Begin Chess

by David B. Pritchard, Samuel Feshevsky (Foreword)

An introduction to one of the world's oldest and most challenging games--it's tactics and strategies--from one of Britain's top chess writers and players. This updated edition features the new, now universal algebraic system used by chess machines, and includes a foreword written by International Grand Master and former American chess champion Samuel Reshevsky.

Genres: Reference, Nonfiction

168 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published July 1, 1973

Reviews

[Dawson Escott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok if you as a goodreads follower of mine want to learn chess and delve into the strategy and mechanics, and somehow you are forced to choose between the two specific books I've read on here, this is definitely the better one. It starts from a position that assumes the reader knows nothing at all about the game, including stuff like board size and piece movement. At first, I felt that made the beginning unnecessarily slow and awfully silly, but the exercises the book had in this section ended up helping me to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each piece better, and it makes the book accessible to even the most novice of players.

If someone is already really into learning the theories of openings and endgames, they probably don't have much to gain from this book, but then again it's called Begin Chess so those folks are probably already not picking up the book. For me, it got to the perfect level of teaching in the tactics/strategy section, and then lost me a bit in the endgame section. I found the structure of the book as little bite-sized numbered sections to be pretty effective and does a lot to help the reader work through the whole book and take things lesson by lesson.

One weirdness is that the book uses Descriptive Notation system, which literally nobody uses anymore if I'm not mistaken. My understanding is that it was really only used in the English speaking world and died out pretty soon after the publication of this book because Algebraic notation is just way more intuitive and widely used. So some of my reading was definitely impeded by that.

The most endearing part to me was how inspiring the book really is to get newcomers to pick up and love the game. The author always encourages to work out a problem yourself on the board, and emphasizes that the most effective lessons are those you learn yourself through experience. It ends up giving the book a DIY and anti-elitist sentiment that is a very welcome reprieve in a chess culture (especially now in its digital manifestation) that otherwise tends to give every movement pattern an arcane name and optimize the fun out of what, as the author reminds us, at the end of the day is a game.

This is all pretty positive for a three star review, and I totally do recommend the book for those interested in learning chess, but one has to remember I'm recommending it for what it is. Hard to imagine a chess reference/tutorial book that I will ever enjoy on a five star level, at the end of the day I'm still rather gonna read like a cool novel.

[Himanshu Kapila · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is very light book that introduces many concepts of chess. This book lets you know what to expect in a chess game and is that something you would like to pursue in the longer term. It can be termed as a curtain raiser for the game. This is valuable only for people who have never played chess before.