reading it a month ago.a must buy.