Maxims of Chess [Paperback]

John W. Collins (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press (January 12, 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067914403X
• ISBN-13: 978-0679144038
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,915,316 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good enough for goverment job... ;-), January 31, 2005

By 

Hoa H (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Maxims of Chess (Paperback)

Collins took more than 100 chess maxims from his teaching, chess history, chess masters and writers and categorized such that they can be used as a checklist during a game. They illustrated how to use each piece (King, Queen, Rook, Bishop, Knight and Pawn) where and where most efficiently. Each stage of chess game (Opening, Middle game and Endgame) has its own set of maxims. There is a chapter about Exchange. And there are four more chapters about the topics that sometimes I feel I understand what they are and many times I just can't tell what they really are. Those topics are: Tactical Play, Positional Play, Combinations and Strategy. Each maxim in the book has a master game or endgame study to go with it for clarification. The final chapter is about a philosophy of chess, which has no games. The author had a wishful thinking that Fischer would come back and dominate chess again. The book was written in 1978. Fifteen years later, there comes another similar book, "The Tao of Chess." Comparing "Tao" to "Maxims", the former is about fifteen percent as good as the latter. Maxims passes the test of time and is good enough for beginning to immediate level.