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David LeMoir: Chess Scribe: A Fifty Year Anthology
David LeMoir has written three popular and highly acclaimed chess books including the worldwide hit How To Become A Deadly Chess Tactician. Across fifty years he has become one of the UK's most popular chess feature-writers, his work having appeared more than thirty times in the leading UK magazines CHESS and British Chess Magazine and once in the American magazine, Chess Horizons. He writes to entertain as well as to instruct, and much of his work addresses new ways to look at sacrifices and tactics. This book includes every one of those articles, plus an excerpt from each of his books and a wide selection of his work as main features writer for En Passant, the UK regional magazine which has been crowned the British/English Chess Federation’s Magazine of the Year on three occasions.
268 pages, Paperback
Published April 10, 2021
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April 16, 2021
Four stars so that his other books can properly have five.
Former West of England Champion, Norfolk Champion and British Over-65 Champion David LeMoir has never quite been of master standard. However, a brilliant tactician – the 9 move deep “Quadruple Whammy” at page 201 of this book is something of which Tal himself would not have been ashamed – and a superb analyst, on his day he could be a match for almost anyone. (Frank disclosure #1 – the only time I encountered LeMoir over the board, I remembered in time having read one of the articles collected here, carefully steered clear of the hair-raising tactical line for which he was aiming, and secured a draw with which I was well satisfied).
And the man can write. Two of his books, How to Become a Deadly Chess Tactician (Gambit, 2002) and Essential Chess Sacrifices (Gambit, 2003) are classics which should be on any serious player’s shelves, while a third, How to be Lucky in Chess (Gambit, 2001) is one which most club players would benefit from studying.
This book includes excerpts from LeMoir’s three books together with a goodly selection of the articles he has written over the years. He thinks deeply about the game, and there is much here that is instructive – but above all it is LeMoir’s passionate love of chess which shines through.
Strong players will appreciate LeMoir’s penetrating analysis; lesser mortals like me will enjoy his ability to explain what is going on, with clarity and gentle humour.
The book is self-published, but of an impressively professional appearance. It would arguably be improved by an index of players and games, but that’s a minor cavil. Chess is difficult stuff to proof-read (I lost count of the number of typos I found in my copy of Jeremy Silman’s classic How to Reassess Your Chess), but LeMoir appears to have done a careful and thorough job.
(Frank disclosure #2 – at p 256 LeMoir reprints an article from Norfolk Chess Association’s En Passant magazine in which he writes kindly of a book which I wrote. But I’d formed my favourable view of his book before encountering that).
We live in horrible times. Writers like David LeMoir make things more bearable. Whatever your standard of play, treat yourself and buy this book.
Former West of England Champion, Norfolk Champion and British Over-65 Champion David LeMoir has never quite been of master standard. However, a brilliant tactician – the 9 move deep “Quadruple Whammy” at page 201 of this book is something of which Tal himself would not have been ashamed – and a superb analyst, on his day he could be a match for almost anyone. (Frank disclosure #1 – the only time I encountered LeMoir over the board, I remembered in time having read one of the articles collected here, carefully steered clear of the hair-raising tactical line for which he was aiming, and secured a draw with which I was well satisfied).
And the man can write. Two of his books, How to Become a Deadly Chess Tactician (Gambit, 2002) and Essential Chess Sacrifices (Gambit, 2003) are classics which should be on any serious player’s shelves, while a third, How to be Lucky in Chess (Gambit, 2001) is one which most club players would benefit from studying.
This book includes excerpts from LeMoir’s three books together with a goodly selection of the articles he has written over the years. He thinks deeply about the game, and there is much here that is instructive – but above all it is LeMoir’s passionate love of chess which shines through.
Strong players will appreciate LeMoir’s penetrating analysis; lesser mortals like me will enjoy his ability to explain what is going on, with clarity and gentle humour.
The book is self-published, but of an impressively professional appearance. It would arguably be improved by an index of players and games, but that’s a minor cavil. Chess is difficult stuff to proof-read (I lost count of the number of typos I found in my copy of Jeremy Silman’s classic How to Reassess Your Chess), but LeMoir appears to have done a careful and thorough job.
(Frank disclosure #2 – at p 256 LeMoir reprints an article from Norfolk Chess Association’s En Passant magazine in which he writes kindly of a book which I wrote. But I’d formed my favourable view of his book before encountering that).
We live in horrible times. Writers like David LeMoir make things more bearable. Whatever your standard of play, treat yourself and buy this book.
Displaying 1 of 1 review