Chess Mastery by Question and Answer

This little book will teach you everything you need to know about how to play chess using the simple, but very effective, question and answer method. It is easy to read, with the generous use of clearly explained diagrams, and ordered in ascending difficulty. An essential addition to the bookshelf of anyone interested in playing the game of chess.

This is an early Fred Reinfeld work from 1939 before he became famous. Fred Reinfeld was born on January 27, 1910 in New York. His father was from Poland. His mother was from Romania. 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. After that Reinfeld only played in a few other chess events. He spent the rest of his life writing about the game, not playing it. Reinfeld wrote more than one hundred chess books. In his day, almost all young chess players started off on his books. Nowadays, his books are mostly out of print because they were written in descriptive notation, as this one is. It is interesting that this book was first published in 1939 and then reprinted three times in England from 1940 to 1944, even though World War II was raging and it was necessary to comply with the War Production Standard for books. Fred Reinfeld died on May 29, 1964.