Combinations
The Heart of Chess
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Irving Chernev's outstanding chess books earn him a high rank among the world's top chess authors. In this well-annotated text, Mr. Chernev guides his readers to an understanding of the subtleties of combinative play.
Step-by-step from the simplest combinations to the most complex, the book explains the intricacies of pins and counter-pins, Knight forks, smothered mates, and other elements of combination play. There is a discussion in chapter five of combinations lurking in roads not taken — alternate lines of play show up in Chernev's notes to the game, while the sixth chapter, "Convincing the Kibitzers," shows the second-guessers what would have happened had the masters done the obvious. (Some disastrous combinations show up here.) A host of boomerangs follow — cases where the player didn't look far enough ahead and his combination, instead of bringing about the opponent's ruin, paved the way to his defeat. Chapters eight through twenty one take up combinations used by such great players as Tarrasch, Botvinnik, Nimzovich, Steinitz, Rubinstein, and Pillsbury; the sacrificial combinations of Anderssen and Spielmann; the dazzling brilliancies of Morphy, Keres, and Alekhine; the deadly attacks of Marshall; the almost unfathomable ideas of Lasker; and the matchless creations of Capablanca. Mr. Chernev's thoughtful annotations unravel the secrets of each of these plans. A diagram accompanies each combination; an index, by player, leads the reader to the combination he is looking for.
Customer Reviews
Combinations: The Heart of Chess by Irving Chernev
I was really excited to finally see this book in electronic form. I downloaded the sample to check it out. However, I was very disappointed when I noticed how small the diagrams were. I could not find any way to expand them or zoom in. I couldnt even see the pieces on the board. This is a book of diagramed chess positions and to have diagrams this small is absolutely useless. This needs to be reworked before it is any value at all.
I have to rethink my original evaluation. My main complaint was the size of the diagrams. I have subsequently discovered that double tapping on the diagram zooms in. I still think the diagrams should be bigger. Because of this i rated it at 4 stars.