Customer Reviews

Weapons of Chess: An Omnibus of Chess Strategies (Fireside Chess Library)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Wow! This book came as a surprize from Pandolfini - it is the best book he has written and it is good! If you are rated in the 900 to 1400 range then you will be in tune with "Weapons of Chess".

The book contains a nice touch on the "use of Pawns", isolated "d" Pawns, and Pawn structures and use. Then, the use of Bishops such as the bad Bishop, Bishop pair, Bishops of opposite colors, fianchetto, etc... The use of Rooks such as doubled rook effectivelness. After this book you might consider getting "How to Reassess your Chess" by Silman as the next step, and along with this book at this level getting "Unbeatable Chess Lessons for Juniors" for nice games with important strategic concepts.

Bravo for Pandolfini on this one!

I got this book as part of a bundle of books I purchased. I didn't think much of it. However, I would read it every once in a while when I didn't have a board handy or wanted some "light" reading. Many of the concepts were not new to me (USCF Rating ~1700). However, I found his discussion of different elements of pawn structure to be very informative. Particularly, his detailed discussion of isolated d-pawns, backwards pawns, doubled pawns, and pawn majorities were pretty good I think.

I play many openings which garner the isolated d-pawn (both with and against it) and my study of this topic in this book really helped my play in these positions. He breaks down the isolated d-pawn into strengths, weaknesses, and what to do when you have it and when you are playing against it. These sections I think are the best in the book.

The strength of this book is its simplicity. I think it is important to know the ideas (which you can gain from this book) and to see many concrete examples from master play (which you should find in other books). If you have many books on pawn structure, you may not want this book.

I found the other sections to be not as helpful, because other books I had did a sufficient job in teaching me these concepts. However, I think this is a good book for general positional ideas, particularly in the realm of pawn structures, which is an important one in chess.

I recommend this book for players under 1500. Players over 1500 may have much of this knowledge and I would recommend Silman's The Amateur's Mind to those.

Please don't be mislead by all the bad reviews. There is a simple reason why many of the readers give this book a bad review: they probably already know the material.

If you are already a 1500 player, this book will probably not help you much. If you are 1000 it will be divine inspiration. The truth is that Bruce Pandolfini _regularly_ churns out positively horrid books. This is one exception that should be read by any weak player....if you already know the material in this, you shouldn't be reading Pandolfini level books anyway.

By the way, this is one of the three books I recommend for players, the other two (in order of playing strength) are: Reassess your chess (Silman) Play/Think Like a grandmaster (Kotov).

This book is for the smart beginner after he has played a bit.

This book is essentially a glossary of basic chess concepts. If you don't know what a "bad bishop" or "backward pawn" is this book will be very informative. If you do, spend your money elsewhere on more advanced books. This book will help you identify elements, but it is not much help in teaching how to use them. Good for players rated 1100 or less perhaps.

I love this book. I take it with me to tournaments and read through it as a warm up for my games. It does not require to much intense thinking, but serves as a great reminder of Important principles. It is perfect for any one rated under 1600. I belive the principles in this book are so important that you can't go over them to thourghly, but they are not so advanced as to require indepth deep analyisis. In my most recent tournament I used concepts that I had just reviewed in the book to win two games that I would probably had drawn (first game) or lost. (second game) These aren't new concepts but because they are presented in such an easily digestible manner they are ingrained quickly and easily. I like to read this while I try to relax between rounds. You can put it down when ever you want and come back to it even after a long time and you'll remember exactly what was going on in the book. Unlike many other books i I don't have to read through the entire chapter to keep from loosing the train of thought. this book won't make you an expert but if you wan't to gain an under standing of the vitals of chess with out wasting hours crouched over your chess board Pick up a copy.

Way to go, Bruce! I am a class C-ish player who picked up the game again after 20 years hiatus (kids wanted to learn, so I decided to brush up so I could teach them). Unfortunately, I realized I was nothing more than a woodpusher and knew little or nothing about basic chess strategy. After working through the first 2 Lev Alburt books (excellent by the way), I found that further strategy books were over my head, or tried to teach above my level (Reassess Your Chess by Silman was a little over my head at first); other books offered to many games as examples without enough info on WHY the moves were being played. Then, someone recommended Pandolfini's Weapons of Chess to me. I must say that this book answered a lot of simple questions I had about pawn structure, weak squares/strong squares, and general strategy that other books ASSUMED I already knew. Obviously it isn't a book for the Expert, but for me it fit the bill perfectly. I am not sure why some chess authors knock Pandolfini and his books; for those who need to know the basics, this is the one to get.

This book is pretty good introduction to positional concepts and how to take advantage of positional weaknesses. A lot of the information is very basic (isolated/backward/doubled pawns, pawn islands etc.) However, the discussion of how an isolated d-pawn is often a middlegame attacking advantage is not so basic. There are other books that cover similar information, and more in depth. What I like about this book is the easy to read format. The examples are clear and there are no long variations. There are tons of diagrams. You don't need to understand chess notation or have a chess set handy to read it and understand the concepts. You can read it anywhere, anytime. Pandolfini has gotten a bad reputation (as Reinfeld did) for churning out shoddy potboilers, and somewhat deservedly so, but this book can be very useful for a relative beginner who needs to understand the basic positional language of chess.

It seems like you either love this book or you hate it. Positional chess is hard to explain and hard to learn, but this book does the best job I've seen of explaining positional concepts to relatively new players. If you already understand pawn structures, then don't buy it, but if you've heard that doubled pawns are bad but don't really know why, then this book is for you.

Pandolfini's idea of using no chess notation is very interesting. I know I lose interest when all I see is columns of notation, and it's nice to have a book that does not require you to have a board in front of you. The wordiness of "move the king's pawn to the third square" gets old after many repetitions, but I still think it's a good idea for the intended audience -- someone who knows the moves and wants to learn more.

I'm one of those people whose rating is under 1600 (as written above), and this book certainly is great for me. At the end of each chapter Pandolfini writes a very nice and informative summary that truly helps. The principles he outlines, as I can perceive, come across as though you are truly getting expert teaching that you should take to heart. I absolutely loved one of the lessons in an end game on how to make a pawn (3 pawns vs. 3 pawns)breakthrough and become a queen (it requires 2 pawn sacrifices); Principles about how to try and manipulate your pawns when you have a good or bad bishop; and of course more. This book has me wanting to now purchase books on end game lessons. Learning the "tricks" and proper methods is so much fun to learn.

This book teaches basically all the exact same things that are in Reassess Your Chess, only Reassess Your Chess takes these basically pretty simple concepts and tries to make them seem much more profound, great selling tactic by Mr. Sillman. This book teaches you all the same positional concepts in an easier more accessible manner. These are all concepts that I basically learned by trial and error by playing a 1,000 games or so when I didn't think I needed a book to learn how to play, this book would of been a nice short cut! All of Padolfini's books are for relative beginners so if you are relatively advanced stay away from his books obviously, but for newbies this could be the fashizle!

Some other things I judge books by besides actual chess content is paper and print quality and price, nice white paper with easy to read print and diagrams, paper is a bit thin and you can see the diagrams from other pages through the paper though. At $4 ($7.50 plus shipping) it is a great deal!