FCP · A Handbook of Fundamental Chess Patterns
Prerequisite : This ebook is the natural continuation of the first part containing patterns 1-50 (published as ASIN B00AUWJEKA). It addresses the readers who already know and have used them. They will increase their knowledge with this additional stock.
An easy access (links) is provided to relevant games located on my Web site (an Internet connection is needed, Wifi or other, IE 6 and below are not supported).
All is completely FREE for you to see, 3 to 4 games per pattern, which I hope you'll enjoy .
The appearance is very simple and neat (games look fine on a Kindle Fire and easy to follow), and diagrams start at the appropriate move. You can study the position at your own pace by clicking on the moves, without the need of a board.
There's no limit to what's available to a Chess student today, you can find more than 500 Gbytes of books, in PDF or even in Chessbase format, programs, hundreds of instruction movies, a forest in which the Chess student can go astray.
A large choice of endgame books is available, each proposing hundreds of sequences, and after you finish reading them, maybe you will recall three or four, those which struck your imagination. Then when tournament comes, over the board you will recall that in a similar position there's a winning sequence, but it does not come back to your mind. Likewise when visiting an important Museum, after seen countless works of art, at the end of your visit your mind will be confused, and you will probably remember only a couple of masterpieces.
It is a common opinion that strong players see a position divided into elementary groups (chunks), each having characteristics that may be familiar or known to them, due to the huge number of games they have played, analyzed and stored in their deep memory. Simply speaking, strong players immediately recognize winning patterns.
This 2nd part of FCP, Fundamental Chess Patterns includes 50 patterns, from 51 to 100 chosen among the essential patterns, which must be engraved in your mind, which you must recognize immediately (in less than 2 seconds), if the position is against you or to your advantage, without any doubt or hesitation, at once. Not to lose your precious time in their evaluation.
Keep them in your eReader, and go through them frequently.
A CM knows about 200 patterns, a GM some ten thousand, can you afford not to know these additional 50 patterns?
Knowledge of such patterns is essential to be able to play well. Not lists of endless moves, which are impossible to remember, but recurrent positions that occur frequently, that you must recognize without any further thinking, the way Masters do.
Novice and intermediate players are the target of this book, up to 1.700 Elo rating.
Going periodically through them, will help you not lose precious points, but even gain them, and being familiar with these patterns will surely reduce your thinking time. If only one of these patterns is unknown to you, or you have doubts, your learning time will not be wasted. If you know them all instead, and never fell into them, then great! Do tournaments, and enjoy Evelyne Nicod's cat illustrations.
Enjoy the reading, and play well.
Rodolfo Pardi, librarian, FSI (Italian Chess Federation) instructor and arbiter
Please note that this translation does contain some error in English, for which I apologize. According to the reviews however, there should be no problem in understanding the patterns. Look inside to check that you do understand.