Chess books

I like it, but when I picked it up I was far beyond the basics that it teaches. I do use it sometimes for ideas on teaching beginners.

Chess primers, and the traditional way of how we start teaching/learning, are the weakest link of chess education. As a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, we end up with around 1,000 experts players (2,000+ rating) in the US, a 350 million population (a horrible achievment rate, no better anywhere else in the world).

So what is the problem? Amazingly, it is "the moves" first, which, according to Nimzovich (1929) is a "fundamentally flawed" way of teaching an absolute beginner. Yet, as we all know, every single schess primer starts with "the moves!"

What's wrong with that approach? Well, if chess is a war game, than we should start teaching with firing POWER pieces possess. Like in any other conflict situation with power agents in space and time, it is all about how warring sides USE and EXCHANGE power. The moves just come from (1) what you plan to do (=purpose), and this comes from (2) understanding the situation of interrelated agents (=spatial/functional relationships).

By teaching with (1) and (2) entirely out of the picture, there comes no MEANING and COMPREHENSION. Without these two ingredients there is no value and no progress in any domain of human endeavor. That is how any interest and enjoyment vanish quickly with too, too many simply walking away from the game, never moving on beyond the first purgatory stage of their "chess education."

The 1929 insight from Nimzovich, one of most influential chess thinkers ever, cognitive sciences findings, learning theory, the complex systems theory, everything speaks in favor of a radical PARADIGM SHIFT in how we should start teaching chess.

But there is no one to listen...

'It is harder to crack prejudice than an atom,' Einstein.

from the "Chess - the Game of Millions" primer in Serbo-Croatian language, Zagreb 1980 (art Milorad Dobric)