How Good is Your Chess?: Rate Your Skill and Improve Your Strategy by Participating in 35 Master Games [Paperback]

Leonard Barden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1976

How good is your chess? Find out with this collection of 35 master games arranged and scored for self-quizzing. You can score a maximum of 50 points in any one game and by averaging your scores over a number of games, you can rate your skill on a scale from beginner to master. The games, selected by author Leonard Barden, are models of strategy and tactics.

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Dover Publications (April 1976)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0486232948
• ISBN-13: 978-0486232942
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,774,633 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars one of a kind book, January 22, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: How Good is Your Chess?: Rate Your Skill and Improve Your Strategy by Participating in 35 Master Games (Paperback)

While many chess books either show positional play, openings or defensive play, this book has everything. The games that are illustrated show strategic and tactical principles such as center control, positional play, constriction, and so on. All the games are illustrated and explained. The author shows why a move is good or bad and you are quizzed to see what move should be made along with the explanation. A table is given in front of the book to see if you are in master class and how to improve. Dover has come out with a splendid book and it is reasonably priced.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars extremely fun, March 14, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: How Good is Your Chess?: Rate Your Skill and Improve Your Strategy by Participating in 35 Master Games (Paperback)

I wouldn't trust the rating this book gives; my rating seemed a couple hundred points too high. Maybe this is because I didn't employ any time constraints, or maybe it says something about my openings (Barden gives you the first 10-15 moves, so he's not rating your openings.) Regardless, the most helpful part of the book is Barden's summaries. He'll write things such as "If you went wrong on moves 16-20, it indicates you need to rely less on general judgments and more on calculating the exact consequences of each move".

I had a ton of fun going through this book. It's much more engrossing than most other chess books.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Refreshing, October 30, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: How Good is Your Chess?: Rate Your Skill and Improve Your Strategy by Participating in 35 Master Games (Paperback)

In this fine book you are given 35 well annotated GM games. The format is similar to the Chessmaster "rate my play". you go through the games, (covering all the moves) and when you begin the critical stages of the games you receive points if you get the correct move. you add them up after a certain stage and you get a good idea of what youre rating is.
concepts covered: centrel control, superior development, positional chess, attacking play, defense, combinations, constriction tecnique, and ending.
the games are from well known players. Tal, botvinik,Keres, bronstein,kotov,spassky, korchoi,larsen, tolush, and others. The players as you can tell have VERY unique styles and i feel that keeps the book fresh because you dont just see posional masters, or only calculative wizards.
if youre looking for some well annotated games you should definetly consider this book. just to figure out youre rating would be fun, although like the other reviewer mentioned it does not consider youre opening expertise. (descriptive)