Beginning Chess Play

by Bill Robertie

Designed for beginning and novice players, this step-by-step guide to chess uses more than 100 actual chess diagrams to demonstrate how to play the game. Players learn the basic principles of opening, middle and end game strategies; development and pawn structure; checkmate; and more.

Genres: Chess, Reference, Nonfiction

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Elizabeth Faustina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is excellent! It is an easy read and helps the reader along step by step so they understand what is going on and to remember it. Unlike other chess books, this was actually fun to read. The reader will learn tips, tricks, names for different movements, chess notations, and much more! A must read for someone who wants to learn the basics and strategies of the game of chess.

[Nia Nymue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clear and logical layout of concepts. From the most basic concepts of how each piece is played and their relative values, to some explanation of tactics and strategy, as well as sample games with comprehensive analysis.

5 stars because it's accessible, I'll recommend it to anyone interested in learning (and maybe even those who haven't expressed such an interest, because it's such a thin book), and I can see myself referring to it again in future.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pretty good beginners introduction to chess, covering both extremely simple concepts like how the pieces move to slightly more complex chess strategies like openings and things like the infamous en passant. What I like about this chess book is that it shows examples of games so you can see how a real chess game might go. It was very good for a beginner like me, except I’m still bad at chess because I still don’t play chess very much.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like many other people, I became interested in Chess after watching "The Queen's Gambit". Robertie's book is a good introduction to the game for a complete novice, like myself. It explains things simply and with illustrations that are easy to understand.

[Jason Packard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m still terrible.

[Asher Higgins · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very basic; for those who don’t know the first thing about the game.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

As an introduction to chess, as the title advertises, this is a good book. It walks you through what the pieces do, terms for basic tactics, and then wraps up with a couple example games. The first example game is one player dominating another, which allows for a show of how basic strategy and tactics excel over just being smart and understanding how the pieces work. And the second game is a little bit closer, giving a much better idea of how a game between two people familiar with chess but not necessarily students of the game can go. The second example game is kind of nice in that it's a good refresher if you've been away from the game for awhile and are more of a casual player, which suits me well just getting back into it now. However, most of the book is taken up by basic chess terms and how the pieces work, which is useful for new players, however they could get the same information in a much more concise and inexpensive manner by spending about 10 minutes to half-an-hour on Wikipedia, depending if the game is kind of new or altogether new to them. I think that even a beginning chess book should set out to give players a little more of a headstart than this book does.

[Jack Cheng]

I bought this when Austin showed an interest in chess. It's not at the level of a 7 year old, but it helped remind me of the rules (castling on the queen side...) and very nicely explained rules I never really mastered (en passant).

The only other chess book I remember reading was a Bobby Fischer book that was essentially a series of endgame puzzles. I never understood how to get to the endgame. This book explains it. There are two valuable games annotated to explain the strategies, as well as tactics of the openings, middle and endgames. The concepts, once learned were easy to explain to Austin -- now he knows to control the center.

Recommended as a refresher or beginner book for 10 and up. There are other books in this series by Robertie, and as Austin gets better, I may need to read those, too.

[Christy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Start here! If you read and absorb everything in this thin little book, you will beat almost everybody you come across. There are two other Robertie books that are also very good for beginners: “Winning Chess Tactics” and “Master Checkmate Strategy” (although “master” doesn’t imply “grandmaster;” it’s also a beginners’ book.)

[Amar Pai · Rating 2 out of 5]

Needs to be an ebook with move by move diagrams. I find algebraic notation hard to follow, and it's not convenient to play it out move by move on a real chessboard. For space reasons traditional books can't diagram out every move. This is a perfect example of how ebooks could be more than just glorified PDFs...

[G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good basic introduction to chess. Covers the rules, but I picked it up for a beginning look at tactics and strategy. Also includes two nicely annotated sample games. Helpful for the very beginner or the person, like me, who has known chess rules for some time but never learned how to actually *win*.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good book, but of the three I had to learn about chess, this was the least useful....

[Julia Olson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aight. Got the job done. Probs would have been helpful for when I legit first started playing chess, but still some insights to be had. Good illustrations and easy to follow.