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Summary: An incredible book by an All-Time great!
Review: A Fantastic book by one of the All-Time Greats! ("Chess Fundamentals," by J.R. Capablanca.)First, it might be good for you to read most of the reviews on this page if you are seriously considering purchasing this book. You should also know I a Chess Master, and I teach chess for a living. IF you are a relative beginner, then this would be a GREAT first book for you!! (You should probably read "Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess" first, if you are a raw beginner who is just learning the game.) This book has two parts. Part One is instruction in six separate chapters. Part two contains 14 illustrative games. Most of what is in this book is simply outstanding. (A little of the material in this book is over-simplified and a little hackneyed. But it is still stuff you need to know if you are taking your first steps in chess.) Chapter One covers all of the simpler, basic mates. It covers pawn promotion and endings. There are a few examples of some very simple ideas of methods to win in the middle-game. There is a discussion of the relative value of the pieces, the general strategy of the opening, and a little bit on the importance of controlling the center. Chapter Two covers "Further Principles in Endgame Play." Chapter Three covers the Middle-game and how to win in that phase of the game. Chapter Four is general theory. Chapter Five is "Endgame Strategy." (This Chapter is very valuable. I have tested these positions on all categories of players. MANY MASTERS CANNOT CORRECTLY SOLVE THE ROOK & PAWN ENDINGS that are given here!) And Chapter Six covers, "Further Openings and principles." And as I said earlier, Part TWO covers 14 well-annotated games by Capablanca. The discussions in this part are in great detail and very well-explained. (I believe going over a COMPLETE game that is carefully annotated may be one of the best teaching tools there is, especially for the beginner!!) I taught a young man for a while on the Internet during the year 2000. He was fairly young and had been playing Tournament chess for over two years without much improvement. His dad told me he thought he needed more basics. I had him read and study this book IN GREAT DETAIL. He and his Father went over every word and every variation. The process took several months to complete. When they got finished, they went back through the entire book again!! [His Dad said the young man in question had virtual memorized the 14 annotated games!] The bottom-line? The young man in question had increased his rating close to 300 points in a single year!!! (This is a very significant increase.) Now while I cannot promise you that kind of improvement, I CAN guarantee that you will learn a tremendous amount. This book is so good, I may require ALL my beginning students to get and read this book. 'Nuff said?
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Summary: Top class semi-introductory chess book by towering genius
Review: Capablanca is widely regarded as one of the all-time great chess players, and possibly the greatest natural chess genius in history. His games were the greatest influence on modern great world champpions Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov. Mikhail Botvinnik (three times world champ) also related how much he learned from Capablanca, and even pointed out that Alekhine received much schooling from him in positional play, before the struggle for the world title made them bitter foes. Capa's famous book is designed for players who know the moves and elementary tactics. It is ideal for helping players keen to improve, and was my first non-beginner's book. Capablanca stresses the importance of learning the endgames first, and he was renowned for his great strength in this area. Capa's book has good lessons about middlegame attacks -- the need to attack 'en masse' as Capa said, or as modern US GM Yasser Seirawan put it, 'inviting everyone to the party'. Capa also pointed out the the bishop was generally better than the knight, but queen + knight were often better than queen + bishop. According to Botvinnik, Capa was the first with this insight. Capa's book also gives common-sense opening principles. This book is very old now, and chess has developed tremendously. But most of this book has stood the test of time, especially for its intended audience. Chess teachers take note -- your pupils can't afford to skip this book!
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Summary: Chess Fundamentals
Review: Chess Fundamentals by Jose Capablanca was easy to read and understand. Chess is now more "fun" after learning the Fundamentals.
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Summary: A Great Book: But don't confuse it with a reference
Review: Chess Fundamentals is a book anyone can find space on their shelf for. However, before going further, I'd like to remind people this is a self-teaching book, not a reference. Many have complained that this book is sparse on explanations and that Capablanca left the student to find most variations. They seem to have lost the point that this book is meant to teach through hands-on experience, the best method, rather than by just telling everything.
Treatise aside, this book is superb. It has a great focus on endgames and explains the opening well. The only fault I could find was that the middlegame section focused too much on combinations and not enough on positional play--however, positional play could take 100 books to fully explain, so it doesn't really matter. After reading this book, my rating on playchess.com rose by over 300 points! I highly recomend it.
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Summary: Some good stuff, but disjointed and lacks clarity
Review: For a book that starts out explaining how to move the pieces, there is quite a bit of intermediate to advanced material. I had difficulty fathoming his rook and pawn endings, for example. It's still Capablanca, and definitely worthwhile! -- from a "B" player
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Summary: A classic
Review: I especially love how he emphasizes the endgame. When he teaches the endgame, it is like God speaking directly to you about religion. Plus, he inspires me to get better. Capablanca was all about the endgame; he thought of it constantly with each exchange he made, with each pawn he advanced. This book has a magically concsise quality to it. It was my first chess book, that I picked up at a garage sale for ten cents. It remains one of my most cherished books, in a collection of over 400.
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Summary: Concise and well written
Review: I found the whole book helpful, especially the complete games and their annotations, which don't go into a long and boring analysis like some other chess books, which makes this book perfect for beginners.
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Summary: worth buying but....
Review: I really dont understand all this enthusiasm about this book. Of course Capablanca is a great player, of course this book is a classic but also has some serious drawbacks. Capablanca was known for two things, first for his natural talent and second for his laziness. Both are apparent in this book. About the first i dont have anything more to say (see all the other reviews) but the second is a main problem of the book. A lot of chess material is inadequately unexplained or presentated very briefly. The usual excuse of Capablanca is that the student himself must go the analysis further...But i dont believe him, simply he was bored to make it himself (otherwise he could just write a chapter in the end of the book with supplementary analysis in order to be used as a benchmark in comparison with our analysis)
Nevertheless a lot of the material is valuable for a beginner and an intermediate player and i think that it is worth buying inspite his cons.
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Summary: I really like this book
Review: I really like this book. Its written beautifully. Before I read this book, I was a naive player with hardly any idea of strategies. I am glad this was my first book in chess. It gives me a beautiful viewpoint about chess. I had no time to finish reading it but the 20 pages I covered allowed me to improve so much that I could beat many people. Secondly, I must say that I like this version by Random House Publishing more than other versions that have been so abridged that almost all writing by Capablanca were removed. I was very miserable once when I could only find an abridged version in the library as I didn't learn much from the abridged version.
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Summary: good for "advanced beginners"
Review: The strength of this book lies in its endgame instruction and in 14 annotated games, but even here Capa tends to be a bit sketchy. The book isn't much help for the opening. Also, the chapter called "Planning a Win in the Middlegame" has nothing to do with planning. In it, he has a brief section called Attacking Without Knights in which he simply shows two short tactical combinations that don't involve knights. No attempt is made to provide any prinicples about attacking without knights. It's the sign of an author who apparently doesn't understand the difference between instruction and description. Maybe four stars is too generous. This is not, IMHO, an "essential" chess book.
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