Customer Reviews

Combinations: The Heart of Chess (Dover Chess)

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

 

 

Even for a kid this is an easy book to read and understand. I got with "Winning Chess Traps" that has a lot of tactics in the openings. So I am covered on all ends when it comes to tactics. Love thse two books and just felt like saying so without a long review.

Chernev's classic is not simply a collection of combinations for drilling yourself on pins, forks, smothered mates, and so on - although there are plenty of combinations (300+) for that - it shows how the great players used them in their games. You get a history lesson while learning how Tarrasch, Nimzovich, Capablanca, and many other world-class players, employed combinations in their games. I like how Chernev uses extended game fragments and his own enthusiastic commentary to explain the combinations. I have several tactics books and I enjoyed Chernev's less common approach to combinations: most books just give the position as though it just "appeared" out of the blue to settle the game. Somehow with Chernev, I get the idea that you have to work to get there. Descriptive notation.

Learn from the examples-- good and bad -- from the masters from Anderssen to Fischer, simple and complex, short and long, how to master piece co-ordination. A classic. Check out Chess Life and Review April 1975 p. 245 col 1 wrt #69. Working through this book can add hundreds of points to an average tournament players' rating, whet his appetite and keep him off the street for days... Not just for beginners, the 356 positions on 240 pages although not their primary source nor a dry categorical treatise, will challenge delight edify and entertain an interesting reader for years...

This book is a pleasure to read. Chernev has a flair for description and he can really pick out beautiful examples to make his point. If your library doesn't have this book, then you don't have a complete library.

The book is organized by theme and master. The themes relate more to vague ideas of a story line than to fundamental tactical ides. Thematic chapters include titles such as "Simple and Pleasing", "Convincing the Kibitzers", or "A Blending of Themes". Masters include all the greatest combinational players from modern history: Alekhine, Morphy, Lasker, Pilsbury, Capablanca, and so on.

The Dover binding, especially considering the price, leaves little to be desired. It has taken quite a lot of abuse to get the cover off mine, and even after a few years of no cover and continued abuse, the pages are all still well attached. As others have noted, this book is in descriptive notation.

Though this book is a classic and deserves every bit of its five star rating, don't assume you are going to read this book and get better at tactics, especially if you are a weaker player. I studied and studied this book for a couple of years, visualizing every combination without a board and thinking deeply about each and every side variation. But I have never noticed any real improvement in my game. I have come back to this book again and again to enjoy Chernev's literary and analytical brilliance, but still no improvement.

I've been studying and playing chess for about 15 years and I'm here to tell you that you can waste a lot of time reading chess books of all varieties (opening, middle, positional, "combinational", calculational, etc.). I've read so many books, I can visualize a complete game without so much as looking at a chess board. I've been able to do this for about 12 years and I get better at it with each book. You might think that this ability to visualize a chess board has helped my game tremdously. I have simply not found this to be the case--even without a board, I still play the same miserable brand of chess. Thankfully, however, no one else can see the evidence of my poor play in such cases.

If you want to get better, buy this book now but wait a while before you actually read it--perhaps when you are much better than me (I'm about 1300). Instead, get the two Reinfeld 1001 books. I would estimate (or the computer estimates) I have jumped at least 100 points in less than a month just drilling exhaustively a single chapter from 1001 Brilliant Sacrifices and Combinations and the first chapter of Pandolfini's Chessercizes 2: Checkmate. I have also noticed my understanding of the board as a whole has increased phenomenally--no book I've read has been able to do that for me, no matter what it promises.

Fifteen years is a terribly long time to make such little improvement, especially when followed, at age 36, by quick and dramatic improvement studying tactical problems. I blame the lofty content and promises of most of the books I've read. Maybe they are better for 10 year-old child prodigys with fresh minds or 1800+ players looking for deeper understanding, but not for people who just want to understand, on an innate level, the "real" mechanics of chess. Despite the promises of the other reviewers, Combinations: The Heart of Chess, does not fall into this latter category. Though pleasing to ponder, most of the examples are far too complex to be of training value to weaker players, such as myself.

This book really gives due respect to the masters of old. It also brings to the fore the great gifts each master had. I liked the format Chervnev used to notate each illustrated game. It is right there in front of you. Very helpful when one trying hard the follow and visualize the flow of logic. Modern authors/master put the best stuff in the back of the book. I highly recommend it to beginning players (trying to get on the fast track to better play) and inter-mediate players (working to improve their game).

Easy on the eyes and full of the best combinations up to the 1950s. (The book was first published by Thomas Y. Crowell in 1960.) Some would say that good combative play had reached its peak anyway, with draws in top-level chess increasing as the general public's interest waned. (Coincidence?) This epidemic was on full display at the Linares 2004 tournament, where 79% of the games ended in draws!

Like the classic Fireside Book of Chess (written by Chernev along with Fred Reinfeld), this is a book you can open to any page and enjoy. Not only do you see the choicest examples of attacking chess, but you also receive the insight and perspective with which to appreciate it all.

Even if it does not make your own chess better as some reviewers allege (and it is not an instruction book after all), it will most certainly increase your enjoyment of it.

I once walked into a used bookstore in Atlanta, and found like 12 copies of this book sitting on the shelf. They only wanted a buck or so each, so I bought them all.

I was teaching chess at that time at a private school in Pensacola, The Creative Learning Center.

I gave most of those 12 books to my students. They enjoyed them tremendously.

If a student wanted to ask me what book should be his "First" book on tactics, I would probably whole-heartedly endorse this book. 'Nuff said?