Patzer's review

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...

If you had actual lessons with a grandmaster, would you be brave enough to publish the transcripts? Well, someone did. And that someone wrote about it in book form — three books, to be precise. In this review, I present my thoughts on the first book in the book series Lessons with a Grandmaster . 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? Lessons with a GM  is written in collaboration between Boris Gulko and Joel Sneed. Gulko is a grandmaster who emigrated from the Soviet Union in the 1980s. According to Wikipedia, he is the only player to win the Soviet as well as US Chess championships. Sneed is a professor of psychology at Queens College in New York as well as an amateur player.  In essence, this book is a game collection. There are 25 games in the book, all played by Gulko. There are some real heavyweights among his opponents, such as Kasparov, Karpov,...

What is it that separates a grandmaster from an amateur player? This is a topic of several books, and it is also a question that I've asked myself. I have long been curious about what we can learn from grandmasters and what a patzer like me can implement in my own games in order to take at least a small step towards becoming a competent chess player. And the book under review here is one that promises to do just that.  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? Grandmaster versus Amateur  is a book that I've had in my collection for several years. I bought it back in 2015 and started reading it immediately. For some reason, I only read the first two chapters and then I put the book away. I don't remember why. During my vacation this summer, I decided to pick it up again, and now I've finally read the entire thing. The premise of the book is to discuss what...

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...

What if you could get chess lessons from a former world champion? Would you say yes? This is a question that Kostya Kavutskiy asked in a recent video . I decided to accept that offer, and during the past few weeks, I've spent some quality time with the third world champion, José Capablanca. In his 100 year old book, he outlines some of the most important principles of chess. If you haven't already read this book, maybe you should? Hopefully, this review will help to decide if this book is for 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? Several world champions (most of them?) have written books for advanced players. Capablanca is one of the few who have written chess books for beginners and intermediate players. And his book Chess Fundamentals  is a classic introductory book. Many people have recommended it, and I've had it on my reading list for a long time...

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...

Some books are worth waiting for, and this one is exceptional in terms of waiting. When I ordered the book, it took over 6 months before it was delivered. When I finally got around to reading it, I realized that I should probably read more basic books on chess strategy in order to get more context on this one. So I put it away for a while. The result is that it has taken almost two years from when I ordered the book until this review was done. Is it worth the wait? Read on to 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? In How to study chess on your own , Davorin Kuljasevic recommends that you should "dynamize" your tactical training. Dynamic chess strategy  is a good book to get you started on that track. And it is also one of the books that Kuljasevic references repeatedly throughout his book. But what exactly does it mean? Well, that's one of the ma...