Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games

This book speaks volumes, in the sense of enhancing and fine tuning, one’s chess positional problem solving. I’ve just received this book and I’m breezing through the mate in one section so far. I know as the book progresses the problem solving will become more difficult. This book is very beneficial, for developing as a better chess player, and should be in every chess player’s collection. It’s worth more than it’s weight in gold and it’s a heavy book.

Great chess book! Great author!

I just recieved my 2nd copy of this famous chess tome: the first was falling apart after 3 1/2 years. But not from poor quality but from daily use over the last 12 months or so. It's a classic; the story goes that Lazlo put together this book based on the exercises he gave to his 3 daughters, all of whom hold master's titles. My advice is this: 1. He gives only white's 1st move as the answer, not all the moves as most other books do. 2. Some, not a lot, of the puzzles have more than one correct answer; at least in the Mate-in-2s as I've yet to get to the later ones. So check your answers closely, you both may be right. FWIW, Reddit seems to confirm this too. 3. They begin to get tougher around the #1470 and up level. There are so many problems that, especially if you are a novice, you should expect to hit several plateaus on the way; just step away for a day or two and re-try. You will improve and really none of them would stump a real expert. Hang in there! 4. Here's a clue for you: once you get above about #1500 you will hit a string of literally 100's of problems where giving a check on your 1st move is rarely, rarely correct. Almost any combination involving a check on move 1 can be discarded up front in favor of calculating other lines first. 5. Finally, many combinations involve a lone black king who would be in stalemate if black moved first; your job as white is to first release the mating net, allow black a move, then close the trap on move two. Good luck!

This is a perfect book for learning basic common tactical pattern recognition in chess. I had the hard back version of the book many years ago and used it for myself and also to teach my kids, who were elementary school age at the time. Years later I got the kindle version, to carry around with me, and to work chess puzzles from time to time when traveling, many of which remain quite challenging. I have had zero problems with the kindle version. It is great for kids because they seem to pick up and internalize the patterns quickly and intuitively, and this can be helpful in making them stronger chess players. I’ve played chess since I was a kid and am a reasonable United States Chess Federation player, with a rating of 1700 to 1850 over the past 25 years. At my level of play, I still find this book quite helpful and entertaining, and many of the more difficult positions are still challenging and sometimes take me several minutes to work out.

The three Polgar sisters are all the evidence needed to demonstrate that practice makes perfect. All three sisters reached pinnacles of success in chess that few can aspire to. All because their father, the author of this book, trained them obsessively on every possible pattern in chess. Especially the checkmate, which is the focus of this book. I can tell you from my own experience playing competitive chess that even very capable players frequently miss winning opportunities because they are not sufficiently trained to identify and execute every possible checkmate permutation and combination. The reviewer who called it a pattern recognition masterpiece is exactly right. Once you understand the basic concepts, further development as a chess player comes down to recognizing winning patterns. The 1000+ pages in this book will provide hours, days, and years of pattern recognition practice to any aspiring chess player. I won't say, however, that this is the only book or training you need. This book needs to be supplemented with an understanding of opening patterns, middlegame tactics like forking, opposition, discovered attacks, double attacks, endgame strategies, and more which are adequately covered in many books including Jeremy Silman's "The Complete Book of Chess Strategy: Grandmaster Techniques from A to Z". These two books combined with all of the materials and videos available in the public domain represent a solid foundation for chess and will take you very far in terms of growing as an intermediate and advanced chess player. I do recommend the hardcopy version of this book for the sheer quality of the publication and pleasure of flipping through page after crisp page of high-quality puzzles as your confidence grows with each hour you spend with this encyclopedic treasure from Laszlo Polgar. Enjoy! Edit: All of what I said above is true of the first few chapters where the answers are sufficient to understand the puzzles. But once you get beyond those, the answers are in the form of the best move that doesn't lead to checkmate or capture or anything tangible. It is similar to looking at a chess engine's preferred best move and is often somewhat hard to understand WHY it is the best move. And the book offers no assistance in this respect. For this reason I must, with a heavy heart, downgrade the book from 5 stars to 4. Instead, I will recommend 1001 Chess Exercises by Masetti and Messa, which follows a similar format as Polgar but contains full solutions to the exercises at the end of the book.

Awesome puzzle. Some easy and some way advanced for me currently

Everything is as advertised about this monster of a book, it's full of puzzles of various ratings, it alternates between white and black to move with a heavy emphasis on white being the main mover. There is something to look out for however, in some editions when looking for the answers, some editions will only give the first move of the solution in the hopes once it gets the ball moving you can figure out the rest. However if you arent as strong or would like to see the full line, you would have to get a different edition that gives the full answer to each puzzle. I personally like getting jist the one because that allows me to still try and figure out the rest but others may be better off seeing the full logic.

