A player with a high rating may criticize that the games are too simplistic and old fashioned, but to appreciate the modern theory and its subtleties I imagine you've got to know the classical play first.

It would be nice to have this as an e-book with annotated pgns, but apparently his widow has not been very receptive to publishing deals. Shows how the struggle for space and tempo creates strengths and weaknesses that lead to attacking opportunities.Highly recommended to any enthusiast who wants to build a platform to be more than just a hobby player. I intended to gobble up some new hobby practice, but the challenge of reading through these 33 games for a beginner player such as myself was a shock of 5months! 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.

Almost every game had two points where the author explained that castling gets the king to safer position while freeing a rook for action. The games in part three have lessons more subtle than the first two part, I think the theme is that good positional development naturally leads to tactical opportunities.

Even if you know what the symbols mean and even if you are actively following every move on a material chessboard, reading and comprehending statements like 'If (a long line of symbols), then (again a litany of symbols)' can get real frustrating real quick. The games are extremely well chosen, and if the repetitive first move analysis becomes tiresome the rest if perfectly on target. A student in the chess club I started at school this year managed to win the right to represent our province at his grade level in next month's Canadian national chess tournament, so time to get some new training materials.

I could not have been more stupid in ignoring this book so long, not to mention being wrong about all of the above. In this much loved classic, Irving Chernev explains 33 complete games in detail, telling the reader the reason for every single move. Blockade with pawns, then start getting king towards center for its unexcelled power among pawns as board empties in the endgame. This book purposely repeats the analysis and rationale over and over (phrased slightly differently each time) to drill the concept into the reader’s mind. Chernev does not repeat himself, but drums up new insight and wit every time the first move is repeated.At least then I would not have had such an ego problem and there were no chess engines to argue with. A very modern table containing a comparison of the mobility of pieces in terms squares they could move to - which I had seen in one of Dan Heisman's books and thought it was a great invention. First, you can only truly understand what's written if you are actually recreating every move on a chessboard in front of your eyes.