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Summary: Practice, practice, practice, makes precision!
Review: "Chess" is a masterful collection. Study the short games before competing in any tournament!
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Summary: Improve your chess like a Polgar
Review: A very incredible book : it starts with very elementary chess problems (mate in 1) and increases the dificulty step by step. If you want to develop your tactics, do NOT miss this book. Paulo Sunao
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Summary: one of the best chess books ever
Review: Although this book hardly gives any text except for a few introductions, this book can teach chess very well. The book is full of diagrams on one, two and three move mates. It also gives miniature games which show how to play the openings and the middle game, especially on how to attack the king. There is an excellent section on engame technique as well. Also included are some games of the polgars illustrating various principles of chess. The beauty of the book lies in two aspects. First of all, by constant repitition in solving the diagrams one is on his way to pattern recognition, which is essential to chess mastery. This means that one can see mating positions and various weaknesses in a position far ahead in the game. Secondly, the diagrams if closely studied show chess strategies and tactics that can be applied to other positions as well. For instance, in one diagram some moves were made, forcing the opposition to block his own pieces. This can also be used in the openings and other positions that may arise. Probably the lack of text in the book, makes the student WORK harder to find similar tactics in other positions. The book is somewhat expensive, but worth it.
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Summary: No Better Value!
Review: At the end of the day, the only way to improve at Chess is no different than getting to Carnagie Hall...practice! practice! practice! This book is purely a drill manual and therein lies Polgar's genius. By working through a large number of move scenerios, the chess mind is developed like any other muscle. This is the way to get better!
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Summary: Feel your chess muscles grow!
Review: CHESS training in 5333 + 1 positions. By [Laszlo] Polgar. 1104 pages. Koln: Konemann Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, 1994. ISBN 3-89508-094-2 (hbk). Reissued by Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers as 'Chess : 5334 Problems, Combinations, and Games', with a new Introduction by Bruce Pandolfini. ISBN: 1884822312 (hbk).Laszlo Polgar (1946- ), Hungarian Olympic champion, master coach, and father and trainer of the famous Polgar sisters, has here given us a training book to beat them all, one intended for beginners and amateurs from the basic level to master candidate (2,200 Elo). Since it includes the basic rules of chess and explains, with the help of large diagrams, how each piece moves, and since the foreword and all explanatory matter have been given in no less than ten languages - English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Hungarian, Russian, and Japanese - it will appeal to chess lovers of almost any age, level, or nationality. Basically the book consists of over 5000 problems, many taken from over-the-board play, and most of which can be solved within a few minutes - though if you're anything like me some will probably take you much longer! Polgar explains that there are "very few books containing chess problems, games and endgames which are not only easy to solve but elegant and instructive as well. And there are even fewer that offer a sufficient number for regular and intensive training over a relatively long period." His aim is to help us develop our tactics and powers of pattern recognition, and his book, which is great fun to work through and involves practically no reading at all, certainly does seem to improve one's ability to see the possibilities a position may hold. After a brief Foreword, and a 'Key to symbols' which explains, simply and concisely and in a way that even a small child could understand, the basics of the game, how the pieces move, capture, and mate, and the algebraic notation used throughout the book, the diagrammed positions follow - Mate in one (1-306); Mate in two (307-3718); Mate in three (3719-4462); 600 miniature games (4463-5062); Simple endgames (5063-5206); Polgar sisters tournament-game combinations (5207-5333+1). The book concludes with the Solutions (which give the first move of the Mate in two problems, and complete solutions of all other problems), a Biography of Polgar, and a Bibliography. The original edition of Polgar's huge book is without doubt one of the most useful and certainly the most impressive and sumptuously produced chess book I have ever seen. The book is of full quarto size (9 inches wide x 12 tall); beautifully printed on high-quality paper with each page holding just six (or later four) large and wonderfully clear diagrams; its spine stitched for durability; bound in thick boards with full cloth; and with gilt-embossed spine and front cover. In contrast to so many of the 'books' that are being inflicted on us today - trashy (though far from inexpensive) products on cheap and nasty paper with glued spines that will not open flat and which seem designed to self-destruct after a few hours handling - Polgar's is a magnificent piece of book production that will hold up for a lifetime, a rare treasure that belongs in the collection of all chess enthusiasts. So if anyone out there has a bright kid they would like to be the next Bobby Fischer - or if you yourself would like to be the next Bobby Fischer! - don't pass this one up. It's a chess library in itself, and we don't often discover something that is not only so useful and beautiful, but is also an incredible bargain to boot. Keep it open on the coffee-table. Study a few pages a day. And feel your chess muscles grow!
