Patzer's review

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 ...

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 ...

What is it that separates chess masters from amateur players? That is a question that many people have asked. A simplistic answer is that the master is simply better at all parts of the game; openings, middlegame, endgame, calculation, tactics - you name it! On the other hand, this question has a quite complex answer. Former world champion, Max Euwe (together with Walter Meiden), has written a book that aims to illustrate the differences in how masters and amateurs approach the game. I have been curious about this book for a long time, and I have finally had the opportunity to read it and share my thougths on it with you. 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? Chess master vs chess amateur is a book that for some reason does not get as much attention as other books. After reading it, I cannot see why. This is a book that has a lot to offer. It is full of practical t...

A while back, I decided I would do a series of reviews of middle game books. Upon doing this, I realized that I simply had too few middle game books. So of course I had to expand my book collection (oh no!). One book that was missing from my collection was the classic The art of the middle game by Paul Keres and Alexander Kotov. So what better way to start this series of middle game book reviews than to discuss the art of the middle game, or as the Swedish title says: The art of winning in chess. 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? The art of the middle game was published in 1964, and is of course considered a classic of the middle game genre. I found a copy of the Swedish version on ebay, and decided to go with that. I was surprised to learn that this was published three years earlier, and that the English version was actually translate...

Chess can be brutal. It seems that at any given moment your position can go from playable (or even winning) to completely lost. I am sure it hasn't happened to you, but I have certainly found myself in this uncomfortable situation many times. Even the most experienced players fall victim to this every now and then. This is but a small consolation for the suffering amateur. But the true upside is that there is something to be learned here. This is especially true when a player loses right out of the opening due to an incorrect plan or other mistakes. Danish/American trainer and author Carsten Hansen has collected a number of games in this category and put them together in no less than ten books. I have had the opportunity to read one of them and would like to share my thoughts on it with you. What can you expect from this book? A chess miniature is a chess game that ends quickly. This is perhaps a somewhat simplistic definition, but it is probably as close to a "true...

What is a chess genius? Well, you could find an argument for a number of different criteria, but one that seems quite feasible is that every World champion was a genius. At least that's the argumentation in the book Sjakkgeniene by Norwegian authors Atle Grønn and Hans Olav Lahlum. I bought this book when I was in Norway over Christmas, and I have enjoyed it very much. For most of you, I guess this review will be of little value, since the book is in Norwegian. But who knows, it might be translated to other languages in the future? We'll see about that, but for those of you that can read Norwegian, I hope you'll enjoy this little bonus review. What can you expect from this book? This is not your typical chess book. It is a one-volume book about all the chess champions to this day. In other words, it follows in the tradition of Kasparov's My great predecessors series, but everything is captured in one volume instead of five. So how is that? Well, it is quite simp...

Wijk aan Zee is a tiny wind-swept town on the Dutch coast. The main attraction for the town seems to be the large beach that is several kilometers long. But in the winter, the town is invaded by hundreds of chess players and fans who want to see the World's greatest players battle it out over the 64 squares. Wijk aan Zee As part of the whole Tata Steel chess event there is a weekend tournament for amateur players. A friend and I decided to play and do a bit of chess tourism at the same time. This was the first time for me at a major international event, so it was a bit exciting. After checking in at the hotel on Thursday afternoon, the first person we saw was Anish Giri. And at breakfast the next morning, Vishy Anand sat down just a few tables away from us, and several famous grandmasters appeared: Fabiano Caruana, Rustam Kazimdzhanov and Pavel Eljanov. We were speculating whether Magnus Carlsen was staying at the hotel as well, but he did not show himself. However,...