1000 Checkmate Combinations: A Review
Victor Henkin. 1000 Checkmate Combinations. Trans. Jimmy Adams and Sarah Hurst. London: Batsford Chess, 2022. 9781849947251. Paper. 336 pgs. £ 15.99 (U.K.)
When this book originally appeared in Russian in the 1970’s, it became known as a chess classic. Since checkmate is the primary goal in a chess game, a book that helps one learn everything you need to know to deliver this ultimate blow to your opponent—is a book one must read and understand! Now, this new Batsford edition of the English translation (first published in 2011) makes this wealth of information and sophisticated chess tactics more widely available. Now this chess classic is a treasury waiting to be discovered!
Victor Henkin is a well-respected Russian chess writer and Grandmaster. He is the co-author of Tal’s Winning Chess Combinations: The Secrets of Winning Chess Combinations Described and Explained with former world champion Mikhail Tal. Henkin is an expert teacher, as the structure and organization of this book displays. In his Introduction, Tal says, “There hasn’t been a book like this before in our chess literature” (6). This gets one’s attention!
Tal says further: “This book will be particularly useful for chess players who are starting their creative life. It serves as a solid guide to the world of chess combinations, explains the significance of many of the ‘road signs’ and shortens the road to mastery” (6).
Henkin notes that “the chess code with its characteristic brevity defines mate as a check to which there is no defence. With a declaration of mate against the enemy king the goal of the chess game is considered to have been achieved and the game ends” (7). “Up until the end of the 19th century,” Henkin continues, “an irrefutable check was announced with the words ‘check and mate.’ This served as a kind of proof that checkmate hadn’t been given accidentally (a ‘blind mate’, as they used to say in Russia).” So “mating positions have long been considered the crown of chess creativity.” Today, checkmate “can’t be seen that often: chess players try to put an end to their torments and resign, as a rule, before the final gong.” Still, maintains Henkin, “the goal of the game of chess remains unchanged—to give mate to the enemy king. All of the chess player’s thoughts are subordinated, in essence, to this goal….The essence of a game of chess is expressed in its ideal form precisely in mating scenarios” (7, 8).
Thus, Henkin’s book. “This book,” he states, is “devoted to methods of finding mating combinations and ways to implement them. We’ll examine typical finales and get to know the technical methods of achieving them” (8). The pieces must work in “harmony,” which in chess is pieces cooperating with each other. Henkin says that as one moves from chapter to chapter, “you’ll soon realise that exactly the same methods are used to solve the most varied tactical problems: deflection, enticement, a double attack, blocking and so on. You’ll also notice the rather important circumstance that not only individual tactical ideas, but also entire combinations, repeat themselves in chess practice, often at intervals of decades or even hundreds of years.” Thus, Henkin skillfully draws on games by the great masters, past and present to help one learn how to “solve the most complex tactical problems.” Henkin suggests reading the book without a chessboard which, he claims, will “help you to develop the technique of calculating variations” (9).
A genius feature of this book is its organizational structure. To facilitate learning for finding mating combinations through the harmonious working of pieces together, Henkin provides 14 chapters. These focus on individual pieces and pieces in combination with each other. The breadth of this approach is seen in individual chapters on the Rook, Bishop, Queen, Knight, and Pawn; then: Two Rooks, Rook and Bishop, Rook and Knight, Two Bishops, Two Knights, Bishop and Knight, Queen and Bishop, Queen and Knight, and finally, Three Pieces. Each chapter features a number of chess problems for the reader to solve in relation to the topic of the chapter. The final chapter on Solutions provides discussions of continuations in the games and missed opportunities when these occur.
The core of each chapter, after interesting short introductions to the chess piece(s) at hand, is the extensive use of actual historic and contemporary game situations. Henkin presents and discusses these to show various strategic and tactical maneuvers that can be initiated and are experienced. For example, in the chapter on “Rook and Bishop,” Henkin initially states that “Rooks need open lines, the bishop—free diagonals. Therefore, the greatest activity for both these pieces develops in positions not restricted by pawn chains. Operating on opposite sides, they place the enemy king in a vice, cutting him off from neighbouring squares, and target a whole range of squares along the main avenue of attack” (127). This leads to his comment: “The final blow might be delivered by any of the attacking pieces, but more often this will be the rook: under the protection of the bishop, it enters without ceremony into direct contact with the enemy king” (127). In the chapter, Henkin uses actual game situations to indicate thoroughly how rooks and bishops can work together—for great benefit! Then follows 56 game situations which are the positions to be solved—leading to checkmates or resignations. The book’s other chapters follow this procedure of systematically focusing on the pieces and ways they can participate in creating mating constructions.
Working through Henkin’s instructions and situations to be “solved” is quite a workout! But there is no question this “immersion” can be greatly beneficial. Primary will be a developing skill to recognize checkmate potentials in game situations. This is joined with developing instincts of ways the checkmate potentials can be carried out in one’s own games. So here is a long-term project! But Henkin’s rich resource, grounded in actual game realities—can help build a strong foundation for enhancing skills and developing instincts for combinations that can lead to chess success!
