Skip to main content

About Patzer's Review

I am a patzer! Say it with me. It's liberating. You can be a patzer too.
I am a husband and a father of two. I have been playing chess most of my life, but did not join a chess club until my mid 30s. I work full time, and still have the ambition to improve my game. Some may say it's an impossible equation, but I am not the kind to give up easily.

Why do I review chess books?

I started this blog for two reasons. First of all, I have a lot of chess books. I have read many of them, but not all. I want to read them and document my thoughts about the books. I also want to share my impressions of them with others like me; the patzers of the world. Many of the books and book reviews out there are written for masters, but the majority of players are at an intermediate level. So there's a need for more perspectives on chess books. 

About my reviews

All opinions on this blog are my own. I am not affiliated with authors or publishers in any way, and I do not write reviews for anyone else. Also, I do not claim to represent the opinions of a larger group or that my reviews are "objectively correct". My reviews are simply accounts of my experiences in interacting with the books I've read. If you have a different opinion on any of the books that I've reviewed, please leave a comment below the post, or get in touch with me.

In my book reviews, I try to give an estimate of the playing strength that readers should have to benefit the most from the books. These estimates are always given based on FIDE classical rating (OTB). So if you only have an online rating, please look up how to estimate your approximate OTB strength. I also give each review a tag for the estimated level. Here are some approximate rating intervals for the different categories:

BeginnerUp to 1500
Intermediate:1500-2000
Advanced:2000 or higher

The attentive reader may have found that I do not review opening books. This is no coincidence. First of all, they are all rather similar. Furthermore, I do not feel that I do not have the competence to distinguish the good opening books from the bad. But most importantly, I am not very interested in opening books.

About my recommendations

The groups I review are sorted in two main categories; (1) the ones I highly recommend and (2) all the rest. The highly recommended books receive my "stamp of approval", which is both a badge that I add to the cover image as well as a tag for the posts/reviews. The remaining books range from decent to awful (my subjective opinion), which is a very wide category. So why not apply some kind of rating system for these? Simply put, life is too short to read mediocre chess books. I suggest that you read the great ones and leave the others to the collectors.


So let's learn from each other and share tips and ideas about how patzers like us can improve our chess. This is me doing my part.

This blog is for patzers, by a patzer. Masters are welcome too, but may find my rantings all too trivial.  

If you want to get in touch, please find me on Twitter, @DrLangstrand.


Become a Patron!

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 29, 2019 at 11:24 AM

    Well, being a weak 72 years old chessplayer, father of four, owner of around a hundred chess books, I think we are at the same wavelength! So I'll read all your comments, of course!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

My system should be your system?

One of the greates classics of chess literature. That's at least what it says on the cover. But let's not judge a book by the cover. Instead, we could listen to what others have said about this book. In his review of My system , John Watson writes: "We no longer consider many classics to be essential to a chess education, not since the Internet; but if there’s an exception, Nimzowitch’s work is it". These are big words from a big man. Watson is an authority of chess theory, so his evaluation should not be taken too lightly. Although My system has frequently been mentioned among the greatest books of all time, and has been recommended by many players , it has also been the subject of controversy. Of course, when the book was first published (almost 100 years ago), many ideas in the book challenged many of the established principles of chess theory at the time, and other authorities dismissed the ideas. But also to this day, many people are unimpressed with the b...
Post a Comment
Read more

Think first or think later? - part 1

This is a different kind of review. It's not just a review of one book, but two (actually three). Therefore, it's written in two parts, and this is part 1. I have chosen the book Move first, think later by Willy Hendriks and Understanding before moving by Herman Grooten (which is actually a series, with two books so far). The main reason I chose these books is that the titles indicate completely opposite views of how to approach chess: Think before you move or just move and think later. So how should a patzer like me make sense of this? I read the book on Forward Chess , which was a new experience for me. The service is available for various operative systems. I used the app on my iPad. One advantage is that it allows you to click through the variations instead of just visualizing them in your head. You can of course skip this, if you want to train your visualization skills. Another good thing is that you can try out various moves that are not in the book and switch on an ...
2 comments
Read more

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 ...
1 comment
Read more