[net.games.chess] beginner's book on chess

colonel@sunybcs.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman) (12/01/85)

> As far as a good book, I highly recommend "Bobby Fischer Teaches
> Chess."  It is a compendium of chess problems, mostly back-rank
> mates.  Some may scoff, but I consider it a great book (pb) for a
> beginner.  Unfortunately, I can't think of any other titles
> offhand.  Several authors come to mind, though: Irving Chernev,
> Fred Reinfeld, I.A. Horowitz, Raul Capablanca (Chess Fundamentals,
> or some such title, is a classic), and Aaron Nimzovitz.

          '   '                          '
That's Jose Raul Capablanca and Aron Nimzovich.  Both are too advanced
for beginners.  Reinfeld writes for new players, so he doesn't omit details
that would be obvious to an expert.  His _Winning Chess Openings_ is a
great way to learn the openings.  (When you get better, you go on to
         '
Richard Reti's _Masters of the Chessboard._)

Horowitz was an editor of _Chess Review,_ and published a lot of game
collections.  A very lively annotator.  Like Reinfeld, he didn't mind
explaining things!
--

	"Always put your bishops on opposite colored squares!  How
	 many games is _you_ throwed away 'cause you never heerd o'
	 this rule?"	--Uncle Fischmeister's Maxims
-- 
Col. G. L. Sicherman
UU: ...{rocksvax|decvax}!sunybcs!colonel
CS: colonel@buffalo-cs
BI: csdsicher@sunyabva

victor@klipper.UUCP (L. Victor Allis) (12/06/85)

In article <2560@sunybcs.UUCP> colonel@sunybcs.UUCP (Col. G. L. Sicherman) writes:
>> As far as a good book, I highly recommend "Bobby Fischer Teaches
>> Chess."  It is a compendium of chess problems, mostly back-rank
>> mates.  Some may scoff, but I consider it a great book (pb) for a
>> beginner.  Unfortunately, I can't think of any other titles
>> offhand.  Several authors come to mind, though: Irving Chernev,
>> Fred Reinfeld, I.A. Horowitz, Raul Capablanca (Chess Fundamentals,
>> or some such title, is a classic), and Aaron Nimzovitz.
>
>          '   '                          '
>That's Jose Raul Capablanca and Aron Nimzovich.

Since you started "correcting" the way Nimzowitch's name was written I
would like to show there is more to say about his name. The 'Lebenslauf
eines Pessimisten' (A forword in Nimzowitch's famous book 'Mein System')
written by Dr. J. Hannak, says quite a lot about the way his name should be 
written.  (I'm talking about the second release, printed in 1965.)
Hannak writes that Nimzowitch was born as:

           v   v
  Aaron Nemcovic (An accent circonflex must be put on the e)

This was changed after a little while into the German way of writing it:

  Aaron Niemzowitch (no accents)

After World War I Nimzowitch moved to West, and in his new passport
the letter 'e' was mistakenly left out, so from now on his name was:

  Aaron Nimzowitch (no accents)

L. Victor Allis.
Free University of Amsterdam
The Netherlands.

(Nomen est Omen ? Quis Nomen ?)

ron@ada-uts.UUCP (12/11/85)

No matter how Nimzo's name is spelled, I think that his book is just the
thing for beginners who have played enough games to know the rules of
chess.  He starts from near-zero knowledge and builds up nicely.