Customer Reviews

The ChessCafe Puzzle Book 2: Test and Improve Your Positional Intuition

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

 

 

The title of this book led me to think it would be something like Silman's Workbook, but on steroids - advanced positional problems with very helpful explanations. Not at all.

This is a book very light on words, and very, very rich in variations. The problems are non-trivial, probably for Experts and above (my rating is 20xx). Many of the answers to the problems consist only of a thicket of variations, with not a single (!) word. Words, where they do exist, are mysteriously descriptive of the board situation, rather than explanatory. I don't know how you can do strategy without words and explanations.

In other words, this is a book of high level tactical problems, maybe with a positional slant, but offering no positional framework and basically offering no advice whatsoever to help the reader improve his own "positional evaluation function." It's the kind of thing I expect from John Nunn - terrific for pure analytics, but really not so great for understanding.

(Possibly this is a 5 star book on some aspect of chess problem-solving. But it's nowhere near a 5 star book on "Improving Your Positional Intuition.")

I just recently returned to chess after a 20 year hiatus. I had to relearn strategy and tactics. One book I found helpful was Michael de la Maza's book on studying chess as an adultRapid Chess Improvement (Everyman Chess). De la Maza focuses on studying tactics. The ChessCafe Puzzle book series fits the bill in this regard as it introduces a theme and then gives you several exercises related to that theme. Plus I just enjoy solving chess problems. I would recommend this book to anyone playing at an intermediate level or below.