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Title: Keene on Chess by Raymond Keene ISBN: 1-58042-008-7 Publisher: Cardoza Pub Pub. Date: 01 June, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95

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Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (2 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: Eclectic book for dedicated chess students
Comment: This book aims to "cover all aspects of chess, from learning the basic moves, strategies and tactics, via simple end games, to chess heroes and heroines of the past and the present, as well as the most outstanding games" (quoted from the introduction). As you can see, the scope of the book is very ambitious, and it really does start with a description of how pieces move. All the concepts are illustrated with examples from real games, which are annotated in detail. There is a wealth of interesing ideas and the author's excitement for his subject adds to enjoyment of the book.

It is not clear to me that the book really was written for absolute beginners. There are many places in the text where references are made to more advanced features of chess, not covered in the book. An example: (p. 148), ...[commenting on a game] "Black issues an invitation to the Benoni Defense but White declines, preferring to remain in the paths of the Maroczy Bind Sicilian". Neither the Benoni Defense nor the Maroczy Sicilian is mentioned anywhere else, as far as could see. There is a detailed discussion of various pawn structures (including passed, backward, doubled pawns) on pp. 196ff but there are references to these terms earlier, e.g. on pp. 173 in the discussion of minority attacks. A further example: the author strongly advocates adopting a hero as a way of improving ones game, to the point of writing an article or a book about that person's games. This goes way beyong beginner's level, although this clearly is the only way to achieve your grandmaster rating.

Moreover, given that most examples are from games played at highest levels, the beginner will find that games at "patzer" level do not follow those scripts, as beginners make rather more mistakes than grandmasters. Thus, the examples given in the book are a bit like sample dialogues in phrase books, when you try to use them in real life. You know what I mean: you are in some foreign country, trying to ask for directions; you say Sentence A from your book, but the local never says Sentence B (and what he says you do not understand) thus rendering the rest of the dialogue useless.

That said, this is an interesting book. You will find, if you give it time, that all the main chess ideas are explained and illustrated here. There are enough games to inspire you. The book's basic message is that chess is a game of very few rules and a handful of tactical and strategic principles. Playing well requires experience, and experience is to be gained by playing.

A major blemish is the lack of an index. This makes the book much less useful than it could be.

Rating: 5
Summary: A good chess primer for beginning and intermediate players.
Comment: The first chapters cover elementary positions and combinations, and then the book goes into moderate detail for a least 100 famous games.

As a beginner myself, I found this book to be very informative, though not exhaustive.