The Art of Checkmate

by Georges Renaud, Victor Kahn

The Art of Checkmate, first published in Monaco in 1947, has remained one of the most popular and enduring chess books of all time, loved by chess players and regularly appearing in top ten lists of their favourites. Remarkably, despite its widespread popularity, the first English edition, published in the 1950s, was marred by careless and faulty translation. But now, for the first time, all these mistakes have been rectified so as to reflect accurately the authors’ original work and thereby make the English edition of The Art of Checkmate an even better book. The Art of Checkmate offers the reader a systematic classification of all the principal types of checkmate and the procedures required to achieve these in actual play. Each chapter starts with the basic pattern of the checkmate under consideration and this is followed by an explanation of the process whereby the mate can be carried out. Examples from practical play and test yourself puzzle positions then reinforce the readers’ understanding of the mechanics of the checkmate and their ability to deliver crushing and, at times, picturesque checkmates in their own games An enjoyable and easy-to-read book chess instructor that will benefit players of any ability.

Genres: Chess, Nonfiction, Reference

721 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1947

Reviews

[P.E. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terminator's Tactical Training


Here is a small, straightforward, no-nonsense book about delivering checkmates.

It is packed with a variety of common chess patterns leading to mate, illustrated by games in which they took place. Here are the building bricks to grow yourself a positional and tactical literacy :)

To back up the data with training, the authors conceived a series of thematical exercises, the overwhelming majority of which are drawn from real games. This is a short, quality introduction to the world of chess! To me, this is on par with the Chessmaster series in a user-friendly educational point of view.


Fun chess sites:

https://lichess.org/
https://www.chess.com/fr


Some instructive & fun chess channels on YouTube:

- On Opening Theory, Blitz, online tournaments:
ChessNetwork


- On opening Theory:
Krishna Prem's Chessopenings.com channel


- On gambits and opening traps:
IM Eric Rosen's channel


- Blitz and bullet chess:
GM Hikaru Nakamura's GMHikaru channel

Christof Sielecki's Chessexplained channel


Other cool works:

Bréviaire des échecs
How to Reassess Your Chess: Chess Mastery Through Chess Imbalances
Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games: Improve Your Chess by Studying the Greatest Games of All time


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Ce petit livre présente les différentes façons de faire échec et mat à l'adversaire.
Les auteurs proposent une bonne variété de positions, avec parties exemplaires et exercices thématiques pour accompagner l'apprentissage.

Je le place au même niveau que la série des Chessmaster pour sa pédagogie.
Une excellente initiation au jeu d'échecs.

[Jayrchase · Rating 5 out of 5]

Contrary to what seems common sense, this is an excellent 3rd or 4th book for someone wanting to improve their game... The ability to see patterns is paramount in chess and this book is one of the best I have ever read in teaching one how to read the board and see the positions leading to the win. From there, the game changes forever and players move further and further back toward the middle game understanding the general position they are striving for. I have probably bought 20 copies of this book and always end up lending them and having to repurchase - each time, I go through the patterns again and remember or finally understand one of the mate patterns. If you are a chess enthusiast, I highly recommend you have this book on your library!!

All the best,

Jay

[Talvez... · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overview of mating patterns with exercises. It's well written and I don't doubt it could serve as a first attacking manual to beginner players, given that most of the mating patterns involve some attack on the castled position. It contains numerous example games and positions with the explanation on the significance of the moves.
My edition is written in descriptive notation, which is not a problem since all the text moves are clearly separated (each in its own line). For those who find descriptive notation prohibitive, there is a new edition in algebraic.

[Khashayar Ghazianzad · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book truly examines chess and brilliant moves from an artistic point of view. Artists are not all chess players; however, all chess players are artists.

[Mark Kaprielian]

This book classifies the types of checkmates, gives them names and shows you how they are done. Every checkmate is boiled down to it's essential for you. Chess is a game of pattern recognition. This one shows you a comprehensive list of patterns. This book will help you see mates where you never saw them before.

[Xander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent material on checkmate patterns with games to support them, including some classics like the Evergreen and Pillsbury-Lee. Some of the lines don't hold up under engine scrutiny (no surprise, it was written in the early 50s), and the latest edition has many typos.

[Cody Oldham · Rating 5 out of 5]

Awesome work. Won't appeal to an audience outside of chess, but very enjoyable read. Speaks from a seemingly older time in the games analysis and puzzles but all the principles apply today. The examples, puzzles and organization I feel helped me greatly understand this part of the game.

[db · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative. Old school notation.

[David]

Box the King in so he has nowhere left to go.

[100]

I wish I could read it, but it's in old, descriptive chess notation which I haven't learned how to decode yet...