Customer Reviews

Secrets of Practical Chess (Gambit Chess)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is aimed at the competitive chess player. Over a third of the book is in the section titled "At the Board" and time considerations factor heavily into the presentation.

Only a dozen pages are devoted to the opening and they are mostly aimed at evaluating chess books on unusual openings. This section can be skipped entirely without much loss.

The middlegame has all of 20 pages dedicated to it, but they do manage to offer some "practical" advice once again. Most of it comes in "blurbs" - little nuggets of advice based on what has worked for a very successful GM.

The rest of the book is devoted to the endgame and although it recounts some well-known ending basics such as opposition, triangulation, and R+P vs R ending, it also contains some very good information that is not nearly so well known. Such includes: Black's ideal defensive pawn formation in a 4v3 pawn ending with all pawns on the same side; why the c pawn offers the best winning chances in a Q+P vs Q ending; and some handy rules for R vs N and R vs B pawnless endings.

On the whole, the book is quite "practical" and probably worth the price to a fair number of club players of lesser strength.

Notice this edition of Nunn's "Secrets of Practical Chess" is called a "New Enlarged Edition". No claim is made about revising, updating or improving exsisting material from the first edition. The [...]review of the new edition claims that the first 4 chapters are identical to the original. Only the chapters on Using a Computer and Chess Literature are expanded.

If you do not own the first edition the second is a must buy. Otherwise you can pass on the new enlarged edition.

The book is interesting primarily as a example of grandmaster style thinking about calculating variations, judging opening repertoires, middle pitfallls, and basic endgame knowledge. But be warned: it is not a primer. The author has not devised a "chess study plan" for self-improvement. Anyone looking for commandments about calculating move sequences, avoiding time trouble ("just don't get in it"), opening choices, detailed strategic planning, etc., should be looking at books specifically aimed at giving a program. This book is more like listening to a knowledgeable Grandmaster lecture at a quiet chess club, sipping some wine and discussing topics.

This book was very frustrating to me, as I was expecting a cohesive instructional work. What I got was "snapshots" of practical chess--hints here and there, but with no cohesive theme. I am not sure whom this book is aimed at, or what niche it fills. I find Purdy's book, The Search for Chess Perfection, much more helpful as to "secrets" or practical chess.

The emphasis of this book is improvement for the least time effort and it delivers. Nunn's tips on how to calculate variations and his dissection of Kotov's famous tree of analysis are excellent. The chapter on offbeat openings is a must read as Nunn basically refutes the Latvian Gambit and the Moeller Attack in the Giuco Piano in 10 pages!

I particularly liked the section on the endgame. I am not about to sit through a 200 page endgame manual and memorize things like "this ending is a win with K on e7 and R at a2 but a draw if the K is on d6; however, if the passed pawn is a RP, then the White K must be on the 3 squares in front of the RP, etc." Nunn gives good basic rules and examples in the endgame which, if you learn, should cover 90 percent of your endgames.

This book is nearly as good as Tisdall's "Better chess now". The chapter on calculating variations actually advocates more or less the same procedure and even cites Tisdall. The book contains highly interesting tips on any phase of the game. I especially liked the chapters on opening preparation and on how to use computers to improve. As almost any book of John Nunn "Secrets of practical chess" is written in a clear and enjoyable style. This book is certainly of great value for players of all levels.

The highlighted comments of Dr J Sarfati are well written - he is an excellent Amazon reviewer. I agree that John Nunn's book is a goldmine of useful tips, and includes many a remedy for bad habits. The great thing about Nunn's writing is that he does not have an agenda. Unlike, say, an author trying to sell you his book on a dubious opening variation. Nunn just tells it as it is.
The chapter on building an opening repertoire should be compulsory reading for anyone serious about improvement, or who wishes to better their competitive results. Keys lessons: a) never, ever, play the Latvian Gambit, and b) choose a sensible and sound opening repertoire.
GM Nunn devotes the first third of the book to the role of decision making (including the analysis tree thing) and examining why oversights happen. There follows the opening section, which mainly consists of that stern warning: do not be seduced by the lure of those off-beat lines. Unsound variations will do nothing for your long term improvement. The comes the middlegame section, dealing with good positions, bad positions, attack and defense.
I was surprised to find the endgame section equally fascinating. The final 50 or so pages feature all manner of practical situations, and cover a wide range of typical scenarios. You will never take a routine endgame for granted again after seeing these amazing examples.
I rate this the best book ever written for the competitive player.

