Simple Attacking Plans

by Fred Wilson

“I had a fantastic position, but I couldn’t figure out what to do next!” Sound familiar? If so, then Fred Wilson’s Simple Attacking Plans was written for you. The author distills the complexities of mounting an offensive against your opponent’s king down to four principles that lie at the root of most successful chess attacks.

Novice players and amateurs of intermediate strength will benefit from the explanations of ideas and tips for practical play, all presented in an easy, conversational style. More experienced competitors will appreciate this book as a game collection featuring masterpieces of enterprising play – some of them never before published.

Genres: Chess

231 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 16, 2012

Reviews

[Sergei Moska · Rating 3 out of 5]

The primary strength of this book is that it helps fill a big gap in the chess literature. The structure is simple: Wilson gives amateurs some very basic rules re: how to organize an attack on the opposing king, and then provides a collection of lightly annotated games in which those rules are ostensibly put into action.

This is not the kind of book that you brag about reading. You (okay, I) intuitively want to say "Oh come on, this is baby stuff." In terms of the rules, it's much simpler than anything someone like Jeremy Silman puts forth (e.g.: see his concept of "imbalances" in The Amateur's Mind or How to Re-Assess Your Chess). The games are simple, one-sided, and devoid of complex analysis. Truth be told, however, this is exactly what most chess players need. Roughly 90% of tournament players in the US are rated below ~1800, and most chess books are just way over own heads. There is something nice about reading a book that gives you simple rules and then just pounds those rules in your head game after game.

That said, this book has its flaws. There are too many typos - in one case it made it very difficult for me to follow the game continuation. At least one other one could have easily been caught by running a spell-check. More substantively, there are two problems with the annotations:

1)in many cases the annotations feel ad hoc; they don't always clearly demonstrate the application of the principles that Wilson sets forth at the beginning of the book. That's not to say that he chose inappropriate games, just that there were times in which he could have been clearer in demonstrating how the application of the principles were being used to generate plans. He did do this is some cases, but it seemed inconsistent

2)some of the annotations were besides the point. This is a more serious charge than the preceding point. Wilson, for instance, spends too much of his limited annotation space giving opening theory. Many of the games in this collection come from the Scotch. So far so good. But at times he goes off on a tangent at move 6 and rifles off 6-7 moves of theory to illustrate the main line. The reasons for these tangents really aren't clear. Had the remainder of the games been annotated more completely, this would not have been a problem, but that's not the case. I would have preferred far less opening theory and more annotations explaining, for instance, why seemingly plausible plans that violate his "rules" end up yielding substandard results.

Those critiques in mind, I recommend the book. It's easy, cheap, and made a noticeable difference in the orientation of my thinking in my own games. If you're rated "B" or lower, it would probably help, even if you'd rather not admit it. If you don't know what "rated B" means, this book would definitely be useful to you.

[Steven D’Alterio · Rating 5 out of 5]

A slim guide to aggressive play.

[TjeerdFokkens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice treatment of attacking chess. The games are very well chosen and are presented in the right order. Also, the annotations are very good without endless variations. I do, however, prefer the book to be a bit more structured. In the introduction some attacking principles are mentioned, but they do not reoccur in the games so much, this connection could have been better. That said, there is a lot to learn from this book; I especially liked the typical 'long queen move' as essential attacking element. If you want to learn how to attack, this is the first book you should read.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Skinny: Very solid book on how to attack in chess.

The Good: Studying these games will instill a baseline understanding of how to attack. While you can only learn so much by reading annotated games, you will find yourself applying the main tenets in your own games which is why this book is valuable.

The Bad: Wish there was some more explanatory commentary. Most of the verbiage is matter of fact like certain things are obvious, when they are not to the reader.