Logical Chess
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bbarber2012
May 16, 2016
0
#1
I want to read a good chess book that will help me to improve overall. My chess rating is around 1000-1100. Would logical chess be a good choice in a book. And if so does it have diagrams that show the moves made in the historical games. I can't really visualize a chess board like that in my head. Any insight into this topic would be appreciated, :)
Hmm. At the 1000 or 1100 level, tactics are the main study. Tactics trainer on this site will do you a world of good. You have the diamond, so train away! I am not familiar with the book you mentioned. I've heard of it and heard good things about it, but haven't read it personally.
May 16, 2016
0
#3
I haven't read it, but I've skimmed through it. It has diagrams periodically, but not nearly every move; Maybe every 3 to 6 moves, on average. However, he also goes over variations. So, I think you'd want to either use a real board (or two) or a PC chess program to keep track of the moves.
Here's some links of reviews and extra info:
Listed in Heisman's "Fundamentals" section of his recommended books: https://web.archive.org/web/20130730082637/http://home.comcast.net/~danheisman/Events_Books/General_Book_Guide.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20130806071348/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/heisman118.pdf
https://web.archive.org/web/20130806134010/http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/logical-chernev
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708104437/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/logichess.pdf
Logical Chess will be a good book for you. But I suggest you also get a tactics puzzle book. Try Chess Tactics for Champion by Polgar.
There is just so much available on the internet through chess problems and "mate in ..." problems that I would save my money and explore the net. Playing many, many games is your best friend at the rating. Best of Luck to You My Friend 
When I was getting back into chess I liked "Best Lessons of a Chess Coach" by Sunil Weeramantry.
It has more diagrams than usual so it can be read without setting up a board. It's presented as a dialog between a coach and class of mostly beginners. Excellent.
I think it's an easier book than Chernev's "Logical Chess, Move by Move," if that's the book you mean.
Škola šahmatno igri, 1961. Aleksandar Koblenc, is a good book.
I have recently begun reading "Logical Chess" by Irving Chernev and I really like it.
I am an adult beginner. I know the rules, and I have played many times in my life, but I have never studied or tried to be any good, other than the level where I was in late junior-high or in High School. I can beat the online computer at chess.com at level 5 or 6 fairly regularly if I'm not too sleepy. That's about it. I have no rating or Federation memberships. I am now 50 years old and have decided to come back to chess and really give it a legitimate attempt, and I find this particular book pretty useful.
There are a lot of other good beginner books -- I did a rather exhaustive search for the advice of this forum (and others) about what books to get. The lists go on and on. Here is my recent list ...
https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/big-ol-list-of-beginner-books-etc
I am sure others would add stuff and remove stuff from that list.
What I like about "Logical Chess" is that it treats EVERY MOVE as though it were worth discussion, and it explains WHAT THE MOTIVATION for each move was (or should have been). I am just amazed at how quickly I gathered and learned some of the most basic concepts (most of the people here probably already know them -- development, King safety, when to keep your King's protective castled pawns intact on Rank 2 as opposed to when to advance one for "Luft", basic concepts in openings, dominating center squares, assessing position in terms of relative synchronic strengths rather than in terms of diachronic if-I-do-this-will-he-do-that type predictive analysis, etc. etc.). It's nothing revolutionary (and it was written long ago, enough, that it has some sections about the Colle System, which is an opening that now has been pretty well busted by most advanced players, according to Wikipedia). The great part about it is that the author repeats and repeats key concepts, game after game, so that you see them in a variety of contexts and hear how important they are (over and over, and over ...).
One big weakness to this book is that it's nothing but game after game. There are 33 historical real chess games analyzed, with some variations at key points. The diagrams are provided only about every fourth or fifth move, and therefore the reader has to supply his own imagination about how the board might look at any in-between state (and that's probably a good exercise for me at my stage of development). But there's no over-arching principle, no chapter headings, no arrangement of lessons, no building upwards from one key abstraction to several smaller implementations of that abstraction. Each game has one (or two, or three) key points, sure, but those key points are relatively independent of any previous or subsequent game's lessons. They're repeated from (as it were) square one the next time they come up. This means you can pretty well read any one game in isolation from all the others -- hunt and peck, go to game 19 then game 22 then game 3 then ... -- and you'll not see TOO much detriment to your learning. There are a few prerequisites for some later games that are presented in the earlier games, but not a lot. I found that this organizational principle was just a bit too weak for me. The author doesn't ever go, "OK kids, now today we're going to go over blankety-blank and blankey-blank-blank." Rather, it's just, "OK, here's another game, let's look at it. It can teach us some stuff. One thing is ... something we did last week and we're going to do it again. Another thing is ... something you've never heard of before. That will come up at move seven. Another thing is ... something you have heard of before. That will come up at move nine." I don't really find this a HUGE problem with the book -- basically, it's a great set of game analyses without the book part which could have been used to wrap around all those analyses and link them together. But the analyses are still excellent for me, because I can follow them, I find them witty and intelligent and intelligible, and I am learning LOTS and FAST. So, I give it a strong B-plus or A-minus score. What the author knows and imparts about chess is absolutely and totally adequate, even sometimes amazing. But what he knows about organizing a book, he neglected ever so slightly, IMO.
One last point. It's entertaining! I find myself reading (very slowly) the game moves just to find out, "Oh, Oh! What happens next? I gotta know!! Wow, don't make me WAIT for it man!" In that sense it has a type of suspense and thrill that a good mystery might. You may find yourself surprised that a full hour has passed, as you read only one or two pages, but the whole time you felt like you had been reading a murder mystery for that full hour, in which you would have read forty pages.
Clifton: Great review! I love to hear from someone who has been down in the trenches and is eager to tell the story.
bbarber2012 wrote:
I want to read a good chess book that will help me to improve overall. My chess rating is around 1000-1100. Would logical chess be a good choice in a book. And if so does it have diagrams that show the moves made in the historical games. I can't really visualize a chess board like that in my head. Any insight into this topic would be appreciated, :)
Yes....read this book. I read this whole book when I was about 1200 USCF. I believe it contributed to my improvement at that time. It was very helpful in that it gave me a "whole" view of a chess game from beginning to end.
The openings are outdated and some of the resistance by the opponent was not the best, but the play by the winners of the games were good and exemplary of the middlegame and endgame positions.
I would read that book and then follow it up with Chernev's Most Instructive Games of Chess.
Best regards and good luck.
ipcress12 wrote:
When I was getting back into chess I liked "Best Lessons of a Chess Coach" by Sunil Weeramantry.
This book is great too.
bbarber2012 wrote:
I want to read a good chess book that will help me to improve overall. My chess rating is around 1000-1100. Would logical chess be a good choice in a book. And if so does it have diagrams that show the moves made in the historical games. I can't really visualize a chess board like that in my head. Any insight into this topic would be appreciated, :)
Many good books in this list that could be helpful to anyone who has not yet added "Master" to their chess title!
https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/good-chess-books-for-beginners-and-beyond