Imagination in Chess: How to Think Creatively and Avoid Foolish Mistakes [Paperback]

Paata Gaprindashvili (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2004

Any chess player can become better by harnessing the power of imagination. This fresh approach to problem-solving helps players make fewer mistakes and encourages independent and original thought. Even though much has been published on chess tactics, strategy, openings, and endings, few books have focused on training the brain to think and evaluate. The many examples of different moves provided here do just that, by emphasizing the benefits of logic and quick wit. Some of the new concepts, such as progressive and reciprocal thinking, aid in preventing unnecessary and foolish errors--and assure players of making winning choices.

Product Details

• Paperback: 287 pages
• Publisher: B.T. Batsford (September 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0713488913
• ISBN-13: 978-0713488913
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #447,221 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Surprising, January 8, 2005

By 

Ole Richard Tuft "Tufturk" (Norway) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Imagination in Chess: How to Think Creatively and Avoid Foolish Mistakes (Paperback)

This book contains 90% exercises and 10% text (if you include the solutions, the ratio is about 95-5), which certainly isn't what I expected. In fact, I think a more sutiable title for this book would be "How to structure your thinking and implement your ideas".

There are no recipies here for avoiding blunders, as could be implied by the title. Through 756(!) exercises, the reader is tought to approach positions (mostly tactital) in a systematic way: If calculation shows that your initial idea cannot be carried out, do you abandon the idea or do you try to eliminate the cause of it not working (i.e a certain pawn or piece)? If the cause cannot be removed directly, can an auxillary idea solve the problem? If pure logic cannot help, what about imagination, and excercising mental agility?

The excercises are grouped according to how they are to be solved (by an idea, auxillary idea etc), and diagrams are included at the start of each chapter to clarify recommended thinking patterns. This approach seems very valuable, at least to a certain point - when mental agilty and imagination must enter the picture, patterns become far less clear-cut.

This is not beginner material. The exercises are ranked in difficulty from 0 to 5, and my guess is that even grandmasters will struggle with some of the rank 5 exercises if only using the diagram. Thankfully, they are not very numerous, there is a clear majority of excercises in the 0-2 range. None of the exercises are dead easy, so I would recommend this book for experienced club players and above. Occasionally, the exercises doesn't seem to fit with the theme of the chapter, if this hadn't been the case, I would have given this book 5 stars in a second, but this is a good buy anyway.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Anyone who thinks this is a puzzle book is missing the point...., October 8, 2006

By 

William "Bill Brock" (Chicago, IL, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Imagination in Chess: How to Think Creatively and Avoid Foolish Mistakes (Paperback)

Gaprindashvili's examples are exceedingly difficult (I wouldn't recommend this to players under USCF/FIDE 1800), but it's an extremely well-done collection of critical positions ORGANIZED BY THE THOUGHT PROCESS NECESSARY TO SOLVE THEM EFFICIENTLY.

In many cases, the obvious move doesn't work, but the obvious move suggests a move that wasn't one of the original candidates.

We are not computers--we can't possibly look at every move three moves deep. Gaprindashvili's method is to drill the student in a METHOD of finding critical moves and analyzing them in an efficient fashion.

Valeri Beim's How to Calculate Chess Tactics teaches a similar approach, somewhat more accessibly.

Serious players should read both books (Beim first). Both books demand serious effort--both books will make you a much stronger tactician.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!, March 6, 2006

By 

Michael F. McPartlan (Buffalo, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Imagination in Chess: How to Think Creatively and Avoid Foolish Mistakes (Paperback)

This book is a collection of chess problems. "Imagination in Chess" is for the chess player who has worked through Reinfeld, Combination Challenge!, and the other problem books by Emms, Nunn, and Archangelsky. The problems in here are very difficult. The only reason that this book fails to get five stars is because of the inaccurate title. This book has very little about imagination and thinking creatively--it is almost all chess problems.