Strategy & Tactics in Chess

This book " Strategy and Tactics in Chess" by World Champion Max Euwe is an excellent book for any aspiring player of the royal game. It will imprint many of the important ideas and principles of the game of chess on the reader's mind without subjecting him to the tedious methods used today.I have many books on chess tactics and chess strategy and chess in general, and one thing that stands out-especially with modern chess writers-is their inability to explain the subject that they are master of. In the pedagogic of chess, there are very few writers that can explain the game or any of the phases of the game adequately. Max Euwe, the modest and quite influential champion, was one of them.In this work, he does not bury you with unnecessary reams of examples or tries to subconsciously make the process of the game more complicated than it should be for the aspiring player. On the section on Strategy, he presents you with the central, enduring ideas of the game. Ideas such as: maintaining the greatest possible field of action for the pieces, maintaining the option of playing on either wing of the board through the proper use of the center, creating and using strong squares, taking the initiative where you are strongest, and directing the attack on the most important strategic piece of the game-the pawns. It is a clear, compacted, and memorable presentation of chess strategy.His method here is like a lecture because the book grew out of a series of lectures that he had given. It gives the reader a bird's eye view of the proven, important strategic concepts of the game in only 57 pages. You might say that it is a sparse way of presenting the subject, but that is what makes this work more valuable than many other such works. Euwe was a very logical and economical writer of the subject.Most of the book, from page 58 to page 170 is really dedicated to chess tactics, and he introduces the reader to an easy and logical system of tactical classification which will assist the reader in getting a clear view of the subject.Tactics are the part of the royal game that give it an artistic angle because the player has to actually create something out of nothing by combining (Combinations) various tactical elements to create results that affect strategy and the outcome of the game itself. Strategy, on the other hand, has certain sets of repeatable principles that are akin to a sort of scientific approach to the game. You can never really play chess well if you do not make an effort to master tactics.He teaches the reader how to trace the idea of a combination, how to calculate its moves, and how to evaluate the result of the process. Out of necessity, he divides the subject into:1. MATING COMBINATIONS* Direct Mate Combinations* Break-up Combinations* Penetrative Combinations* Lateral Combinations2. OPEN-FIELD COMBINATIONS* Combinations for Gain in Material* Focal-Point Combinations* Pinning Combinations* Unmasking Combinations* Overload Combinations* Obstructive Combinations* Desperado Combinations* Cumulative CombinationsAnd:COMPOUND COMBINATIONSEND-GAME COMBINATIONSOn this section on Tactics he has to be a little more detailed about what is the hard part of chess and that is being creative. These are like the various tools that the artist needs for his work. But, even here, he does not venture into a dense jungle of unnecessary examples and explanations. He simply classifies the subject into memorable imprints for the reader and the attentive reader gets a feel for how this master thought, analyzed, and calculated the different positions. And that is the beauty of this work; it presents the important subject without making the reader feel guilty for dropping the subject before he has a chance to finish it.He also introduces the idea of basing the search for tactical elements on certain latent weaknesses in a position on the board.In the middle of page 9, he states: "By a weakness we understand a piece or an important square which is in a state of balance, that is,one which is threatened as often as it is defended, but to which extra pressure can easily be applied." That is an important,undervalued tactical principle that many chess writers don't bother to bring up today because they rather quickly concentrate on the most basic and random themes such as the fork, the pin, the x-ray attack, etc. as the central starting ideas of the combination.This is one of the books revived by Ishi Press, Int. without any change. It is a very readable work on chess and, except for several not-hard-to-read typos,it is one of the better written works on chess, I just had to get me another copy to replace the worn out one in my library. It is highly recommended for anyone wanting to start learning the royal game in the most economical, memorable, and productive manner. That is not bad for a chess book written in 1935.

the content is very good, but the notations are all in old style, a little time-consuming to follow.

Many people are quick to deride books that are "old, outdated, and engine inaccurate" Guess what? These same people aren't able to disprove the lines in this book without a chess engine (if they could they would be world champion)The greatness of this title is how good Euwe was in teaching concepts that a 1200-1800 player should know. I absolutely believe that if a class player/ club player had this book they would improve VERY quickly. Today's books are TOO SPECIALIZED. They don't leave the player with a system to rely on. Also, they don't give a player a method to see where they went wrong. There are books particularly on middlegame pawn structures, particularly on dynamic double edged positions where tactics can fly on both sides, tablebases on specific pawn and rook endgames etc.What Euwe was trying to achieve here is to give the A-H of the alphabet of every major phase of the game, and show when strategy predominates and tactics predominate. That's really good! There are modern books that show you every major phase and concept of the game for instance John Nunn's Understanding Chess Move by Move. However, these books explain F-M of the alphabet of the game phases. These books are good but are better for the 1600-2000 rated player. You see F-M of the game but miss any of A-H you are going to lose.This book ties in very well with Euwe's other work Chess Master vs Chess Amateur. Please consider this book if you are under 1800 rating. You will have a method of chess playing and be able to better show your tactical capabilities backed by logical strategy. Modern books which are similar for instance are (Seirawan's Winning Chess Strategies and Silman's Reassess your chess) again, these books cover different alphabet sequences of chess, so to speak. They would be good books to read AFTER this book. Also, this book is 90 pages. 90 pages are easy to cover and will give you a sense of accomplishment. Winning Chess Strategies is 250 pages, and Reassess your chess is 650 pages!Again you see how thoughtful Euwe was to his target audience. Remember, these modern authors GREW UP on these old books, so they are trying to further the publication sphere assuming people have read the same things they have ( or even worse, assume the reader already knows all that)Thank you Amazon for making all these books easy to find and purchase.

I went through several examples, trying to like this book. A chess engine showed that each of the supposed answers Euwe gives to various positions and problems are simply wrong. Frankly, a book like this belongs in the recycle bin; it is totally useless to the modern player, who can draw on any number of books that have been verified as accurate by engines.