Customer Reviews

World Champion Tactics

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This is a typical Eric Schiller book. It contains many interesting examples from the world of chess. First are some examples of the different tactical motifs (pins, skewers, etc) from the games of world champions. I found these examples to be interesting, although several I have seen before in other books. As a class C (USCF rating 1472) tournament chess player the examples were fun, but not overly challenging, which is sort of what I was looking for. Following the examples are some games from the world champions and some puzzles. Again most of these examples are interesting.

The main problem that I have with this and most of Eric Schiller's books are the sloppy editing. There is an error on almost every other page of the book that one does not have to look hard to find. For example on page 30 there is a game where the opening is identified as the "Kings gambit declined". The game starts 1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4. Now I know that I am not "the world's leading writer on chess openings" like Eric Schiller, but I am pretty sure that this is the Kings Gambit ACCEPTED (not declined). This may seem trivial, but almost every page has such errors that a 1400 level proofreader would have been able to catch.

Other errors include having the exact same example of a smothered mate on page 19 and 42 (an example of mindless cutting and pasting). Another is that the numbers are backwards on the diagrams on page 40 and 41 (a1 is labeled as a8). This can make it confusing to the reader. I also did not like how the author gives the full names of World Champions, but not their opponents (ie Garry Kasparov vs Korchnoi). This seems a little insulting to me.

Overall a fun book, but needs some serious editing and proofreading. Eric Schiller needs to focus less on quantity and more on quality.

Are you tired of diagram after diagram of endless tactics in those ordinary tactics books? I sure was. This book makes tactics fun because it shows you how the greats actually used them to win their games. Schiller shows the purity of Capablanca's tactics and the cunning of Kasparov's from some of their best games. Instead of pages upon pages of X-rays, you get Bobby Fischer defeating Bisguier with an X-ray in the World Championship. You might not remember puzzle number 601, but you'll remember that game. I love the anecdotes, the biographies of the world's best players and the quizzes which kept me honest.

Raymond Keene stopped writing original books on chess as long ago as ARON NIMZOVICH: A REAPPRAISAL (1975); ... AND the book sorely needs basic editing which was omitted in the haste of making it. Ask any chess master about this book, if you don't believe me! Get yourself a good book on tactics like the Reinfeld 1001 series instead. (I am a USCF 1800 OTB player.) My rating for this book? ZERO STARS. Save your money.