Learn Chess Fast! by Sammy Reshevsky - Softcover

Reshevsky, Sammy; Reinfeld, Fred

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9784871878654: Learn Chess Fast! by Sammy Reshevsky

Softcover

ISBN 10: 4871878651 ISBN 13: 9784871878654

Publisher: Ishi Press, 2011

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IN THIS remarkable book, a great master and a great teacher have collaborated to produce what is probably the clearest and simplest guide to the game ever written. Containing more than 300 diagrams, Learn Chess Fast! Has been specially designed and streamlined to impart a knowledge of chess in an entertaining and effortless manner. This book is attractively produced to introduce many thousands of Americans to the delight of the Royal Game. Learn Chess Fast is a basic chess beginners book written in a rare collaboration between the strongest chess player in America and possibly the world at that time and the best and prolific writer about the game of chess. This book teaches the legal moves of chess plus it explains the descriptive notation by which chess games were recorded. After that, it explains the basic principles of the game and shows some tricks and traps. It concludes with some examples of grandmaster play. Although being in descriptive notation is a negative, there are positives. This is a beginners book and beginning players usually find descriptive notation easier. Also, this book teaches descriptive notation and this explanation is not often to be found in modern books. These older books really teach chess better, at least in my opinion. The newer books are often compilations based on computer printouts from databases containing millions of master games. I do not believe that the newer books are equal to the older books in pure instructional value. Even I have learned something from reading this book. On page 46, it presents an opening trap I had never seen before. It goes like this: 1. P-K4 P-K4, 2. Kt-KB3 Kt-QB3 3. B-Kt5 Kt-B3 4. P-Q3 Kt-K2 Here Black has set a trap and White falls right into it: 5. KtxP P-QB3 6. Kt-B4 PxB 7. Kt-Q6 checkmate! White set a counter trap and Black fell into it. However, if Black had made a simple defensive move, 6. .... Kt-Kt3 there would have followed 7. B-R4 P-QKt4 and Black's pawn would have forked White's bishop and knight, thereby winning a piece and the game. Exactly the same moves, in modern Algebraic notation, would be as follows: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. d3 Ne7 5. Nxe5 c6 6. Nc4 cxb5 7. Nd6# As can be seen, Algebraic Notation is more efficient and more computer friendly, but the older Descriptive Notation is more “user friendly”.

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About the Author:

Sammy Reshevsky was born on November 26, 1911. Most chess players reach their peak at age 30. It was Reshevsky's misfortune that he reached his peak during the World War II years. He played in the World Championship tournament in 1948 and in the Candidates Tournament in Zurich 1953. In both events there were rumors and reports of collusion by the Soviets to prevent Reshevsky from winning the world championship which he probably would have won in a fair contest. Fischer is quoted as saying that Reshevsky was the strongest player in the world and would have easily defeated World Champion Botvinnik in a match at that time. However, Reshevsky never got the chance. There is no doubt at all that Reshevsky was the strongest USA player. He won the US championship seven times, in 1936, 1938, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1946 and 1969. Although Fred Reinfeld is now remembered as a writer about chess and other subjects, he was also a strong player. In the 1950 USCF Rating List he was rated number 6 in the United States with a rating of 2593. He defeated Reshevsky twice and Fine once in tournament games and drew World Champion Alekhine in the grandmaster tournament in Pasadena 1932, the strongest tournament ever played in the Western United States. Reinfeld wrote more than one hundred chess books. In his day, almost all young chess players started off on his books.

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