Simple attacking plans

“I had a fantastic position, but I couldn’t figure out what to do next!” Sound familiar? If so, then Fred Wilson’s Simple Attacking Plans was written for you. That is what is written on the back cover of this book, and that is basically what got me sold on it in the first place. After having the book on my reading list for several years, I finally decided to read it.

If you like these reviews, please consider supporting my work. Visit my patreon page for details.
Become a Patron!

What can you expect from this book?

When I first heard about this book (probably on The Perpetual Chess Podcast), I was excited. I thought it would be exactly what I needed - a book that gives me a few simple recipes that I can follow in attacking. That was not the case. The book does provide a few general tips, but they are not very detailed. Here is a (very brief) summary:

Attack f2 or f7
Attack h2 or h7
With a king in the center, open and dominate the central files
Point all of your pieces at your opponent's king

If you've played any chess at all, you will probably recognize these "plans". They are neither concrete nor complex. It's far from enough to build a strategy. But the book does have more to offer.

Simple Attacking Plans is basically a games collection. The theme is (as the title indicates) attacking chess. It has six chapters, but two of them are named "selected games" and "more selected games". Apart from these, there are chapters on "the greek gift", "attacking a fianchetto castled position" and a discussion of the proper names of tactical themes (deflection, undemining, removing the guard). My impression is that author Fred Wilson could have done a bit more with the overall structure and the chapter names - to help the reader extract all the goodness from the selected games. There are important lessons to be learned here, but if you want them, you have to work for it!

Each chapter contains a number of annotated games. All of them are (of course) attacking games, and most of them end in a wonderful combination. The position on the front cover (Browne vs Bellon 1977) is an example that is featured in the introduction chapter. It is a fantastic attacking game. And the book has 36 other such games.

Each game is well annotated. Usually, there's only some general comment about the opening (the name, and a general assessment). However, the focus is on mistakes that are made from one of the players, and how the other player exploits those mistakes.

One thing that I like about the book is that it doesn't give away everything directly. Wilson does encourage the reader to engage in the material and try to find the critical moves in key positions. For instance, when we arrive at the position on the front cover, Wilson asks: "Now how did Browne conclude his attacking gem?". The move is given on the front cover, but why does it work? I won't give it away here. If you can't find it, you'll have to get the book (or DM me).

One thing that I don't like about the book is (as indicated above) the overall structure. It is basically a collection of attacking games, albeit with good annotations. But with such a title, I had expected more clearly outlined attacking plans. Don't get be wrong. The book does provide many examples (37 games) of various ways to attack. It illustrates how the win is executed in all the sample games. But it does not help the reader to extract the basic principles that underpin these attacks. So if you're looking for something along those lines, I would say that The Art of Attack in Chess by Vukovic is a much better choice.

I think Simple Attacking Plans is a nice little book with interesting attacking games. There is something to be learned from each game, but it is not my favorite book on the topic. If you are looking for spectacular attacking games, I think Instructive Chess Miniatures is an excellent choice. The games are equally (or more) exciting, the annotation are equally good, and there are more games. If you are looking for some kind of manual for how to conduct an attack, I think The Art of Attack in Chess is a good place to start.

Who should read this book?

Simple Attacking Plans is a nice little book with a good collection of attacking games. I think this is a good introduction for players who are looking to dip their toes into the waters of attacking chess. The book is probably best suited for players with a strength between 1200 and 1600.

About this book

Author:	Fred Wilson
Title:	Simple Attacking Plans
Type of book:	Book review, Game collection, Middlegame, Tactics
Level:	Beginner/Intermediate

Comments

Popular reviews

Under the surface

I did something different. I bought a chess book without doing any research. I decided to reward myself with a new book after having written ten reviews. So I asked my friends on Twitter for suggestions, and someone suggested that I take a look at the book Under the surface by Jan Markos. Since the book is quite new, I couldn't find much information about it, so I decided to blindly trust the recommendation. Luckily, I was not let down. What can you expect from this book? I am not the only one who has done something different. Jan Markos did the same when he wrote Under the surface . He takes a quite philosophical approach to chess, which should probably be expected from a former student of philosophy. This comes across quite clearly in his choice of chapter titles. The names "Magnetic Skin", "Anatoly Karpov's Billiard Balls" and "On the Breaking Ice" are not the most transparent chapter titles in the world. But once you get under the surfa...

Estimating playing strength

Have you ever felt like your chess rating doesn't represent your actual playing strength? Sometimes we want to be able to estimate playing strength based on individual games rather than rating (which changes more slowly). During the past few months, I've been taking a number of online courses and learning python for data analysis. In one of the courses, the final project allowed me to choose my own dataset. So surprise surprise! I chose something chess related. (Not really surprised, are you?) When we play games online, getting a computer evaluation is just a few clicks away. And a commonly used statistic is the average centipawn loss, or simply the average deviation from the computer's best move. Many of us tend to think that centipawn loss (CPL) is a good estimate of playing strength. And, of course, it gives some indication, but it's far from a perfect predictor. Fellow chess/statistics blogger Patrick Coulombe has investigated the correlation between rating and CPL ...

Master of strategy

During the past two years, I’ve been working on improving my strategic/positional play. In this process, I have read a number of books, and two books that have long been on my reading list are the strategy books by Johan Hellsten. So when the Swedish chess federation requested reviewers for two of these books, I didn’t hesitate. I am happy that I was given the opportunity to review these books, and hope this review can be of help to you as a reader. If you like these reviews, please consider supporting my work. Visit my patreon page for details. Become a Patron! What can you expect from these books? Johan Hellsten has created a name for himself as one of the leading experts of chess strategy in modern times. His series of strategy books ( Mastering Opening Strategy , Mastering Chess Strategy and Mastering Endgame Strategy ) have received glowing reviews from many parts of the chess world. So it feels good to finally dig into these nuggets. His endgame book is still in my boo...

Think like a Super-GM

In my previous review I mentioned how I would like to see an improved version of The Improving Chess Thinker , and that a book had recently come out that seemed to be perfectly in line with my ideas. A few months later, I have bought the book, worked through the exercises and read the prose. And finally, I am ready to give my complete review of the new book Think like a Super-GM . And I can tell you, I was not disappointed by this book. Read on to find out why you should probably get the book too. If you like these reviews, please consider supporting my work. Visit my patreon page for details. Become a Patron! What can you expect from this book? As the title indicates, Think like a Super-GM is a book about thinking in chess. At its core, it is a puzzle book. But it is more than that. In the chapters surrounding the puzzles, the book digs into the challenges of thinking in chess and how the thinking process differs between players of different levels. The first chapter ...

Stop and reassess!

In my very first post on this blog, I reviewed The Amateur's Mind by Jeremy Silman. That was my first step to understand chess strategy. And I actually bought another one of Silman's book at the same time, but for some reason, it took me more than ten years to read. I finally decided to go through it and now I am ready to share my thoughts with you. (It feels like I've written this before.) If you like these reviews, please consider supporting my work. Visit my patreon page for details. Become a Patron! What can you expect from this book? Before writing this review, I had a few candidates. I am always reading several books in parallel, and I have a number that I'm about to finish. So I asked the Twitter community for input on which book they would like me to review as number 50. And this came out on top. So far I have reviewed 49 books on #patzersreview . Which one should be number 50? My candidates are: - Silman: Reassess your chess workbook - Nunn: Solving in...

Patzer's review

Search This Blog