It's Your Move (Everyman Chess) [Paperback]

Chris Ward (Author)

Book Description

Series: Everyman Chess | Publication Date: November 1, 2000

This book provides the reader with a selection of puzzles that simulate real game scenarios, offering readers a choice of tempting alternatives and requiring them to pick the best

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

In this highly original and instructive test-yourself book, Chris Ward presents a selection of 50 carefully chosen puzzles for you to solve. In a welcome departure from the usual 'White to play and mate in three' scenarios, he focuses on the type of critical situations that occur in nearly every game. The reader is given a choice of five plausible plans for each position and has to decide which is the most likely to succeed. The puzzles aren't easy - but then chess isn't a simple game! (5 7/8 x 8 1/4, 144 pages, diagrams)

About the Author

Chris Ward is a highly successful coach and former British champion His previous books for Everyman include Improve Your Opening Play, The Genius of Paul Morphy and the best-selling first edition of It's Your Move. Chris Ward is a leading member of the younger generation of English grandmasters. He is a former British Champion and a highly successful trainer.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Everyman Chess; 1st edition (November 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1857442962
• ISBN-13: 978-1857442960
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,972,566 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book on planning, January 10, 2001

By 

R. Brand (Jerusalem) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: It's Your Move (Everyman Chess) (Paperback)

I'm writing this review mostly to give a counterpoint to the review below. Unfortunately, Mr. Thompson missed the point. This is not meant to be a book on tactics, but rather on finding a plan in the middlegame. The positions you'll see here are positions that might even appear in our own games, rather than only those of GM's. The idea is to chose, from among five choices, the best plan of action. These plans won't neccessarily win the game outright, but they'll lead to an advantage. In that respect, the book is excellent, and as far as I'm concerned, essential for a player who's got a good grasp of tactics and wants to take the next step. Along with Bronstein's Zurich International '53, this is one of the best books on middlegame planning I've seen; practice makes perfect.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Could be better (blue revision - It's your move), September 8, 2006

By 

Chess amateur - See all my reviews

This review is from: It's Your Move (Everyman Chess) (Paperback)

I believe the best way to learn and to improve in chess, is to solve chess puzzles. You don't have to buy six chess book that describe what is a "bad" bishop. But you need to se numbers and numbers of examples and puzzles you can solve, involving a "bad" bishop. Chess puzzle in the categories:
1. Tactical - pattern (Learn to se a pin quickly) A book example is "Combination Challenge!"
2. Tactical - common (More difficult tactical puzzle). A book example is "The Ultimate Chess Puzzle Book"
3. Positional. A book example is this book, "It's your move", and "Can You Be a Positional Chess Genius?"
4. Endgame. A book example is "Endgame Challenge"
Chris Ward "It's your move" is a positional chess puzzle book. What is nice with this book is that the writer includes several possible solutions to a puzzle. The puzzles are also carefully chosen. What is a letdown in this book is that the writer seldom explains deeply why the other alternatives are wrong/less attractive. What differs between a tactical exercise and a positional exercise is that a tactical exercise very often has very few alternative solutions (often only one), but a positional exercise seldom has just one clear solution. Positional puzzle book as this book should explain why other alternatives are wrong/less attractive. The strange thing is that Chris Ward tells us in the Introduction that he will not give explanations why the other alternatives are wrong. And I think that is very strange, because Chris Ward has done a great job to find alternative solutions to a puzzle in this book.

That makes this book uncompleted, unfortunately.

This is also a very hard chess puzzle book (not for players below 1800). For instance the very famous bishop-endgame between Topalov - Shirov is a puzzle in this book. Not many players in the world would have found this move at the board. For a player (1300-1700), it is stupid to have this position as a puzzle, it's simply to hard. So this is a puzzle book for players 2000+.

Note that my review is based on the blue revision.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Innovative approach to chess problems....., January 26, 2007

By 

Patrick D. Goonan "see profile for URL" (Livermore, CA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: It's Your Move (Everyman Chess) (Paperback)

I am a fan of Chris Ward and own a number of his books. He has a gift for simplifying complex ideas and distilling them down to their essence. In this book, he present 50 chess problems and commentary by 5 different fictional players with different playing styles. Each example illustrates an important aspect of play and different ways of thinking about it. That is what I think makes the book valuable and allows you to retain the information.

What I like best about this book is that it is fun to work with. Sometimes, I don't enjoy the highly technical chess books and feel they could have found a better way to present their concepts in a way that they can be integrated into memory. On the other hand, this book is NOT dense with material and it is rather expensive for what you get.