Winning Chess: How To Perfect Your Attacking Play (Batsford Chess)

This is a book that I love. Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld two of the greatest chess author's who ever lived have put a lot of effort into this book. Winning Chess will increase your tactical skills. A Batsford book with many diagrams explaining different winning techniques, it has knight forks, discovered check, double check, the skewer, the surprise move, queening combinations, the overworked piece, mating patterns and much more. Towards the back of the book it has six illustrative games and also solution to quiz problems. This book has a wealth of information if you want to improve in chess, for example it shows you a middle game position and next to it on the opposite page it shows you the winning move for either white or black. The whole book is like that which is good. I also love it to because its in the Algebraic Notation. A great book to buy.

I purchased this book just because it was a chess book...and I always can use some tactical reminders (even though I have dozens of others). But this one is truly what the other reviewers have said ! I'm a USCF 1950, my chess play tends toward the positional..... but I know there's no replacement for tactical vision. This book has re-introduced me to realizing potential combinations (implies sacrificing) through envisioning lining up pieces and/or unprotecting them. Yes, most examples were easily solved, but then in my actual games I found myself seeing blocked lines as open..and come crashing through. I'm amazed such a simple book reminds me how any position can go wild!

Best chess book I ever read. Suitable for 1100 to 2000. Verbose style is entertaining and drives home lessons such as "The pin is mightier than the sword". Explains ideas behind the tactics well.

I recently discovered and purchased a Kindle version of one of my all-time favorite chess books: “Winning Chess” by Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld. This book, co-authored by two of the most knowledgeable, prolific, and entertaining chess writers of the twentieth century, is devoted to helping average chess players (like me) improve their skills at chess tactics. With wit, candor, and literary flair, Chernev and Reinfeld brilliantly explain the different tactical ideas that they think should be part of every chess player’s arsenal. The pin, fork, skewer, discovered check, deflection, and double attack, are just some of the many tactical concepts included in this marvelous book.I used to own a paperback edition of “Winning Chess,” but had used it so much that it had become worn beyond repair. Alas, I never could find another print edition of it. That’s why I was so glad to see this Kindle version, first published by Batsford in 2013. The book is updated to include algebraic notation instead of the English descriptive notation that appeared in the print edition. The overall quality of the Kindle version is good. The print is large and easy on my eyes, and the many diagrams, although not colorful, are adequately sized and clear.One aspect of the book’s layout concerns me. I quickly noticed that the diagrams, which are numbered, are not in sequential order. For example, the sequence of diagrams in Chapter 4 is: 1, 2, 3A, 4A, 5A, 3B, 4B, 5B, etc. A similar pattern exists in all chapters. I’m not sure if this is deliberate, since the B-diagrams all appear to follow up the information shown in their corresponding A-diagrams. If it is deliberate, the publisher should have explained this in their introduction; if it is an error, then it deserves a big old “??” (a catastrophic blunder in chess annotation language) from me. (It is important to note that the text always flows correctly from page to page, even where the diagrams are out of sequence.)If it weren’t for my confusion surrounding the sequence of diagrams in this Kindle version of “Winning Chess,” I would award it an enthusiastic 5-star rating. As it is, the book is so darn good anyway that I find myself able to deduct only one star… while still awarding it my “Most Highly Recommended” endorsement.

great

if you want to study & advance technical/tactical skills, this is the book

It started out as a great book I thought. Nice diagrams with a description of the reasoning for each move. Just what I needed I thought. When looking at figure 3A and then it said to go to 3B, 3B was not on the next page. It was 2 pages away. The next page had figure 5A not 3B. Little difficult to follow in a Kindle book. Little disappointed to say the least.

The book's very logical and easily-followed organization has been destroyed in Kindleization. If you only read the Kindle you will have no idea how marvelous this book is. It would not have been very difficult to organize the Kindle well too; it's just greedy laziness that prevents it.

Once you have mastered the basics of chess, THIS BOOK becomes a great source of inspiration. It really helps explain to any players, how to "understand", why some moves are made. What chess masters are looking for, at any moment in a game (attacking patterns/ building up advantages/ tactics/ sound positioning of pieces/ mutual support of pieces/ surprise sacrifices! etc.), that can reveal and therefore allow good combinations of play, to win!This book uses diagrams, lots of diagrams, and verbal explanations to WALK YOU through the tactics of the game of chess. You don't even need to have a chess board set up! (But you do need to understand chess' algebraic language, which is helpfully explained at the beginning, for those that don't know it.)The positions illustrated, throughout the book, are taken from REAL GAMES and the authors, using many examples of each theme, clearly show their value as instructional points. You VERY QUICKLY learn what to look for, during a game, to give you the ability to find combinations. It's highly recommended!!

Best chess book I have ever bought. Improved my game quickly and painlessly. My first copy was bought around 1970, nothing has changed since then. It is hard to learn from games of old masters, delightful though they are, and enable us to appreciate the beauty of the game. Illustrations of the before and after positions makes it easy to absorb the tactical strategies and opportunities to look for in any game.

THE BOOK IS ABSOLUTELY GREAT. LEARN TACTICS AND HAVE FUN AT THE SAME TIME!!! AN ABSOLUTE CLASSIC FINALLY IN ALGEBRAIC NOTATION. CONGRATULATIONS TO BATSFORD PUBLISHER THEY DID AN EXCELLENT WORK. I WISH THEY CONVERT MANY MORE CLASSICS TO ALGEBRAIC NOTATION JUST LIKE CHESS MASTER VERSUS CHESS AMATEUR, THE TRILOGY OF STRATEGY BY PACHMAN JUST TO MENTION A COUPLE OF THEM. MUST BUY!!!

Havent read many, but i can see why i was recommended this book. My chess Journwy is finally started and cant wait to go back over this book or give it to someone who is new to chess!

In the Kindle edition, at least, the puzzle has its answer 2 or more page presses away, so you are constantly flicking back and forth and trying to remember what it was you originally saw. Very distracting. Much better would have been puzzle on left hand side of the page and solution on right hand side.Also, the explanations seem unnecessarily waffly. I'm no rank beginner but I found many puzzles too difficult as well.I know this is considered a classic but I was disappointed. There must be better tactics books out there.