Comprehensive Chess Course Volume II: From Beginner to Tournament Player in 12 Lessons (Comprehensive Chess Course) (Paperback)

by Roman Pelts (Author), Lev Alburt (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 303 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 4th edition (November 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1889323012
• ISBN-13: 978-1889323015
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #426,297 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

216 of 228 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lacks Organization and much more, January 25, 2005

By	J. Ronald - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book looks very impressive when you see it in bookstore - it is big. But I learned my lesson as big doesn't mean it is great. When I got into the material I suddenly discovered that there was an extreme lack of organization. Daa, the book didn't explain what the objective of the game was at the very beginning. It seemed like a person from another country wrote this book with a lack of command of the English Language, then flip flopped around. Well, in looking at this book further and looking at some of the other reviews, I suddenly realized that this book was written as if it was for teachers who didn't know much about chess to introduce them to a classroom. Now this may not sound too bad. However, the problem with is is that it takes things so slowly and out of the order that an experienced chess teacher would use that you have the MOST POORLY WRITTEN BEGINNER'S BOOK ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH. How do I know this? Well, I made an issue of going out and getting several other books that were popular (yes, you might argue 'not every other one' but at least I got what is considered best by popularity to compare). So I got 'Starting Chess', 'Chess For Juniors', 'Chess For Dummies' and 'Idiots Guide to Chess'. Here is what I found - CHESS FOR JUNIORS was the most simple and most easy book of them all to understand though it may not have had as many pages a child of say eight could read it and fully understand it. I ranked this as best. I personally recommend this book as best for even an adult. Now adults would probably benefit most by either getting 'Chess For Juniors' or 'Idiots Guide to Chess'. The Idiots Guide is well organized and though not as easy to understand as 'Chess For Juniors' it does a good job. The 'Chess for Dummy's' book is not very well organized or written, but better for an adult than the Comprehensive Chess Courese. As a second best book for Children, but not so easy for Children themselves to Learn from (a parent should help) I suggest 'Starting Chess'. I spent some good time looking over these books and hope this review will be helpful for someone looking for a beginning book.

48 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Alburt's popular CCC series has seven volumes but.., July 5, 2004

By	Bill King (Reno, Nv., United States) - See all my reviews

...Amazon's current online presentation makes individual volumes hard to locate, even though indeed they are all listed and sold here. It doesn't help that the book titles do not necessarily contain the series volume number. Nor the fact that volumes I and II are listed by Amazon as merely different editions of the same book, and so are given identical online customer reviews :]! But of course these two are entirely different.

So, as a search aid I list the entire seven below.

Actually learning chess from books all from one series will economise on money and time spent. For instance over at the archives of the book review section of www.chesscafe.com, Taylor Kingston's review of number 7 (_Just the Facts_) says, "You should note that you will not find the basic mates in the book. No K+Q versus K, etc. You have to go to the first volume in the Comprehensive Chess Series for that."

A couple other quotes from Kingston: "At any rate, Just the Facts! is splendid in its simplicity and instructional value." and "For bringing clear and simple endgame instruction to the masses, however, Just the Facts! is terrific."

l Comprehensive Chess Course Volume I: Learn Chess in 12 Lessons by Lev Alburt & Roman Pelts

2 Comprehensive Chess Course Volume II: From Beginner to Tournament Player in 12 Lessons by Lev Alburt & Roman Pelts

3 Chess Tactics for the Tournament Player by Sam Palatnik & Lev Alburt

4 The King in Jeopardy by Lev Alburt & Sam Palatnik

5 Chess Strategy for the Tournament Player by Lev Alburt

6 Chess Training Pocket Book: 300 Most Important Positions and Ideas by Lev Alburt

7 Just the Facts!: Winning Endgame Knowledge by Lev Alburt, Nikolai Krogius, Nikolay Krogius

Amazon's book description of 7 says, "Just the Facts! is the seventh and final volume of the best-selling Comprehensive Chess Course,...". So, apparently Lev has now completed this very popular series!

169 of 199 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Slow Methods Using Old Communist Way of Thinking, January 30, 2005

A Kid's Review

I am both a history and chess person. And, I learned in school that using both chess and the making of jam has a lot to do with each other in the way Russia was run under communism. The Government supported chess and wanted every kid to learn (this was good!). But because they didn't have enough chess teachers to go around teaching every kid at every school they needed a simple way for teachers to teach the masses. The answer was a slow way to get teachers to read material and go through things step by step. So there was a method for teachers who knew little or nothing about chess.
Now if you introduced chess to every kid in the United States this way and then had the good teachers work with the ones that show talant then you would produce far more grandmasters than any other country by far. Russians didn't dominate the world by the quality of teaching, but by sheer numbers. Actually this is the communist way (which worked) to defeat Germany in World War Two. They sacrificed about 10 Russian Soldiers for every 1 German Soldier in mass assualts. They could afford the lives and the method to win was not because of superior strategy but because of sheer numbers they could afford to lose. Now look at Germany and look at Russia. Who really won WW2? Germany is rich and now Russia is a disaster because of their entire communist system. It will take them many more years to get out of their mess. Russian Grandmasters have moved from Russia to get away from their poverty.
This book takes the old outmoded way of teaching chess to the masses and trys to dump it on you, trying to tell you because Russian dominated the chess world this must be good.
Just ask Fischer, who may not really be a chess teacher, but he put communist Russia to shame.
The writers of this book were born and raised in communist Russian. Though good players they lack efficient teaching skills. Chess itself doesn't have anything to do with communism. But teaching methods do.