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Chessville
Advertise to Single insert:
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Learn Chess in 40 Hours A Self-Tutor for Beginners and Advanced Players Reviewed by David Surratt
Learn Chess In 40 Hours is the 11th volume in the Edition Olms series Progress In Chess. The Editiorial Board consists of GMs Victor Korchnoi, Helmut Pfleger, Nigel Short, and Rudolf Teschner. The current volume was translated by Stephanie Salomo and Edited by Ken Neat. Other titles in the series include Mark Dvoretsky's deservedly famous School of Chess Excellence series, Korchnoi's Chess Is My Life and other Korchnoi titles, plus a few others. The material is presented in the familiar two-column per page format (see sample page below); diagrams are just over two inches per side, clear & with the coordinates labeled along the sides. The paper is strong and clean. All told, the production values are excellent, as we have come to expect from Edition Olms. The 40 hours idea is based on the 40 lessons contained in the book. A cursory glance at the Table of Contents reveals that the book is divided into five sections: Basic Principles (hours 1-6), The Opening (hours 7-21), Chess Tactics (hours 22-30), Chess Strategy (hours 31-38) and finally, "The Finale" (hours 39 & 40). Now one of the concerns I had starting out with this book is the idea that it could be useful to both a beginner and an advanced player. Of course, the later is subject to varying degrees of interpretation, so let's take a look at some of the specific contents. The Preface, written by GM Rudolf Teschner, provides some fairly standard advice for beginners - leave the "Specialized Opening Theory" (lessons 11-21) until the end, and focus instead on tactics (lessons 22-30). This advice raises the question of why, if the openings (other than general opening theory - lessons 7-10) should be studied last, are they placed before tactics? The beginner shouldn't be expected to organize their own course of study, should they? In the 1st Hour lesson, before even a single piece's move has been explained, the reader encounters the following: In chess, mind often triumphs over matter, for example when an attack involving a sacrifice forces checkmate. Generally, though, both sides need to pay strict attention to avoiding big material losses. Even the loss of a pawn can already be decisive. The opponent can then revert to the simplest plan that exists in chess: exchange all the other pieces, advance the remaining pawn to the opponent's back rank, promote it to a queen or rook, and then, with the help of his own king, succeed in checkmating its rival. The exchange of units of equal value serves to simplify a situation, to achieve a more favourable position, or to avoid a loss of tempo (through an otherwise necessary retreat). Right away we can see that this book is written for adults, and I wonder if even many adults might find the reading level of this book a bit too high for easy learning of the material presented. And the material - as I said, not even a single piece's moves have been explained yet, and here we are discussing material loss, exchanges, ranks, pawn promotion, loss of tempo etc. Perhaps the authors intend learning to occur in cumulative fashion, but I am skeptical and this is a theme to keep an eye on as we continue our examination of this book.
On page 11 we begin to learn about how the pieces move. Ignore for a moment the fact that the text refers to the straight lines as arrows, and focus instead on how the knight's move is introduced. The diagram is good, but the text isn't so good, and I offer it along with, by way of comparison, Yasser Seirawan & Jeremy Silman's description in Play Winning Chess:
This seems like a good time to talk about the notation that
is used. It is a curious form of long-algebraic mixed with figurine
algebraic. Where in the olden days of my youth I learned to read K-QN4
and then later, Kb4, this book offers the same move as
Moving along into the third lesson the author attempts to teach mating technique with king & rook vs. a lone king. Here are the two diagrams used:
In Diagram 1 the text gives the following sequence of moves: 1.Kb4 Kb2 2.Rd2+ Kc1 3.Kc3 Kb1 4.Kb3 Kc1 5.Rd8 Kb1 6.Rd1. However, the book does not give the even faster mate, diverging from the text at move two, with 2.Rc4 Ka2 3.Kc3 Kb1 4.Kb3 Ka1 5.Rc1. One might also argue that it is better to teach the basic pattern of forcing the king back, one rank at a time, which also serves to effect mate, and is very very different than the process with a queen. Now in Diagram 2 the text says that it is mate-in-16, which is correct. And the text gives the procedure as follows: 1.Rd7+ Kc6 2.Rd1 Kc7 3.Ka7 Kc6 4.Ka6 Kc5 5.Ka5 Kc4 6.Kb6 Kc3 7.Kb5 Kc2 8.Rd4 Kc3 9.Kc5 Kb3 [9...Kc2 10.Kb4 see diagram 1] 10.Rc4 Ka3 11.Rb4 Ka2 12.Kc4 Ka3 13.Kc3 Ka2 14.Kc2 Ka3 15.Rh4 Ka2 16.Ra4. The thing that strikes me about these two examples is the paucity of explanation provided. The move lists are given virtually without interruption, and even that provided before or after the move lists are not explanatory of the technique. My own opinion is that learners, especially adult readers, need the maximum variety of learning modes possible to reap the greatest benefit in the shortest time. The more advanced player (remember the sub-title) gets his or her share of material in the book as well, as Teschner covers such topics as distant opposition (lesson 39), queen against rook & pawn (lesson 40), and the thematic sacrifice on h7/h2 (lesson 29), or lesson 30 - Mating Combinations (IV) Alekhine's Mating Attacks. While I can not recommend this as a first
chess book for the total beginner, there is much of value here for the
advanced beginner. I would suggest this as a good first book for the
adult chessplayer who already knows the rules of the game, has played around
with chess a little, and is now ready to begin a more formal education in
the essential elements of chess.
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c4-b4.
This may be an excellent means of introducing beginners to chess notation,
in that it makes it easy for them to follow along. The problem I see
with its use in this book is that the reader is not introduced to the more
standard form of short algebraic notation in common usage at most web sites
and in most books, making the reader's transition to other books more
difficult. The book would be improved by adding a short discussion of
standard short-form algebraic notation.
