Patzer's review

The Perpetual Chess podcast has been the  chess podcast for several years. Since its launch in 2016, Ben Johnson has made almost 500 episodes in which he has interviewed many of the most notable people in chess. After all of these conversations, he has collected a massive amount of material on the topic of chess improvement. So when he announced that he had gathered the most important lessons from the podcast and put them in writing, I was very excited. Unfortunately, I have had many other things in life that have required my attention, so my review was delayed. But now, it's finally here! Hope you find it useful. 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? Perpetual Chess Improvement is essentially a distillation of hundreds of conversations from Perpetual Chess Podcast into a single, highly digestible volume. Rather than presenting a rigid training system, Ben Johns...

Ever wondered what chess was like at the turn of the 20th century? Curious about the legendary players who paved the way for modern chess theory? On his blog, Sam Kahn has taken us on an intriguing journey through a pivotal decade in chess history. And now, he has converted his blog into a book format. But what makes these historical games interesting? And how do they still resonate with players today? With expert annotations and rich historical context, this book promises to be more than just a collection of old games. Read on to discover see if A Century of Chess  might be the missing piece in your chess library. 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? Sam Kahn is a devoted chess amateur who has written a blog on chess history since 2021. On his blog, he explains the background andnpurpose of what has grown to become a massive project. I’d been playing throu...

Modern Chess is too much concerned with things like Pawn structure. Forget it, Checkmate ends the game. This statement by Nigel Short may trigger different reactions in the chess experts of the world. Some may argue that it oversimplifies the game, since it is not possible to play for checkmate in all positions. On the other hand, it quite correctly pinpoints a major problem for beginning players in that they simply don't know how to end the game. I've seen this in our kids classes at my local club. The kids can be up a ton of material, but they don't know how to checkmate their opponent. A common piece of advice served to beginners is "do a lot of tactics". And I agree that this is a good idea. But I think we should expand on that advice and suggest that beginners (and stronger players) "do a lot of checkmates". And what better way to do this than go through a checkmate puzzle book? If you like these reviews, please consider supporting my work. Visi...

A few months ago, I was planning an endgame course at my local club. I based my course almost entirely on Silman's endgame course , but I wanted to include a bishop+knight mate, which Silman doesn't cover. And accidentally, I stumbled across a book which does  cover this endgame. So I decided to take a closer look at the rest of it as well. What I found out is that the book has many other interesting topics, but I have some quibbles about the title. Read on to see why.   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? The tactics bible  is not your typical tactics book. Most tactics books are very heavy on puzzles, and only contain short descriptions of tactical themes. This book is the diametrical opposite. There are no traditional puzzles in the book. Instead, the book puts emphasis on examples and explanations. In the first two chapters, Grivas presents 133 ex...

I recently found a book that I once had intended to write myself. A few years ago I started exploring the world of memory techniques or mnemonics , and was curious about how this could be applied to chess. I experimented with a method to memorize chess openings, and tried it in a few games. It was surprisingly effective, and it was like having an opening book with me during the game. It almost felt like cheating. This led me to the idea of writing something to present my method to the world, but for various reasons, I never finished the project. So when I stumbled upon the book The Chess Memory Palace , I felt that this was a book I needed to read. And having done so, I think it's a book that you should read too. Read on to find out why. 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? Now, you may be a bit skeptical about the relevance of this kind of method in chess. But...

Many years ago, I concluded that I needed to work on my endgames. After searching the Internet for a while and reading various chess forums, I came to the conclusion that Silman's endgame book was the one for me. I got the book and worked through the chapters up to my level (as suggested) and then put the book away. Somewhere around last year, I concluded that I had forgotten many of the things I had learned from the book, so I decided to pick it up again. Only, I didn't actually pick it up again. So when we were planning activities this semester at our local chess club, I volunteered to hold a three part lecture on basic endgames. This was a way for me (a bit like this blog) to put some outside accountability on myself while also giving back to our local chess community. So a few weeks ago, I actually  picked up the book. Two days later, I found out that Jeremy Silman had passed away, and Noël Studer had also written about this book in his newsletter. So to my mind, this was a...

Study your own games and learn from your mistakes! This is an age-old piece of advice that is thrown around in the chess community all the time. But how do you actually  learn from your mistakes? This is a tricky question that rarely gets the same level of attention. So when you come across a book with the title Learn from your chess mistakes , it has to be a good sign - right? A friend of mine had this book in his collection and suggested I read it. It took me some time to get around to it, but finally I went through it. And let me just warn you at the get-go; this book has very little to do with your  chess mistakes. But anywho, let's dive in! 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? Chris Baker (author of this book) is a British IM, and as far as I can determine, this is the only chess book he's written. However, he is also the writer of the column "How b...

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...

Get better at positional evaluation, they said. Read Heisman's book on positional evaluation, they said. It will be fun, they said. Well, I read the book, and I don't really know what to make of it. But my evaluation skills did not improve much from reading this book. Read on if you want to know why. 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? Dan Heisman probably needs no introduction. He is a renowned coach and author of numerous chess books, mainly aimed at beginners and intermediate players. Elements of Positional Evaluation  definitely belongs in this category. The book was first published in 1974, and was revised and republished in 2010. Heisman begins by revisiting the state of "positional theory" in 1974, and addresses some aspects that Heisman considers to be flaws or inadequacies in what he calls "1974 theory"; development, doubled pa...

Pawns are the soul of chess. Who said that? I can't remember, but it was probably someone famous. Regardless of who said it first, many people agree that this is true. But few people seem to be capable of explaining why this is the case. Enter the niche category of pawn structure chess books. These books are really not a category of its own, but rather a specific type of strategy book. I first heard about the book when Neal Bruce presented his Pawn book championship  about a year ago. Since Neal named this book the best of the bunch, I just had to buy it. It has been sitting on my shelf for quite some time, and finally I've taken the time to read it. What did I think? Well, it's got a little golden star, so that's a hint it's a good book. Read my review to see why I decided to give it my stamp of approval. 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 a...

Every chess player will sooner or later get into a grappling match with a tactics book. But which book is the best? While there is no clear and objective answer to this question, there are a few books that have a very good reputation. One of those books is 1001 Winning chess sacrifices and combinations by Fred Reinfeld. So the question is whether this book deserves a place among the "best" tactics books ever. In this review, I give my personal opinion on the matter. 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? 1001 Winning chess sacrifices and combinations  - or simply "Sacs n Combos" - is one of the many chess books written by Fred Reinfeld. As mentioned in a previous review of Reinfeld's  Attack and Counterattack in Chess  (in case you didn't already know), Fred Reinfeld was an incredibly prolific writer during the 50s and 60s. Sacs n Combos...

How should you think during a chess game? This is a critical question. Chess is a thinking game, and therefore, improving your game means improving your thinking. That should be a fairly uncontroversial statement. So if you want to improve your game through better thinking, a book on the subject should be exactly what you're looking for. I wish I could say that this book is the answer to all your questions, but unfortunately, that is not the case. In this review, I will tell you what I like and what I don't like about The Improving Chess Thinker  by Dan Heisman. 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? The Improving Chess Thinker  is a book that aspires to teach you how to think about chess. The basic idea of the book is to record players at various levels as they "think out loud" about the position they are analyzing. In the first chapter of the bo...

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...