I have "The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played" by Chernev. He takes games that are great examples of certain techniques and annotates them well. I've had it for years but last fall I decided to go through every game in order. I did that three times. Now I want to got through it again playing the losing side to get a different perspective. It's a great book.
I have another book with a cover similar to some of the Dover books but I don't remember if it was published by Dover. It was about middlegame attacking techniques and I didn't like it much.
Dover Chess
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I checked my books and found that I do have another Dover book. It's "The Art of the Checkmate" by George Renaud and Victor Kahn. I wanted to give some sort of review so I've spent the last few weeks going through it.
The authors start by defining the scope of the book as being focused on mating attacks against a king that has castled kingside. After defining that scope they spend a chapter dealing with attacks against an uncastled king. They wanted to demonstrate a particular sacrifice leading to mate but it seemed out of place.
Then they started demonstrating various mating patterns. Most of the mates were named mating patterns with some unnamed variations. They would demonstrate the mate and show it in its simplest form. They would then annotate a game or two to show how that pattern can be reached. Finally, they would usually annotate a couple endgame positions with that pattern.
At several places they give a set of puzzles to solve that involve the mating patterns. Many times these puzzles are chosen or set up such that more than one mating pattern looks possible but only one will work. The puzzles range from mate-in-3 up to mate-in-7 positions.
As the authors state somewhere, they cannot show every combination leading to mate from the type of middle-game positions shown in the book. They wanted to give examples of different types of mates and their patterns so that the reader can recognize those patterns in a game and have an idea what to do in those situations. The book sells for less than $10 several places and I think it is well worth the cost.
However, (there is always a "however") there are some mistakes and oversights in the book that can be confusing and/or frustrating. There are several typos in the move lists that confused me until I realized what the right move was. Some lines of analysis that I thought were important were ignored completely. Finally, I managed to solve two or three of the mate-in-x puzzles in fewer moves than stated. One was a mate-in-6 that is actually a forced mate-in-4. If I remember correctly, the other was also a mate-in-6 that is really another mate-in-4 but in one variation can be delayed to a mate-in-5. I verified these using a couple engines.
Well, that's my review. There must be more folks here that have that book. I would be interested in hearing their opinions of it.
I know this isn't a valid reason to select chess books but I really like the classic look of Dover chess books. Any recommendations of favorites or "must haves"? I'm thinking in terms of collectibility as well as usefulness.