Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games
by Laszlo Polgar
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Book Summary Information
Author: Laszlo PolgarIntroduction: Bruce Pandolfini
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-01-06
ISBN: 1579125549
Number of pages: 1104
Publisher: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers
Book Reviews of Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games
Book Review: Useful book you can enjoy anywhere
Summary: 5 Stars
Polgar's "Chess" is an excellent and useful book that can be enjoyed anywhere you go, from "sitting on the toilet and multitasking" to taking it to the park. It's enormous though, at 3 inches thick and 1000+ pages, so I suppose it could function as an impromptu barbell too.
The book is entirely diagrammatic, which is one of its strengths. I've read through a bunch of chess books on strategy and even on combinations, and often the tactical descriptions in these books are 10 or more moves deep, with long variations that are also 10 moves deep and realized by some super grandmaster like Alekhine, with lengthy descriptors of what is going on, followed by maybe 7 moves with no description at all. Sometimes I'm in the mood for this, but usually not.
This book is simple. It shows pictures of positions, 6 per page, and you have to figure them out, all mating problems. Some of us love puzzles, and this has thousands of them. You don't even need a board. There is just enough space at the top and bottom of each page to pencil in your answers and all variations (if any) in the margins. Most of them are two-move mate problems (You move, opponent moves, you move and mate on the move). I can't stress enough how important it is not to cheat and peek at the answer. Look long enough, even to the point of exasperation, and you will eventually be rewarded.
It's funny because without actually going through them, a person might think a two-move problem would be easy. It's not always easy. I've agonized over a few of them for hours until I spotted the move and made sure it worked for all possible responses by the opponent. A few of them are sort of hokey, for lack of a better word. I was transfixed on one for something like 2 days, convinced it was faulty, until I finally realized my king and rook were still in pre-castling position. This problem (#1558) was in one of those endgames where nearly everything is obliterated save 5 pieces, and the king hasn't castled yet? I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but that kind of problem is a little less than useful, as it seems a bit gimmicky to me more than anything tactically important. Likewise, watch out for the en passant puzzles. There are a couple of those too, and plenty of "underpromotion" puzzles, which are indeed useful. There are also a few I've spotted with more than one solution (#612, for example), which isn't a big deal since you only need to see one of them to win.
In general, though, the book has improved my tactical ability to see the board tremendously, and that's half of what you want out of a great chess book, with the other half being something more on the strategy side.
One reviewer noted the preponderance of Queen sacrifice mates, and I agree. It becomes something you look for, but isn't that the point? So many times in games before getting this book, I would write off moves like that as unplayable without really looking into them a little further. I can't say that's true now.
A huge volume of the mates deal with set-ups for what are termed "Swallowtail" mates or semi-swallowtails, where the queen is in a square horizontally/vertically adjacent or diagonally adjacent to the king, and the two squares behind him that she can't cover are covered by another piece or pieces, often the opponent's own. I now recognize this pattern almost instinctively.
My big criticism is mostly about the fact that if you know you have 2 moves to get mate, you can search for any possibility where after your move your opponent can check your own king, which would cause you (in most cases) to lose a move getting out of it. If your opponent can indeed check your king, then you know that most of the time you'll have to get a check yourself on his king at the outset, and you can pretty much toss out any idea of a waiting move or a repositioning move as the correct answer, which makes the solution much easier as it narrows the possibilities for piece movement. There are a few where getting out of the opponent's check in some way is simultaneously the checkmate move, so this point isn't written in granite or anything, but for the most part it's a fundamental dictum of the easy way to get through a problem. In a real game, you don't have the luxury to know that sort of thing outright, and so the "2 moves to win" thing doesn't apply unless you see it yourself, but that's none of it the fault of the puzzle-maker; it's the fault of chess puzzles by their very nature.
Anyway, this is my favorite chess book by far. I hate to be a product shill, but some things are worth it. Get it.
Summary of Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games
This giant collection, finally available in paperback, features enough chess challenges to keep even the most avid player occupied for a long, long time.The biggest book of chess problems ever published is now available in a paperback edition, featuring more than five thousand fully diagrammed problems, games, and end games for players at all levels. Chapters are organized by problem type, and each problem, combination, and game is keyed to an easy-to-follow solution at the back of the book, so users? whether they are beginners or highly accomplished players?can learn as they go. In all, this volume is a most extensive and thorough chess reference, sure to help hone skills while providing hours of fun. The more affordable paperback edition will give players at all levels reason to rejoice.
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