I took a trip to Wijk aan Zee in Holland this January to play a weekend event in the Tata Steel tournament. It was a fun and well-organized event, and I managed to take second place in my group. To my surprise, there were book prizes for first and second place, and I found a little book that caught my attention. This little book is Attack & Counterattack in Chess by Fred Reinfeld.
The book has 12 chapters that covers topics such as seizing the initiative, utilizing superior development and exploiting weaknesses. The first seven chapters are written from White's point of view, and the last five from Black's. The structure of each chapter is basically the same. The reader is given a general principle or recommendation followed by an example from a game. You can find an excerpt on the publishers webpage that gives a good impression of what this may look like.
As is the case for many chess books, it is quite easy to recommend a player to take advantage of the opponent's mistakes, but doing this in practice is a different thing altogether. So although the book claims to explain things like "how to exploit Black's errors of judgement", it really only gives examples of how this has been done by other players. This is by no means a weakness of the book, but I think it is important that potential readers do not get their hopes set too high and expect ready-made solutions that can be implemented directly. Rather, the book teaches a way to approach the game or a mindset that will be helpful.
For instance, I really like the chapter that covers play against gambits. Reinfeld quite accurately states that the initiative is key in gambit openings, and that material is secondary - a gambiteer will usually sacrifice a pawn to gain the initiative and/or superior development. Therefore, Reinfeld suggests that one should look for opportunities to give back the material in order to gain development, initiative or positional advantages. This is an approach that can easily be put to practical use. You will find golden nuggets like this in every chapter, which is the best thing about the book.
As you can see from the excerpt, the book contains a fair amount of prose to balance the raw variations, both as an introduction and summary for each game as well as related to key positions and moves. I have a personal preference for "talky" chess books, so this is right up my alley.
I have had this book as a travel companion and read on the train to and from work. So for the most part, I've read the book without a board. For this purpose, I find that the number of moves between each diagram can be a bit too much for me to keep the entire game in my head. But on the few occasions this has happened, I've turned to my phone for help and played through the moves in a chess app.
One thing that is a minor inconvenience is that comments and corrections are given as endnotes rather than footnotes (see e.g The art of attack). This means that the reader will have to turn to the end of the book to find these comments rather than simply take a look at the bottom of the page. This is not a big thing, but an improvement that could easily have been made.
For more details, you can also check out Chris Wainscott's review here.
What can you expect from this book?
Fred Reinfeld (1910-1964) was an incredibly prolific writer, and has written well over 100 (!) chess books. Many of these have been out of print for a long time, but in recent years, several of his books have been updated and republished. Attack and counterattack in chess is a "21st century edition" of the original publication from 1958. The book has been translated to algebraic notation, and the variations have been checked with engines. For the most part, the variations are correct, and on the rare occasions where they are not, alternative lines are given at the end of the book.The book has 12 chapters that covers topics such as seizing the initiative, utilizing superior development and exploiting weaknesses. The first seven chapters are written from White's point of view, and the last five from Black's. The structure of each chapter is basically the same. The reader is given a general principle or recommendation followed by an example from a game. You can find an excerpt on the publishers webpage that gives a good impression of what this may look like.
As is the case for many chess books, it is quite easy to recommend a player to take advantage of the opponent's mistakes, but doing this in practice is a different thing altogether. So although the book claims to explain things like "how to exploit Black's errors of judgement", it really only gives examples of how this has been done by other players. This is by no means a weakness of the book, but I think it is important that potential readers do not get their hopes set too high and expect ready-made solutions that can be implemented directly. Rather, the book teaches a way to approach the game or a mindset that will be helpful.
For instance, I really like the chapter that covers play against gambits. Reinfeld quite accurately states that the initiative is key in gambit openings, and that material is secondary - a gambiteer will usually sacrifice a pawn to gain the initiative and/or superior development. Therefore, Reinfeld suggests that one should look for opportunities to give back the material in order to gain development, initiative or positional advantages. This is an approach that can easily be put to practical use. You will find golden nuggets like this in every chapter, which is the best thing about the book.
As you can see from the excerpt, the book contains a fair amount of prose to balance the raw variations, both as an introduction and summary for each game as well as related to key positions and moves. I have a personal preference for "talky" chess books, so this is right up my alley.
I have had this book as a travel companion and read on the train to and from work. So for the most part, I've read the book without a board. For this purpose, I find that the number of moves between each diagram can be a bit too much for me to keep the entire game in my head. But on the few occasions this has happened, I've turned to my phone for help and played through the moves in a chess app.
One thing that is a minor inconvenience is that comments and corrections are given as endnotes rather than footnotes (see e.g The art of attack). This means that the reader will have to turn to the end of the book to find these comments rather than simply take a look at the bottom of the page. This is not a big thing, but an improvement that could easily have been made.
For more details, you can also check out Chris Wainscott's review here.
Who should read this book?
Attack and counterattack in chess is clearly a book for the amateur player. The explanations do not presuppose any specific knowledge from the reader, so even players that are more or less just starting out should be able to follow the main principles put forth in the book. This being said, I would not label this as a beginner's book. Post-beginners and intermediate players should also be able to find some good practical tips that may help improve their games. I think most players with a playing strength up to about 1700 may get something out of the book. Personally, I recognized most principles from before, but still found it enjoyable.
About this book
| Author: | Fred Reinfeld |
| Title: | Attack and counterattack in chess |
| Type of book: | Chess improvement |
| Level: | Beginner/intermediate |
Comments
Post a Comment