I paid £15(pounds sterling! though 15 dollars would be bad enough) for this book and that was about 5 years ago! (not from amazon I hasten to add). It didnt help me at all as a beginner and it hasnt done anything for me as a more experienced player.
My gripe of the book is this:

1)Nunn slags off kotovs tree type analysis as not being efficient or helpful to humans, I agree totally but I dont need someone with a Phd to tell me this, (most players who have tried the tree method will find it awkward to say the least) but there isnt much detailed advice on alternative methodology.

2)He exposes some poor analysis by another chess author (a rival company, no suprise, im sure gambit books have no errors whatsoever anywhere in their books), so what? doesnt help me at all. I dont even own the other book, I own this one and its not helping me!

3)He spends alot of time slagging off rare openings and books of a particular genre (another rival publishing house again!, becoming a bad habit this John) on rarely played opening lines and to an extent he is right (the idea of "winning with" any particular opening is absurd), but there are objections to this dont play rare openings approach:

(a)Amateur chess (and I dont think this book is meant for IMs or GMs) is rarely won in the opening, a slight advantage to white/black at move 20 is unlikely to determine the result of the game.

(b) Many rare openings are not bad, they are just not fashionable atm with GM's.

(c)You can find a bad book on "popular" openings as easily as you may find one on rare openings, I know this because I own some.

(d)Nunn says its best to study mainlines of respectable openings like the ruy/sicilian, maybe some of us dont have the time/memory to prepare for the white side of the ruy/french/caro kann/alekhin/pirc/sicilian -scheveningen, najdorf, klashinikov, dragon, paulsen ,sveshnikov, pelican,nimzowitsch, Kan, taimonov,polugaevsky, cheesegrater, lawnmower variation. I expect most people under 2000elo would gain more by investing a tenth of this mainline preparation time in tactics/endgame study.

(e)Nothing is said about the pyschological affect of a non mainstream opening on an opponent.

4)The endings section is sketchy and -although this is a matter a personal taste- not very well explained.

5) Many subjects just seem to be discussed superficially or in an unhelpful manner such as time trouble basically he says dont get into time trouble! and others nuggets like make sure you arrive on time (lol). What little amount of good advice was in this book could have been fitted into a magazine article.

6)Theres virtually nothing about the importance of tactics, yes you could just calculate everything but you would soon tire and you would use alot of time (some proper advice on time trouble -take note!) where as a thorough familarity with a particular tactic could allow you to spot and play/prevent a combination more or less instantly.


I feel compelled to write this review as I have purchased lots of books which were not cheap and didnt do anything to improve my game, but perhaps this one is the most dissapointing as it is by a very strong player and cost £15! (I know ive already said that, but this is an absurd amount for a flimsy paperback).
There are established classic books (old and new) out there which do represent value for money (many dover books for example) and will help improve your game, my advice to anyone buying a chess book is to read reviews that concentrate on the books and ignore reviews which are written by sycophantic cult followers of the author, reviews that start with "so and so has excelled himself.." or "so and so was one the strongest..." etc (amazon.com allows you to check contents page for most books,which is recommended), and dont assume that really good players will write good books! And before someone writes a review and says something like "its not meant for weak or average players" then ok tell me what a strong player will get out of this book?

As a last note I would like to add that I do not have some vendetta with the author who has produced some excellent books for advanced players such as "understanding chess move by move". Which is expensive but justifed by the work/expertise which has obviously gone into it, and may well become a "classic".

This is a good book but not for the reason that it says it is. On the back cover it seems like another chess psychology book that just tells you how to think(BTW most of those really don't help) but I loved the annotations more than anything. He is a great annotator and if you really study it is easy to learn. I also found the endgame section to be especially helpful as it fill in knowledge gaps left by other endgame books. a great book.

Although there are no quick-fix promises made, the always sensible Nunn advice and clear-cut writing will probably make this the most useful improvement book you will ever own. The section on openings and selecting an opening repertoire is required reading for anyone of tournament level. Famously Nunn demolishes the Latvian Gambit in one section (Books on Offbeat Openings).
Whilst that analysis in itself is of some importance, Nunn's main objective was to pound home an important point - an opening repertoire based on risky sidelines is in danger of being busted overnight. A well-written and well-focused book.