Learn from mistakes

Learn from mistakes - part 1

Chess is a game filled with mistakes. And if none of the players make a mistake, the game is drawn. So eliminating your mistakes is essential for improvement. Thus far, I think most people will agree. But the main question is how you can work on eliminating or minimizing your mistakes in the most effective way. To this question, there are numerous opinions and theories. This post will be the first in a series of reviews on the topic of chess mistakes and improvement.

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?

Larry Evans is a name that will be familiar to many chess enthusiasts. He was a grandmaster, won the US championship multiple times, and has written several books. But although he shares his name with the famous Evans gambit, it is not named after him.

In The 10 most common chess mistakes, Evans aims to provide lessons for improving chess players by presenting a number of positions in which mistakes were made. The book is based on a rather simple principle: The reader is presented with a position and a prompt with which side has the move and two possible moves. One move is good, and the other is a mistake (the one that was made in the actual game). As a reader, you can approach this as a puzzle, or you can simply read the evaluation of each move at the bottom of the page.

Over all, the book contains 214 exercises/examples of this kind. Now, you may think I made a mistake, as the cover says there are 218 examples. There are, in fact, 218 examples/positions, but one is in the introduction and one is in the closing chapter.

The examples are categorized in ten different sections:

Bad development
Neglecting the king
Misjudging threats
Ignoring pins
Premature aggression
Miscalculation
Impulsiveness
Pawn snatching
Creating weaknesses
Inattention

These categories seem rather arbitrary, and the actual mistakes that are presented do not necessarily follow the same pattern as the other ones in the chapter. For instance, chapter 2 discusses the importance of castling, but also the importance of delaying castling when necessary. So any attempt to generalize from these examples will fall flat to the ground. You should always castle early, except when there's a reason not to.

A rather ironic way of illustrating the randomness of the categories is the introduction of chapter 10 - inattention (p. 214):

In a sense all errors can be attributed to "inattention".

This reminds me of a quote from former world champ Max Euwe: "Strategy requires thought, tactics require observation." The failure to maintain attention and observe the position correctly leads to mistakes. While this is true, it does not provide much ground for further generalization on typical mistakes. And I am sure that other authors would create different sets of categories - at least I know I would have.

The final chapter of the book, Anatomy of an error, is the best part of the entire book. It is only 8 pages long and covers just one example, but it does so in an excellent manner. The example is from a game between Ftacnik and Cvitan from 1997.

22. ...Bh3!

Evans begins from the position after White's 22nd move and discusses the ins and outs of the strong bishop sacrifice Bh3. He analyzes all reasonable responses to the move and concludes that White is lost. But then he asks the question how White got himself into this situation and where he went wrong. He takes the game apart in a very instructive manner and identifies a few possible alternatives for improvement.

In spite of the excellent closing chapter, I felt a bit cheated after reading the book. I was expecting some kind of insight that could provide actionable advice to help me reduce the mistakes in my own game. But what I got was nothing more than a mediocre puzzle book. The final chapter stands in strong contrast to this statement, but it is not really worth reading the entire book for that one thing.

Who should read this book?

Although the book presents itself as a guide to improvement, I think it should be seen more as a book for entertainment. If you approach it with the will to become inspired or amazed at different positions and mistakes that have been made, I am sure you will enjoy this book. But if you are looking for an effective way to eliminate your chess mistakes, I suggest you look elsewhere.

About this book

Author:	Larry Evans
Title:	The 10 most common chess mistakes
Type of book:	Chess improvement, Tactics
Level:	Beginner, Intermediate

Comments

Popular reviews

Understanding middlegames

Have you ever found yourself unable to find a move in the middlegame? Of course you have. We all have. About ten years ago, this was a recurring problem for me, which led to a lot of frustration. My conclusion was that I needed to learn how understand middlegames. So what better way than to read a book with the title Understanding Chess Middlegames ? Sound like the perfect remedy, right? Ok, let's find out. 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? I first read this book when I was just starting to study chess seriously. I bought it after reading a recommendation in an online forum. I would say this was ten years ago, but the book came out 2011, so it couldn't have been before that. Anyhow, my playing strength was probably around 1200 (I was unrated at the time) and I was having trouble choosing moves in non-tactical positions. Basically, I was playing without ...

Learn chess tactics

Where should you turn for tactics training? This is a frequently occuring question, not only from beginners, but also from intermediate players. Which books are suitable for your specific level, and which ones should you get? In this review, I take on a book that I suggest you do get - at least if you're at or near the beginning of your chess development. This was actually my first tactics book back in the day, and I recently reread it in order to give a proper review. I remember that I liked it the first time around and that my tactical skills improved. Although rereading it didn't contribute all that much to my learning, I still have a good impression of it. Please read on for more details. 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? Learn Chess Tactics is written by the one and only John Nunn, and (as the name implies) it is a tactics book. I would go as f...

Judgement and planning

Some books "fly under the radar" and do not get the same attention as the evergreen classics. But sometimes, there is gold in old mines. And I found a little golden nugget while shopping for used books. A book written for amateurs, by (arguably) the best amateur of all time; former world champion Max Euwe. Sounds promising, right? 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? In my previous review of Chess Fundamentals , said that few world champions have written books for beginners and intermediate players. Capablanca is, of course, one exception. And another is Max Euwe. Euwe is not the most well-known world champion. He was in his prime in the 1930s and 1940s, most notably in 1935 when he dethroned none other than the great Alexander Alekhine. Although many have suggested that Alekhine only lost because of heavy use of alcohol, beating him is no small feat (rega...

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 ...

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...

Patzer's review

Search This Blog