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Chess Rules of Thumb Paperback – November 17, 2003
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- Never cross the street before looking both ways.
- Never discuss portable explosives in the airport security line.
- Never overthrow the cut-off man.
- Never download email from someone you don't know.
- Never take the queen's knight pawn.
- The worst square for a White knight is b.2.
- With rook vs. two knights, exchanging queens is worth a pawn.
- Never capture the b.2 pawn with the queen.
- Rooks united on the seventh are blind pigs.
- The winner is the one who commits the next-to-last mistake.
- Never buy a chess book that isn't fun!
- Reading age5 years and up
- Print length192 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- Dimensions5.1 x 0.5 x 7 inches
- PublisherChess Information
- Publication dateNovember 17, 2003
- ISBN-101889323101
- ISBN-13978-1889323107
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About the Author
New Yorker Al Lawrence is one of the most popular modern chess authors. A former high school and college teacher with advanced degrees in instructional techniques, he specializes in applying modern teaching theory to chess. He is also a recipient of the Chess Journalist of the Year award.
Product details
- Publisher : Chess Information (November 17, 2003)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 192 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1889323101
- ISBN-13 : 978-1889323107
- Reading age : 5 years and up
- Item Weight : 6.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.1 x 0.5 x 7 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,602,582 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,385 in Chess (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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This book is loaded with at least 300 often pithy comments that have made over the decades by various grandmasters and masters from Philidor's famous comment that 'The pawn is the soul of chess' through to the rather modern comparison of Rooks on the seventh rank acting like blind pigs.
Will this book teach you the fine points of the Najdorf Sicilian? Sadly, no. Will this book give you extra insight into Rook and pawn endings? Again, sadly, no. But this book will permit you to sit alongside a board and, in true kibitzer style, offer profound, and occasionally sage, words of advice.
The endgame stuff is also very good nearer the end of the book.
It's full of large-print, pithy advice. Sometimes, the advice is quoted from a well-known master, and those few quotations are easily the best parts of the book.
Normally, there are 2 of these per page, but sometimes (at chapter boundaries) none.
The last several pages do not even have this much. Instead, they show diagrams of many different openings, with a brief comment. Typically, the diagrams show only a single move; sometimes 2 or 3. I have no idea how this could be valuable to anyone.
I would say one star, but I save that for truly horrible books. This book exudes quality in its pages, its binding, its printing, etc. All the advice that I read (and you can read the whole thing standing at the bookstore) was sound, but none of it was supported by example. (Well, maybe a few rare examples.) It does not actually require any thinking by the reader. It is similar to some pretty pop philosophy gift-books I've seen in the bargain bins.
I think the book would be most valuable for a chess coach to clip the pages and pin them to a bulletin board. It has absolutely no other value. The author and publisher are certifiably insane if they imagine someone could learn from this.
Addendum:
I have learned that several quotations are wrongly attributed. This poor research turns a 2-star book into a 1-star book. Avoid.