Rare Find

On a family outing to the used book store I was able to find what seems to be a rare and quirky little book on chess.

Normally, going to these "dollar" book stores rarely yields anything interesting or useful when it comes to chess. Afterall, I assume most people tend to keep their chess libraries intact and not throw much out.

For the most part, if I'm lucky, I can find books on the low end of the quality scale: Defunct paperbacks by Reinfield, Schiller, or Pandolfini.

On this occation, however, I came across a strange little book published by... Radio Shack!!

The hardcover is titled "The Art of Mastering Chess - A complete course for beginners" and is 260 pages. It's divided into three parts: The basics of chess, Illustrated games, and a small Encyclopedia of openings.

I will say that the content quality is quite good. The diagrams are clear and the print is sharp. Had I purchased this book on Amazon, I probably would have given it five stars.

It's surprising where a keeper will crop up.

What makes you think everything by Reinfeld, Schiller, or Pandolfini is low quality? Well, maybe you have a point with Schiller...

The much maligned Reinfeld wrote "1000 Checkmates" and "1000 Winning Combinations" and you'd be surprised how many times I've read reviews about other books that basically plagarized Fred to a very great extent.I think a fair # of chessplayers first got going with something or other by Reinfeld I know I did and yes I've long since outgrown him but way back when there weren't tons of better books for beginners and tyros available.

Who wrote the book you picked up?

"Low quality" refers to both, production and content. The pages are thin, brittle, faded, and with crummy-looking diagrams. As for the content, these books are geared to the beginner, so I would not buy these as new titles. The Radio Shack book is the exception- I actually think it has collectible value.

I did not know that Reinfeld was much maligned in chess literature, I thought the content of his books were OK. But I have heard mostly bad things about Schiller.

From the first page:

"Adapted from 'A Crash Course in Chess' by Robert Lin and Kaarlo Schepel; and 'A Step-by-Step Program to Chess Mastery' Advanced Trainer Book by Saitek Ltd.; and 'Russian Handbook of Chess Openings' by GM Eduard Gufeld & Nikolaj Kalinichenko" (The Alternative Press 1994)

Interesting I had no idea you were referring to production values... unfortunately from what I've read most books nowadays won't be around (or won't be in very good shape) in 100 yrs due to high acid content  in the paper. But I won't be around by then either so who cares?

Again, high acid content?

Ok.. I never really got why most chess players hate Shciller's books. May i ask why?

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/schiller.html

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/

i still dont get it bro., ive studied schillers book about the caro-kann and the development of a chess master all seem to consists of accurate moves when i checked on chessgames.com. Ive read alot of mr. winters articles and he seems good at his research (i would have thought he is batgirl). Maybe i was just lucky that i got hold of his best books and not the so called "bad ones" by schiller. But still (not being biased) i dont see a bad "schiller analysis and lectures" in the two books i have that would lead me to hate the guy. Yeah not even the "World chess championship arbiter since 1983!) thing. All is see are nice analysis of games and chess basic improvements. Well at least now i have an idea why many hated his books.

@ BudBoomer. There are LOTS of successful chess authors out there for which nothing but good things are said. I personally have never read a Schiller book, nor am I a chess author, but it's a heck-of-a stretch to say that a general bad reputation is due to jealousy.