Book Specials
We stock three
excellent beginner chess books, ideal for students, for class sets, and for school libraries. Gardiner
Chess has obtained the sole Australian rights to these three best-selling
books which have been written both for beginners and developing chess students.
Two
of these books are reviewed independently; click on the relevant book title or
see reviews
The Chess Tactics Workbook - Al Woolum
Al
Woolum is a classroom teacher.
The worksheets take a
student from the fundamentals of mate, to the basic tactical elements, through
more advanced tactical concepts and into mating attacks and combinations that
employ those elements and concepts.
Materials in this book have been arranged to teach chess tactics in a
progressive fashion. An emphasis is placed on the concept of mate and the
ability to search for good moves. Young students need to learn how to add layers
to the depth and width of their search, hence the orderly increase in difficulty
of the problems presented.
This
book will bring beginning players to a more advanced knowledge of chess tactics,
emphasizing the need to look for mates. It
is a valuable addition to any beginning library.
Price
$21
Chess
Tactics for Students -
John A Bain
John
Bain is a teacher specialising in curriculum design.
This is a one-of-a-kind instructional workbook designed to help beginners
acquire the skills of strong intermediate players. This workbook introduces
thirteen basic chess tactics in a variety of frequently encountered positional
patterns. With hints to guide them, students solve tactical problems and use
algebraic notation to record their moves on large easy-to-correct worksheets.
Chess Tactics for Students is based on sound educational principles and
was field-tested extensively before publication during a four-year period with
elementary, middle-school, and high-school students. Ten years after
publication, Chess Tactics for Students has risen to the top of chess coaches'
and parents' recommendation lists. This new edition is ideal for both classroom
instruction and chess clubs.
Key features:
·
224 pages of worksheets
·
434 carefully selected problems
·
instruction sequenced in order of most frequently
encountered tactics
versatile format, enabling both independent study and group instruction
·
separate answers booklet included
Price
$27
Begin Chess - Manuel Aaron
Written
by the father figure, and first International Master of Indian chess, Manuel
Aaron.
This book is a
collection of articles for beginners written in the monthly Indian national
magazine, Chess Mate during 1989-1997. The object of these articles is to
make the beginner more knowledgeable and a better player. They show the beginner
how to avoid common mistakes and to give him/her a good understanding of the
Laws of Chess.
Each article in a particular month does not necessarily concentrate on one
particular theme, as a book usually does. For example, in one article there
might be explanations and illustrations of the pin motif in chess. That same
article might also contain a small feature on the pawn ending or queen ending.
The idea behind each article is to give the beginner different and interesting
things to examine in chess so that the player's interest is heightened so that
chess is not viewed as a dull and tedious game.
After going through this book, no player will remain a beginner. The basic
principle of the opening, the middle-game motifs and various endings explained
in different sectors of this book will ensure that he or she plays a decent game
and makes moves after logical thinking.
The idea behind the book is to offer a newcomer fundamentals in openings,
tactics, middlegame themes and endgames in one single volume. Most of the
positions are from over-the-board play and the illustrations are juicy and to
the point.
Price
$25
Reviews
Chess
Tactics for Students
John A. Bain
Reviewed by Tim McGrew
"Chess," as
Richard Teichmann observed, "is 99% tactics". Anyone who doubts the
truth of this remark hasn't taught the game recently; a large part of becoming a
good player is achieving almost unconscious mastery of the elementary tactics of
chess.
There are lots of books of
tactics, but as pedagogic material most of them suffer from two defects. First,
the problems in those books, wonderful as some of the combinations may be, are
too difficult for the beginning player. Second, they rarely give sustained
attention to the elements of combinations. An illustrative diagram or three to
show off the pin, fork and skewer and the beginner is left to his own devices --
which, all too often, means that he is left floating in a sea of brilliant
combinations he has no hope of understanding.
Chess Tactics for Students
aims to fill this conspicuous gap in the literature. In a series of 434
thematically grouped problems, the workbook covers pins, back rank combinations,
knight forks, other forks and double attacks, discovered check, double check,
discovered attacks, skewers, double threats, pawn promotion, removing the guard,
perpetual check, Zugzwang and stalemate.
