Customer Reviews

It's Your Move (Everyman Chess)

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

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Chris Ward: ¨I'd get bored constantly explaining why, for example, Dave is being too elaborate. It should be assumed that if I don't mention a nominated plan, then I'm not too enthused by it! ¨

Isn't that a little discourteous, Mr Ward? If somebody puts down $19.95 for your book, and selects, in good faith, Plan C for a particular problem, then surely he is entitled to some sort of an explanation as to why his selection is considered suboptimal. Whether you get bored or not is irrelevant. If you're bored by coaching amateur chess players please find something else to do with your time.

Chris Ward: ¨... there is the argument that plans are often down to taste and even an individual's style. That's tough. ...if the plans worked for them, then they work for me!¨ So, Mr Ward, the grandmaster's actual move counts 10 points, and anything else is never more than 5 points and usually just 1 or 2 points? There is something faintly egotistical about this - I would have much preferred to see a more objective rating of the various plans, rather than just the GM's reflecting 'Jesus risen' and everything else being crap.

And further on the subject of alternative plans... Positions are unique, and straining to generate plans which are Ambitious (Andy), Ballistic (Bob), Cautious (Carol), etc, for each problem is artificial. Surely, if a particular position suggests three or five or six plausible approaches, then these should be the alternatives presented. Regardless of whether two of them are Cautious, or none are. In architecture, form follows function. In cuisine, a chef creates based on what is fresh and local. That is, professionals bring a certain sensitive appropriateness to their work. This book's characters feel crude and cartoonish.

Mr Ward, you have a valuable concept here. Chess is decision-making, and the format of weighing and evaluating alternative plans is spot-on. Too bad your implementation is so inept.

Several of my local students ... and quite a few of my Internet students ... have bought this book. NOT ONE has had anything bad to say about it. It seems to accomplish exactly what the author set out to do when he wrote this book. (See his introductory notes.)
I spent over an hour going over this book with one of my students who is 8 years old. I thought it was a fairly well written book.
(Maybe a four or five-star book for a beginner. But I try to give out that award - now - as little as possible.)

the green one is brilliant-- i couldn't put it down. the positions in the blue version make no sense to me and ward doesn't explain much.