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Summary: What is most important isn't pointed out!
Review: First let me say that a book on basic chessmates needs to be in the hands of every beginning chessplayer. Even better advice is a superior book such as Polgar's 5334 chess problems!!!
What's great about this book is that it is for pure beginners who need checkmate visualization training and for advanced players who need a refresher course. Some intermediate players who need tactical and checkmating practice may object that the one-move checkmating puzzles in this book are so trivial that they are a waste of time. However, the point of the exercises in the book is to increase pattern recognition so that you can see checkmates very quickly with minimal calculation. If you can solve the 3 move checkmates quickly by pure recognition then guess what, you can solve four, five, six on up move combinations that may require extensive calculation.
Another objection to this book is that some the positions would never occur in a real game; some of the positions have pieces all over the place with the running king stuck in the middle of the board and you have to check mate him. The point of these excercises is to increase skill in piece co-ordination and also how to perform a "mating net." I know countless time I've had an opponets king on the run and couldn't checkmate because I didn't know how to do a mating net. This book is well work the price!!!
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Summary: Things you should know before you buy it
Review: First of all, I'm not saying it is a bad book. I would say, however that there were certain characteristics that make a difference in usefulness not mentioned in the review. 1. The book is really about 4,000+ mates with the rest being games and "endgame" positions. If you are looking for a good book of all kinds of positions (forks, pins, etc., this isn't it). 2. The solutions are not complete. In fact, the mates in 2 only have the first (white) move. That's it.... A little strange. The mates in 3 do have solutions, but I only see one line of play. I havent' checked through them all <grin> but I would be surprised if there aren't several potential lines of play. 3. The notation in the games is a little difficult to get used to if you are used to the standard algebraic notation. It is called "universal" but I found it confusing at times. 4. The section of combinations have titles f2/f6, h3/h3, etc. and there is no explanation of why the heck they are named that (other than they all have the particular move in the sequence. 5. There is really no analysis is the games, which is unfortunate, because the first few I looked at were quite amazing. 6. The paper is too thin and as a result, the white squares on the boards all look dark. A little thing, but kind of irksome. 7. The thing is way too heavy. There is a lot of white space on each page, and the author could have probably cut the number of pages by a 1/3 without too much trouble. You won't be taking this on trips unless you are really committed. Hope this helps the next person. I'll keep the book, and use it, but maybe the next version will consider these items, all of which are easily corrected.
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Summary: Solutions are Incomplete
Review: I agree with most of the customer comments about this book. However, the solutions in the back are incomplete. For the mate-in-two problems (there are over 3000), only the first move is given. It then becomes black's move, but none of the rest of the solution is given. Otherwise, a good book.
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Summary: A marvelous collection of over 5000 chess problems!
Review: I have found these chess problems to be brilliantly composed and logically ordered throughout the book. If you are a master player or above, then these problems may seem a bit pedestrian to you. Martin Greif's series of chess puzzles put out by Sterling Publishing may offer higher rated players a stiffer challenge. On the other hand, for the vast majority of tournament or casual players out there who may not be of such a high skill level, me included, this massive volume containing over 1100 pages offers an exceptional range of exercises at a fantastic value! The problems in this collection span the history of chess literature from 1140 to the present, thus offering the reader the widest range of problems I have ever seen. Also included are over 100 short tactical games played by the Polgar sisters. Any chess library would be greatly enhanced by this collection!
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Summary: Great for beginners, but...
Review: I have to disagree with some of the previously posted reviews here. While this book is quite good for beginner/intermediate players (under 1700), it's really quite useless for more advanced players. Luckily, Laszlo Polgar has written two further books in the same format as this one for more advanced players. The titles are "Chess Middlegames" and "Chess Endgames", and both have over 4000 positions to play through. Moreover, the great majority of these positions are not one move solutions, but full-length (up to 30 moves) game continuations. The best way to learn chess is through pattern recognition, and Mr. Polgar has done a great job in his other books. I have yet to see this book on amazon.com, hope they have it soon. Until then, however, the only place to get it is at the chesstalk.com website. By the way, I'm a strong expert class player, so my comments are geared towards other players of similar strength.
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