Customer Reviews

Logical Chess: Move By Move: Every Move Explained New Algebraic Edition

5 star:		(63)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"LOGICAL CHESS, MOVE BY MOVE" by Erving Chernev is was the first book (to my knowledge) that uses complete games with every move analyzed. It has remained a well read and one of the top selling chess books for good reasons:

#1. The explainations are undersandable for the advanced novice.
#2. This way of teaching covers all important parts of the game, with the opening always being covered (of coarse!), almost always the middlegame and on occassion an endgame.

Other than the openings needing of updating, perhaps some more modern games being included and the book can get tedious when repeating itself to excess, these minor complaints are not too significant. In most cases the advanced novice is not going to be overly concerned about the openings being out of date, though a little more coverage and updating would improve the book a little. [...]

What a wonderful concept! Every move is commented on. And, Chernev started it all with Dr. Nunn writing, "Understanding Chess" for the advance player and the Chess for Jrs. Series writing "Unbeatable and More Unbeatable Chess For Jrs." for the Advanced Beginner and Intermediate Player.
My only two complaints are that this book is outdated and it gets rather boring when in each game there must be a comment for the same previously played opening move - both which the other books have taken care of.
Over all a very good book with a couple small flaws.

"Logical Chess" is a logical way to teach chess. Games taken from play by strong players are used to provide neat lessons. To make sure everything that is important is covered one or more comments (and sometimes other move suggestions and comments) is made on all of the moves. [...] But that doesn't change the fact that "Logical Chess" is a classic and very good book to consider once beyond the beginner stage.

I've been buying and reading chess books for a year now, and I have to say that this is the book I read more than any other and feel I have learned the most from. It's relaxing to sit down with a board, pieces and a book and go through a game played between two great players, with move by move commentary included. You might think you're learning very little, but you'll be amazed at what sticks with you, and how you will start thinking more about what your opponents are planning when they make their moves, and how you will start calculating more deeply when it comes to your own.

I think that this kind of method of study is not only entertaining (Chernev is wonderful at drawing you into the game's "story," and by that I mean how the game develops and moves inexorably toward its decisive moment), but it teaches a beginner/low intermediate player a lot about openings (without going into all that dull and intimidating depth regarding variations etc. that you see in books on openings) and strategy (Chernev really stresses the importance in the games he chooses of players' efforts to either control or free up space, and squeeze out small advantages so that a decisive attack can be mounted). Chernev's commentaries are also very helpful when it comes to learning how to maximize the each piece's unique offensive and defensive capabilities. You'll begin to really understand where each piece belongs on the board and the difficulties you'll encounter if they're not in the right place.

The games that look at the Giuoco Piano and Ruy Lopez openings are very instructive, but I have enjoyed and learned a great deal from the excellent queen pawn openings games, since these games have offered a kind of template for me to experiment with the queen's gambit in my own games, and I've had some pleasing results. Two drawbacks for me are the fact that Chernev really seems to like the Colle system opening and it's over-represented (4 games), and that every game in which black responds with the French defense (e4 e6) has black being thoroughly trounced. You're left with the impression that the French defense has nothing to recommend it, but if that is indeed the case, why have so many top-flight players used it? I also would have liked some games in which black successfully plays the Sicilian (e4 c5), since it's such a popular, effective and interesting black response to e4. Still, these are minor reservations when I take the entire book into account.

Some reviewers have criticized the book for being so old and out of date, especially when it comes to the openings and black's defenses. These critics, though, are obviously more advanced players, so their criticism has no merit. If you're a beginner or even an intermediate player, you need to master the traditional openings that Chernev concentrates on in this book before you can start properly playing the modern openings and modern defenses. In my experience playing, it's so easy to knock over an opponent who tries a modern opening or modern defense, because it soon becomes clear they don't know what they're doing and it's not long before they make a blunder. I would however say that I have recently purchased Neil McDonald's "Chess: The Art of Logical Thinking," which follows the dame kind of format as Chervnev, but is different in that it draws exclusively on post-1975 games and therefore examines all the modern openings and modern defenses that have come into currency in the last thirty or so years. Taken together, these books will give you over sixty absorbing, instructive and beautifully annontated games that will teach you so much, and in such an enjoyable way.

I am currently on game 30 out of 33 in this book, and am rated around 1300 USCF. This is the now my favorite chess book of all time. The book has really taught me that every move in a game is important. Now when I make a move I am thinking to myself "what is the purpose of this move" and asking what my opponents moves accomplish.

