Highly recommended to any enthusiast who wants to build a platform to be more than just a hobby player. Chernev had a good point, but personally this 'fixation' with not moving pawns in front of castled king held me back for a while.

Irving Chernev, Logical Chess: Move by Move (1957) has earned its place as a classical text that is often recommended to players who seek to improve their chess skills.

When I believe that I have identified the critical turning points, the main positional ideas, and the key tactical alternatives, I read through Chernev's annotations. In his kingside attack section, which features some nice games the 'culprit', and eventual loser, often moves his rook's pawn forward a square. fantastic scene of torch bearing sacrifice orc-pawn marching up the field as the heroes are lock-horned. A couple of years ago, I picked up the Batsford edition and it has been sitting on my shelf collecting dust. My first chess book was a Dover paperback copy of Irving Chernev's "The Most Instructive Games Ever Played".

The author splits the games into three chapters, dealing with kingside attacks (16 games), queen's pawn openings (7 games), and other concepts (10 games). There are two remarkable promotions of Pawns, and a third in the offing, before White decides to capitulate. In many ways, it would a wonderful 'first' book (or first 'serious' book, after the ones which teach the rules and elementary mates, for example), and a nice gift for a young player just taking up chess. There is also a sufficient number of diagrams so that you won't get too lost as the game progresses. At least then I would not have had such an ego problem and there were no chess engines to argue with.The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. You see how a lead in development leads to an attack, how the battle for space affects the entire course of the game, and numerous endgames by World Champion Jose Raul Capablanca where simple and elegant play rule the day.

Then a few days later I went back and ran through it again, but this time I followed the moves but then I also ran the alternate moves. On the first board it would contain the position in the main line, and you would use the second board to play out the sub-variations.

I'm not sure why I read this book, but I bought it a few years ago for some reason (probably mentioned by some Youtuber) and so I finally finished reading it. Why endgames are so poignant - When material advantage, force a mutual destruction of pieces, endings with only pawns are easiest to win. I've been playing Chess casually for years online(not many people I know play it), and I realized that my rating hadn't gotten better in years. It has the the thoughts of a human master-level player, which are, mistakes and all, better than the all computer analysis lines that anyone can generate. The problem with giving up the center and castling, a diagonal iron curtain is formed by whoever is strong in the center, behind which pieces can be manoevered towards the vulnerable g,h pawns.