Yes, it is an excellent book for you to start with.
Logical Chess
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Yes, great book.
Nov 23, 2015
0
#5
Well...I am now more convinced than ever that it isn't that good a book. I just went back through it and...look...I'm 1250ish at blitz on chess.com, depending on the day. I don't mind there are mistakes but I shouldn't be able to see them. I shouldn't say "well, that move looks OK to me," when Chernev gives it question mark, and fire up Stockfish and that move is not only OK but it is BEST.
What's more, the nature of the mistakes is Chernev takes a very high and mighty tone that the loser has lost for violating such principle, and the principle doesn't even exist or at least there is an exception in the case he's talking about. One "principle" alone, that of not pushing pawns in front of your king, seriously damaged my game back in the day, until I realized it is wrong not just in some cases but even in some of the cases he is using as an example. Sure, you don't want to do it for no reason, but especially h3 to guard g4 is justified pretty darn often. Or g3 is OK almost equally often.
There are games in the book where he claims a move is the reason a player is losing and it's a pet move of Alekhine, and Stockfish actually thinks the player he's complaining about is WINNING at that moment. Then, there's a later move which is the actual reason for losing.
A similar and much better book, in my opinion, is Neil McDonald's Chess: the Art of Logical Thinking. It does the same thing (comment on each move) but it isn't full of mistakes and is still at a below 1400 level to understand most of it. John Nunn's similar book Understanding Chess Move by Move was a little too advanced for me when I looked at it years ago (I have to admit I lose track of the variations)--but the McDonald book does what Chernev should have done.
Chernev does have better books--imo his Most Instructive Games is quite a bit better.
I like it. I wish there were more like it.
Was thinking about picking up Logical Chess: Move By Move Every Move Explained New Algebraic Edition. The reviews make it sound very useful and I consider myself relatively logical, so I feel it might be a good book for me to start with. If you've read it, is it worth the time? Thanks!