A most unfortunate chess book

Hans Kmoch's "Pawn Power in Chess" should win the prize as the most unfortunate chess book ever. It is in descriptive notation, which seems to turn off many players. Worse, Kmoch insists on inventing a new chess vocabulary that confuses more than it instructs.

 The unfortunate part is that those faults tend to overshadow the fact that this is one of the greatest instructional texts ever written about our game. Anyone who can get past the notation and the terminology will find a veritable gold mine of in-depth chess knowledge that will improve their game immensely. From understanding how to exploit a knight versus a bad bishop to really getting how to play Nimzoindian and Benoni positions, this book does a truly great job. So, it really is unfortunate that its flaws make it virtually inaccessible to many players.

ironically I just got that book today. haven't started it yet.

Despite the negatives that I mentioned, the book is very much well worth the effort. It will deepen your understanding of chess for sure. I went through it many years ago and learned a lot. I am now starting a deeper study of it and gaining one insight after another.

I agree that Hans Kmoch's "Pawn Power In Chess" is one of the immortal masterpieces of the chess literature.

My response to those who have issues with Hans Kmoch's terminology is, as reasonably intelligent (hopefully not an erroneous presumption) chess players, from the beginning of your journey in chess you have been able to learn many new terms and concepts in order to be able to read and communicate about the game.   The point, and value of Kmoch's terminology is that of attempting to improve the efficiency of communicating structures, positional concepts and ideas.  Just consider the terminology to be a part of the continuing process of growing your chess vocabulary. 

As for the "descriptive" notation.  Yes, algebraic notation is generally more efficient in terms of writing/reading chess literature.  But again, any chess player should be capable of easily learning descriptive notation.  In fact, there is no better book than "Pawn Power..." as motivation for learning and practicing your descriptive notation reading skills.  Studying the book will pay dividends for the rest of your chess career.

Is this the book that says that the value of a pawn is inversely proportional to the size of its frontspace?

frontspan....the closer the pawn gets to the queening square, the shorter the pawn's frontspan gets....and the greater its rearspan....

It's a great book, which I've worked through twice. Descriptive notation isn't hard to figure out, and soon becomes second nature. The idiosyncratic vocabulary is pretty intuitive as well. In fact, it actually makes you think about the concept being denoted. Neither should put a serious student of the game off.

"The lengthening of the rearspan is often favorable, inasmuch as the expansion of territory behind the pawn increases the freedom of the pieces. By the same token, the shortening of the frontspan limits the freedom of the opposing pieces."

Happy to see your positive comments, Russ and Chuck. I hope that we have motivated some of those who want to improve their game to take up this book.

 I started this thread somewhat on the fly last night and have had a chance to think more about it today. I realized that this is one of the three most helpful books I've read. To overly simplify a bit, "Reshevsky's Best Games of Chess" got me to a 1500 OTB rating, Kotov's "Think Like a Grandmaster" got me to 1650, and Kmoch got me to 1800. 

OldPatzerMike -

Thanks for starting this particular thread.  I agree with all the positive comments about Hans Kmoch's book.  Too often on chess.com forums one encounters whining about the book's descriptive notation and/or the "idiosyncratic" terminology.  This has the effect of putting off many who would otherwise benefit from reading this great book.   It does take dedication and perserverance to get through it (what worthwhile chess book doesn't?), but the results are well worth it.  If chess required no intellect or effort, we wouldn't enjoy it as much.  

 (A nod to cgrau who has studied the book twice - a feat I hope to duplicate!) 

Just start a forum post where you discuss his terminology, and maybe even a separate forum post where you discuss ways to get used to the descriptive notation.

A good video explaining Hans Kmoch's "Pawn Power In Chess" terminology.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwlOSiCBVMk&list=PLCMNc_5BaXsfpKki7gqXwnghI9NCTZgzm

As for descriptive notation, you get used to it by working with it.  It ain't that hard....

Nevertheless...this may help....an explanation of descriptive notation.....not necessarily the best presentation, but bear with it and you will get the idea....  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qu-c-HgYcWU

The terminology videos look great. If those videos cover all/most of the terms, it does not seem to be too many of them. I mean it will still take time to familiarize yourself with them, but it's very manageable.

In fact, I'm guessing that once one embraces the terminology and appreciates it's concise efficiency of description, one will learn to appreciate it.  For example, when I come across the terms ram, lever, and duo, etc.,  I know what they mean and what they imply - there is vitually no ambiguity.  This simple terminology enables the writer/reader to precisely define a position, a structure or an action, which otherwise would take a lot of words and explanation to communicate.  Brilliant!

As one reads the book, and the terms become more embedded in your chess vocabulary, the book becomes easier to read, and the lessons and concepts are more readily absorbed.

Pawn Power in Chess by Hans Kmoch - Glossary of Terms

Thank you!

Just for info, I recently bought "Pawn Power in Chess" in algebraic notation: ISBN 0-939298-79-1.

En anglais ou en français? I didn't know it was available in algebraic. Thank you very much for the information.