Here is a short, controversial review of the beginning of one of the books used in the chessdojo training program.

I have long flirted with the idea to join the program, have joined a couple of the chessdojo classical tournaments, and in the end, I bought one of the books they have in their checkboxes.

Everyone's First Chess Workbook by Peter Giannatos

OK, excited! A new book, I should understand it, I am the world champion of puzzle rush attempts!

I must be the only one on the planet that has an objective of 22 passed puzzles in Puzzle Rush there to be mentally fit to play a game, or at least to avoid back rank mates, which happen to be at least half of the puzzles.

Therefore I should be able to use a puzzle book, despite my current aversion to following diagrams, analysis, and all these things I should start to do more proficiently if I want to improve at chess!

I hope having an easier book in my hands will help.

I already skimmed the first part on kindle before buying the book and decided the explanations and puzzles there were easy and nice.

Write things down!

This should be something I know. I write notes everywhere, I have notebooks in every corner of my place.

Yet I never wrote down coordinates when solving a puzzle! Never ever!

It's suggested to do it at the beginning of the book. Before in puzzle books (the ones I own are the kindle version of Learn Chess the Right Way by Susan Polgar), I checked the solution straight away after solving each puzzle. Back and forth, back and forth. Quite annoying!

Some advantages if you write things down:

• It's good practice for when I will attend a classical tournament and have to keep a score sheet;
• Adding another sense helps consolidate learning. Moving the hand, seeing the coordinates of something I thought could help me do the reverse process: read and visualize better the algebraic notation;
• I can make more puzzles at once and check the solution later;
• If there is enough space I also can jot down ideas, questions, and possible variations, and double-check if needed.

The first part of the book is pretty easy, I did everything right, and even if I did some mistakes in the notation I know I saw the right solution. With easy puzzles, that should be the case.

And then there is the second part with tactics.

Forks

Write the whole solution

Here we start having problems. I am supposed to write down the whole solution, not only the initial fork but also what should the opponent do after.

I agree it is useful to write it down, yet this involves a lot of knowledge that goes further than what was done so far in the book.

How am I supposed to know that a king move would run in a mate in 15 moves and another move in 16? Seriously? I am happy if I can see two moves forward!

Should I double-check every solution of mine in an engine to see how they compare with the given solution, or if they are even legit?

The solutions are quite wordy regards the tactics that are being trained, yet they do not explain the opponent's move. Maybe in one case.

If this would be explained, that would be great. Or if it would list acceptable solutions, that are not that worse. Or maybe in this case checking the next move is not so important.

Some more things I noticed:

• Most forks with the queen and knight involved the king;
• Some inconsistencies in the graphics in the explanation. No errors, but editorially a sign of scarce care;
• Very easy to find the tactic, possibly a second more complicated set would have been beneficial.

That's it. I also did pins, but there was nothing more to notice there.

All in all, it's a book with easy puzzles, at least until Chapter Six. I don't know if it is any better than doing any online puzzles, and possibly there are better puzzle books out there, but I think writing could add a lot to learning. 

I will remember to add puzzles I fail in an Anki deck, but Anki is material for another post! Now I got hooked on preparing my decks and maybe my puzzle book will stay on the side for a while. Shouldn't I be more regular? Yes. But I also need to follow inspirations and see if they work out!

Stay tuned!