In each chapter, an
introductory diagram illustrates the theme in action (a Rook pinning a Queen to
the King, for example); then four diagrams on the next two pages demonstrate
simply and clearly how to bring it about. After that, a series of 26 problems
involving that theme lead the student into moderately advanced applications. The
problems in each chapter are arranged in (roughly) increasing order of
difficulty, including some (e.g. diagrams 31, 81, 93, 144, 170, 182) which
inexperienced players could not be expected to find without the focus and
gradual buildup provided by the chapters. The chapters are meant to be read
concurrently, a bit at a time; readers who follow this advice will be introduced
to all of the motifs in elementary forms and then gradually master their more
complex manifestations.
It is obvious that John
Bain took a great deal of care in the selection and organization of the
problems. Without exception the positions are very life-like. (I say this as a
confirmed and lifelong hater of contrived chess problems.) There are no
"cooks" here: every problem really does work, though just occasionally
one side can evade the advertised immediate mate at disastrous material cost
(diagrams 36, 340). Even more impressive, the problems often build on each other
thematically: diagram 55, for example, introduces an idea which is shown in a
slightly more complex setting in diagram 59 and in a still more complex form in
diagram 60. Sometimes the interaction of multiple themes is also illustrated in
an illuminating way (diagrams 74-5). Working through the book I discovered many
"old friends," such as the lovely drawing mechanism in diagram 349 and
the wonderfully useful promotion trick in diagram 296.
With the movement to
introduce chess into schools gaining momentum, there is a real need for usable
chess curriculum materials of just this sort. Workbooks alone will not be
enough, of course; they are not substitutes for real practice and good teaching.
We can only hope that
volumes on more advanced topics, like a workbook on typical checkmating
combinations, are in the offing. Learning Plus, Inc. is leading the way in
developing attractive, accessible chess teaching materials. The large format of
the workbook makes it easy to use, the computer- generated diagrams are clean
and attractive, and as far as I can tell the text is completely free of
typographical errors. Anyone with a serious interest in coaching scholastic or
club chess should definitely purchase Chess Tactics For Students.
Begin
Chess
Manuel Aaron
Publisher: Chess Mate
All
about making the right moves – a review by Manisha
Mohite
There
is perhaps more literature on chess than all the other sports combined together.
But there are very few books in chess which deal systematically with basic
points of the game and thus cater to newcomers. The moment a chess book is
opened, one is showered with technical terms like openings, middlegame,
end-game, pin, double attack, forks and then some more tongue-twisters like
zug-zwang, en-passant and so on which puts off any enthusiasm.
India's
first International Master and a record nine times National champion Manuel
Aaron has come up with the book, Begin Chess - a complete manual on what happens
in a game of chess and explanations for technical jargon in simple terms with
the help of diagrams and a few illustrated games.
The
book, a compilation of articles that appeared in
India's
only chess magazine Chess Mate for over a decade, is reminiscent of the very
popular book Your First Move by Alexei Sokolsky, published in 1981. The book
clearly scores over with more recent positions and games as compared to Your
First Move.
Begin
Chess takes you through the simplest and basic of aspects such as placing of the
chess board at the start of the game to the relative value of the pieces. While
it is very useful, it would have been more helpful from a beginner's point of
view if a chapter each had been devoted to the movement of the pieces and the
algebraic chess notation so essential to understand and use any book devoted to
chess.
En
route various motifs which are a part and parcel of chess such as Pin,
Discovered Attack, Fork and so on are explained. A whole chapter is devoted to
explaining each of the motifs with examples, some of which as occurred in a
tournament game. What the book offers for a newcomer is opening fundamentals,
middle-game tactics and themes or techniques of game-ending. The book also
presents insights into what goes through a player's mind in particular positions
and how to come up with an appropriate move. The book could be a good reference
manual for coaches or clubs.
The
index makes the use of the book easy. It has a theme index, index of openings
and player index helpful in locating a particular opening or a theme for further
study or ready reference. Leaving aside the fact that sudden use of small font
at times is a bit taxing on the eyes, Begin Chess is a good buy for beginners
and novices ready to take up the game.