I first borrowed this bad boy from the library totally on accident. I had no idea how good this was. The worst part was returning it. I was making a habit out of re-barrowing it until I figured its obviously worth the money to just buy it and make notes in it. Ive improved more from the puzzles in this game then the ones on chess.com. If your serious about improving your game, this is a must have.

Excellent value giving the number of problems. Problem difficulty progression seems fine. Excellent idea of including all the 'beginner' chess rules etc as not everyone plays the game but enjoy puzzles. Also as c. 1500 OTB player I think its actually better concentrating on mates rather that random game positions. I bought the Kindle version - which works very well - as suspected the book would be a bit of a door stop. That said, if I was buying another copy for a junior player I would be tempted to go with the physical book to get a sense of progression. Reading through the book reviews the strong suggestion is it's only for youngsters and beginners, however Intermediate players should consider the book as well. There are three reasons for this. One, it's not enough to be able to solve a chess puzzle, you have to instantly see the possibility of a mate in a position - as you do with piece movements - because that possibility poses a threat which often results in your opponent having to make a compromise. Two, most Intermediate players will do puzzles on LiChess/Chesscom/etc and within a short period of time will hit a rating plateau where solutions take longer and longer to obtain and the activity becomes time inefficient. This is a clue you need to double back and absolutely nail simpler puzzles as the complex puzzles are generally composed of lego-bricks of patterns found in the former puzzles. Platform puzzles systems don't allow you to double back! Three, most Blitz games are decided by simple tactical errors, as neither player has the time to consider anything overly complex. Same applies when there is a time scramble in longer formats - checkout the trivial errors GM's make! Hence a book of this sort can be an invaluable long term resource for stronger players.

Este libro es una joya, fue lo que hizo a las hermanas Polgar lo que son hoy en día. Si lo que buscas es mejorar en ajedrez debes practicar este tipo de ejercicios de mate para ejercitar tu visión a futuro y visión panorámica (así le llamo a la capacidad de ver y ponerle atención a todo el tablero). Recomiendo la versión física solamente si lo usas en casa (ya que el libro es literalmente del tamaño de un tabique de construcción) pero si lo requieres para clases y tienes proyector en el aula o viajas mucho y quieres practicar o entretenerte, la versión Kindle es muy buena (tengo ambas). Si lo quieres comprar para niños que juegan ajedrez (a partir de 9 o 10 años le entienden fácil) y nunca han hecho un ejercicio de estos, debes explicarles la mecánica con uno o dos ejemplos del libro y luego ellos solitos seguirán, aún si no saben escribir en notación algebraica.

Excelente livro para aprender xadrez. Os exercícios são ótimos, mesmo sem um conhecimento profundo de inglês. Vale o investimento.

レビューを書く前に、一言。 囲碁・将棋・チェスなどのマインドスポーツの世界は、完全な男社会です。トップは全て男であり、性別が力量に大きな影響を及ぼすのは常識です。 そんな中、この本は圧倒的な問題数によってひたすら鍛えられる仕組みになっていきます。私が初めて手にした入門書はボビー・フィッシャーの本でしたが、その次は、これしかありません。一部のレビューで”Mate in two"（将棋でいう三手詰め）などの回答部分に最後まで手順が書かれていない、というのがありましたが、私に言わせればこれは最後の手順まで考えさせるための著者の意図的な手法なのだと思います。 私の手元にこの本が届いて約一週間ですが、全部終わるには二年以上かかるかもしれませんね。言い換えると、この本が終わるまでは他のチェス本を買わなくていいということですから、大変な経済効果です。また、ひたすら図面による問題ばかり続きますから、英語力はほとんど必要ありません。 最後に。 実は著者のラズロ・ポルガー氏は独特のメソッドにより自らの三人娘を全員チェスのトッププロに育て上げた人物です。この場合のトッププロとは、男性プロも含めた全世界のプレーヤーの中でトップクラス、という意味です。 それだけでも、この本は絶対的な信用をおけるのではないでしょうか。

Kitap kullanılmış öncelikle zaten uygulamada used good condition olarak belirtilmiş normalde gerçekten iyi bir kondisyonda fakat kargo firması ve paketlemeden dolayı daha çok hasar alıyor. Ben iade edecektim fakat vazgeçtim uğraşmamak için kitap gayet güzel binlerce bulmaca minyatür oyun ve kombinasyonu içeriyor. Yeni başlayıp gelişmek isteyen birini ortalama bir seviyeye getirecek nitelikte fakat koleksiyon niyetiniz yoksa ortalama bir oyuncunun beklentisini karşılamaz.