Previously I was not a big fan of chess books, and preferred using software or videos. But this book presents the material in a really exciting way. The author shows no arrogance and does not use examples from his own games (even Yasser Seriwan can't resist a "watch how I saw this 30 move combination and used it to defeat silly Karpov!") that are more about ego gratification than teaching. Additionally the book is well edited, and I only found one small mistake.

Some people might not like the style of how ideas are repeated over and over, like explaining the first moves the Queens Gambit again and again. At first I did not either, but now I realize after reading 90% of the book that it really helped the ideas to sink in, and now I can use these ideas in my play.

... Some people might be able to read the book without setting up pieces, but I was not able to do this and fully understand all of the variations and ideas. There are quite a lot of diagrams though.

In preparation for an article I was writing, I recently asked a group of strong players (2200 and up) what book helped them "turn the corner" in chess when they were beginners. A Senior Master told me that as a freshman in High School he had been stuck at 1200 for some time and was making little progress despite reading books like Nimzovich's My System. A friend lent him Chernev's Logical Chess Move By Move and he said a light bulb went off almost immediately. Soon he was easily holding his own versus "C" players and a lot of what he had read in Nimzovich and elsewhere began to make sense. In this book Chernev annotates several instructive games between masters and amateurs. The results are predictable, but the key is that he explains the thinking behind every move. One lessons this teaches the advanced beginner is that, right or wrong, there should be a purpose to every move. Especially important is the fact that the annotations use a lot of pros! e that fully describes the planning that goes into a move rather than some dry variations devoid of explanation. A classic! Suitable for players 1000-1400 (and stronger players will like it, too).

Chernev did a good job of putting together a collection of games well suited for beginners. He does a good job of letting the reader know what is going on providing a comment to all of the moves. A good point is that the book has been translated into Algebraic Notation.
The only weaknesses I see are there is a lot of filler repetition and the analysis on the openings is lacking and outdated. Otherwise a good book!

This book is great. It's the best chess book that I've read so far. There is some repetition of basic precepts, but it's necessary for them to sink in. There are a lot of different games. Chernev is a great annotator and frequently quotes the great early players. Openings, endgames, tactics, etc. are covered in a gradual and intuitive way. The openings that are covered are the most popular and are what intermediate players should be playing. Winning Chess Brilliancies by Seirawan is really good too, but I think that this book should be read first.

This was not the second chess book I purchased, but it should have been. Instead, I bought books on openings and strategy - a big mistake.

I think chess books come in three varieties.
1. Introductory overviews (how the pieces move, notation, etc.)
2. Annotated games
3. Specialized topics (strategy, tactics, openings, middlegame, etc.)

A good annotated game book connects the dots. It shows how all of the specialized topics work together in real games. By explaining every move, Chernev shows the beginner how to:
1. Control the center in the opening
2. Develop pieces with purpose
3. Use your pieces together to gain material
4. How to finish the "won game"

These are foundations that will help all beginners. Yes, the book is repetitive, but the repetition does drive home the point. Now, with algebraic notation - it is even better. For these reasons, I give it 5 stars.

I don't own many chess-books. But I'm picking up a couple of Chernev's other books simply because this one was cheap and great- two things that warm my cockles!

As an improving mid-level player, this book helped me a great deal. More than the books I bought on "So-and-so's most immortalist, bestest, burnin-brightest games of eternity..." maybe I'm not there yet. This book seems a great bridge to help one get from novice to mid-level player (and beyond, I hope). My game has definitely improved, I'm more tenacious in the opening. Which I like.

Chernev's style of writing is accessible and often humorous, two good traits. He's quick to tease out the implications of certain moves versus others, making the reader smack his head and take more time. He doesn't get too bogged down- he gives you food for thought and allows for digestion. I can't say enough really.

Some other reviewers have taken issue with Chernev's repetitive praise for certain moves and openings (He does marvel at the E-4 a great deal, but always with different words). But they forget- this is not really a book for an expert- it's for lower strength players who need to have certain basic ideas beaten into them. Chernev never makes it feel like he's beating it into you- he just looks at classic ideas from a variety of points of view, and that is wonderfully refreshing! Moreover, you don't (or I didn't) get the feeling that he's talking down to you. And I love the variety of witticisms and famous-player sayings that Chernev tosses out, at random, to illustrate his points. You want to write them all down in a little book...

You can tell the man truly loved, LOVED, the game. That comes through as being infectious. The reader picks up on that love and Chernev's excitement and wants to learn more. Such qualities are rare, as teaching goes, I think.

Uh... I wish there had been more than one game of Queen's gambit Accepted vs. many of Queen's Gambit Declined, as I love to play that opening. That one game, however, is very instructional (watch that bishop, black!)

Just my 3.5 cents. My fave instructional book.