The Game of Chess (Algebraic Edition) (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

A famous chess manual for 75 years, now re-edited for the modern chess player. Dr. Tarrasch was one of the world's strongest players in the late 19th century and this manual teaches chess from the novice level to Class A / Expert strength players. It fully covers, tactics, endings, and opening play. A must for every serious chess player.

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 270 pages
• Publisher: Hays Publishing (August 15, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1880673940
• ISBN-13: 978-1880673942
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #364,255 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

106 of 108 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great General Book By A General of Chess!, July 3, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: The Game of Chess (Paperback)

Want to gain a deep insight into a book written by one of the better writers and players of all time? Tarrasch was a top notch tournament chess player. He wrote this book to help the intermediate player really learn about the game without just trying to make a buck off of a book! If you are an adult reader, who wants to gain an insight by an oldtime, but smartimer, then enjoy this book! I can certainly recomment "Understanding Chess" by Nunn, both "Unbeatable Chess Lesons for Juniors", "More Unbeatable Chess Lessons for Juniors" and "Winning Chess Traps for Juniors" by Snyder, and "The Art of Checkmate" by Renaud, but this book is right up there with them as equals.

39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Instructional Book for Players Rated 1000 - 1500, September 12, 2000

By	M. H. Smith "chessmansmith" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Game of Chess (Paperback)

This is quite possibly the best single volume on the game of chess for advanced beginners to early intermediate players. The book covers all three phases of the game - ending (first), middlegame (second), and openings (last).

Tarrasch's writing style is very clear and easy to understand. The section on the endgame starts with basic mating patterns (most players could skip this assuming they already have them down) and works into the the "essential" endgame theory quickly; square of the pawn, philidor and lucena positions in rook endings, etc.

The middlegame section leans heavily toward tactical ideas rather than strategic, but this is a good thing because tactics are the most important thing to study for an improving student. One major difference in his presentation is that some of the tactical devices are presented as larger ideas, not just mechanical executions. For example, instead of running through the usual pins, forks, skewers, etc. Tarrasch works through ideas such as the attack on the f7 square, the attack on the g7 square, the attack with the h-pawn down the rooks file, etc.

The openings sections is excellent, but very dated. He begins with a nice discussion on time, space, and force. He then follows by examining most major opening systems and the associated ideaa. The weakness of this part of the book is that the specific lines are somewhat dated (improvements have been found since the book was written), and certain relatively recent systems such as the pirc/modern complex are not even discussed.

Even with the limitations, most of the ideas he expresses still retain a great deal of relevance.

The final part of the book walks the reader through some very good illustrative games with lots of notes to expalain what is going on.

All in all, this is a really good book. Another bonus is the incredible price (this is the case with most Dover Books.

The only downside to the book is that it is written in the older descriptive notation. I personally have no problem reading through the notation (I even slightly prefer it), but for younger readers it may make for more work.

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars great instructional manual, December 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Game of Chess (Paperback)

A great book to be studied and restudied. The author has done an outstanding job in breaking chess into first principles, and then using these principles to illustrate how to play chess well. First principles are principles that cannot be refuted without incurring a contradiction. In chess, these first principles are force ie, material advantage, space which is the clearance of ranks and files and time which is the gaining of tempo or a time advantage over your opponents moves. A mastery of these principles is essential to chess mastery. Chess would be impossible without these principles in operation. The author then shows how by repeated practice over the examples given in the book, one can develop "chess vision" which is the ability to see strengths and weaknesses in an opponents position. The book shows how tactical manuevers such as double attack, destruction of the gaurd, etc. is using the principle of force. Similar examples are given to show how time and space are used also. This is a very deep and profound book, that needs to be carefully studied to mine its secrets. One can reach any level of chess mastery by applying and repeating the exercises in the book as the author suggests. Chess masters such as Capablanca, Fisher, Kasparov and others do not know some kind of secret information that gives them such mastery. They have simply become so good by repeated practice at basic principles as expounded in this book. This book tells you outright what this secret is. It is constant practice. A very good book that will take one from novice to the highest levels of mastery and beyond.