Although this is entirely appropriate to be read as a first or second course in chess, it is not a beginners’ chess book in the traditional sense. Likewise, although it contains plenty of high-level material and some truly mind-bending chess puzzles, it is not an experts’ manual. I have written this book in such a way that it provides inspiration and useful information for everyone with an interest in chess, from total beginners to grandmasters.
The result of this, I hope, is a book that you will refer to and dip into for many years to come; a book you will not outgrow as you become an accomplished player.
Everyone who plays chess has their own answer to this question, and since you have at least picked this book up off the shelf, the game must have an attraction to you.
To children, chess is a cool way to beat other children (or, better still, adults). Winning at chess is far more satisfying than winning in any more primitive type of battle, and has more street-cred than coming top in a maths test (though that is the sort of thing children who play chess tend to do!).
Parents of chess-playing children delight in the mental training the game provides. Children who excel over the chessboard have an uncanny ability to succeed in other fields too.
For adults playing chess at a high level, the thrill of the game is just as great. Adrenaline flows freely during a tense chess game, and a good win feels better than, well, just about anything.
For adults who play chess at less exulted levels, it is a fun pastime, an enjoyable way to spend time with friends or a way to meet people with similar interests at a club. And yes, everyone gets a kick out of winning, no matter how or who against.
These are mainly the external reasons for playing chess. What is it about the game itself that players like? Simply put, the game is beautiful. For all of the supposed complexity of chess, the geometry is simple and elegant. A well-played game has a certain logical crispness about it. Simply seeing a good move on a board can give chess players pleasure. It is a glorious feeling to play a great game, flowing from start to finish.
I am assuming that readers already know how to play chess and understand chess notation. If you do not know how the pieces move, I recommend that you learn from a friend or relative, face-to-face across a chessboard. This is by far the best way to learn how to play chess. If this is not possible, then Appendix A, near the end of the book, is the place to start. Then Appendix B explains how chess games are written down, while the next stage in the traditional programme for newcomers to chess is to learn the basic mates: Appendix C.
If you are up to speed with these basics, then the rest of the book beckons. If your main aim is to improve your chess-playing, then proceed to Part One. There you will find tips, examples and positions for solving. Inexperienced players should work through these chapters in turn from the start of the section on delivering mate, while more experienced players can dip in according to taste; the mates in two should provide entertainment, and the combinations a real challenge. I guarantee that no matter how good you are, you will meet your match somewhere in these positions for solving, although for masters this may not be until the tougher combinations.
Seeing tactics is really the key to playing chess successfully, since they are the building blocks from which everything else in chess is made. Therefore, it is especially important to study and understand these early chapters. Once you have got a good feel for the tactical properties of the pieces, it is time to move on to the section on endgames, openings or attack and defence.
The discussion of endgames is quite brief. My aim here was to present a few of the key positions that will be of most use in practice and to explain the basic concepts of endgame play. There are many weighty tomes of detailed analysis of all manner of endgame positions. My experience is that since the exact positions in the endgame manuals will almost never arise in actual play, it is not so much the specifics of the analysis that are important, but rather the concepts. Playing endgames well is about knowing a few key positions well, knowing what to aim for and analysing a great deal at the board.
In the section on openings my aim has been to explain the spirit of each opening and give you some idea of the typical plans and strategies available to both sides. I feel this is far more useful than presenting a lot of detailed analysis. Once you have identified openings that appeal, you will be in a better position to understand detailed monographs on the individual openings, should you decide further study is needed. I have also indicated a great many traps in the openings.
Even if you have no great interest in studying openings, there is much of interest in the openings section. The strategic examples are all highly instructive illustrative games that will repay close examination.
The chapter “Attack and Defence” was a lot of fun to write. Here we see standard sacrifices (sometimes successful, sometimes not) and plenty of examples of creative attacking, defensive and counterattacking chess. It is in attacking play that tactics and strategy come together.
Talking of strategy, you may be wondering where the section on chess strategy has gone. I decided that it was too important a subject to be compartmentalized, and so the discussion of strategy runs throughout the sections on openings, and attack and defence. The glossary also provides a wealth of information on strategic concepts and could very well be read as a course in the basics of chess strategy.
The second part of the book takes a general look at the chess world and is the place to go if you wish to discover more about how you can pursue your interest in chess, whether by playing club or tournament chess, using computers or by getting online. These are exciting times for chess, since the game is so well suited for playing online, and chess data can be transmitted so efficiently in electronic format. For a time in the 1990s, the battle for chessboard supremacy between the strongest human players and the most powerful computers raged, but now the emphasis is more on cooperation between the two. The puzzles chapter allows you, amongst many other things, to test how well you can cooperate with your own computer.
The glossary in the third part of the book is as detailed as I could make it, with just about every significant chess term I could think of defined and discussed. It is worth taking a look at the glossary even if you don’t have anything specific you need to look up, since a lot of the entries are entertaining or instructive.
There are many people I should thank for, in one way or another, making this book possible. Firstly, Mark Crean at Robinson Publishing, who first approached me with the idea of a big-value general chess book, and all the other staff at Constable & Robinson deserve thanks, notably Mark’s successors, Krystyna Green, Pete Duncan and Duncan Proudfoot. It has been a pleasure to work with such a highly professional publishing company. John Nunn has been a great help; I would like to thank him for his thought-provoking foreword (“I’ve never before seen a foreword containing Indians, aliens and computers” – Mrs Petra Nunn) and general technical assistance. John also provided plenty of ideas, directly and indirectly, for the content of the book. Indeed, a great many of the people I have met since I first learned how the pieces move thirty-eight years ago have in some way provided ideas for the book or helped clarify what my aims should be. In particular I would like to mention Frederic Friedel, Yasser Seirawan, Jonathan Levitt, Reg Burgess, Andrew Savage, Gary Quillan, Sean Elliott, Tyson Mordue, Natasha Regan, Dr Heather Walton, Niels Højgård, Jakob Bjerre Jensen, Steffen Pedersen, David Norwood and Steve Davis. I should also thank my mother and sister who proof-read some sections of the book. I apologize to anyone I have forgotten to mention.
To conclude, I wish you many years of pleasure using this book, and hope that it provides you with a deep understanding of chess and the people who play it.
Graham Burgess
London 1997
(minor updates to this introduction, 2000, 2009 and 2013)
This revised ePub edition is dedicated to my wife, June Mary Stengel.