Pandolfini's Ultimate Guide to Chess
-
-
3.7 • 40 Ratings
-
-
- $14.99
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
From America’s foremost chess coach and game strategist for Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit comes a comprehensive guide covering all aspects of the game, to improve your technique whether you are a newcomer or a longtime fan.
One of America's best-known chess masters, Bruce Pandolfini has helped millions learn the intricacies of chess through his acclaimed books and workshops. In this exciting volume, he presents a complete overview of the entire game and its culture. Structured as a dialogue between a beginning student and an expert teacher, Pandolfini's Ultimate Guide to Chess takes the student step-by-step from fundamentals to advanced, highly strategic play. Combining easy-to-follow diagrams with trenchant and up-to-date analysis, Pandolfini puts a new twist on accepted chess theory, offering a seamless beginning-to-end approach, including:
• a short introductory history of the game
• the moves, rules, and contemporary notation forms
• the basic principles of chess
• how to develop an opening repertoire
• the art of tactical play
• pattern recognition and memory aids
• traps and pitfalls to be avoided
• middlegame play, strategy, and planning
• defense and counterattack
• transitions to the endgame and the endgame itself
• computers and the future of chess
• the best websites for playing chess online
With Pandolfini's expert insight into the history and modern world of chess, as well as several appendices to enhance play and appreciation, Pandolfini's Ultimate Guide to Chess makes the perfect gift for players of all ages and will be the benchmark title for chess players for years to come.
Customer Reviews
Decent intermediate book
Lots of errors that were confusing.
Errata: in my ebook
Diagrams 11 and 12 reversed
Diagrams 98 and 99 are identical, 99 is supposed to show the solution to 98
Diagrams 100 and 101 are also identical to 98, repeating the error.
Diagrams 102 and 103 are again identical to 98. The caption to 103 is different, “the rook mates”, which makes no sense and suggests that an entirely different diagram goes here.
Critique
Suitable for intermediate players. The discussions of tactics and strategy are very practical for intermediate players. I think beginning players would have difficulty following it after the introductory chapters, which explain the basic features of chess. These basics are tedious for intermediate players, so the book perhaps tries to do too much.
After the introductory chapters the structure of the book is a single, typical game. At each move the author considers various moves and their consequences. This is the useful meat of the book. However, he doesn’t always make it clear which of the several moves he settles on to continue the “actual” game. He suggests using two chessboards (of course you have two!) and playing the “actual” game on one and the analyses on the other. I did this, but he doesn’t often tell you which move was the actual one, so the two boards got hopelessly muddled. Since the “actual” game is the narrative thread that is supposed to organize the material, that is a serious defect.
Wonderful chess book
I'm do glad I picked this up. A wonderful student/teacher "story" helps to impart all the little nuances of being a good to great chess player. Worth every penny.