How Good Is Your Chess?

by Daniel J. King

Chess enthusiasts can sit down with 20 of the world's top players to answer the question posed by this instructive and amusing guide. Grandmaster Daniel King based How Good is Your Chess? on his popular Chess Monthly column. His easy-to-follow, test-yourself guide asks readers to predict their opponent's moves; points are awarded (or deducted) according to the readers' degree of success. In addition to helping players to judge their standard of play, it presents opportunities for improvement by providing a look at complete games and the chance to work out and study the plans and ideas of the experts. Algebraic notation used throughout

Genres: Chess

128 pages, Paperback

First published March 30, 1994

About the author

Daniel King is a chess grandmaster. He has been a professional chess-player for over 25 years representing his country on numerous occasions. In addition, he is a games consultant, television presenter, live commentator, freelance journalist, and an award-winning author of 15 books.

Reviews

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

His monthly annotated games in Chess magazine are always interesting and a chance to rate your play . even accepting that any such scoring is a little arbitrary both humbling and educational to compare your thinking with a GM

[Tim Reisner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved King's column in Chess monthly and the book was an equally good learning tool.

[Ernest Cadorin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book, which consists of 20 games, asks the reader to predict each move made by one of the players (a Grandmaster) of each game. It awards points for predicting the best move or for predicting certain reasonable alternatives. At the end of this exercise, it evaluates the reader’s playing strength based on the accumulated points.

The book is instructional – as instructional as playing through grandmaster games that have been annotated by an expert – because it describes the rationale behind every move and its pros and cons. It forces the reader to stay engaged by asking him or her to play along. However, it doesn’t delve very deeply into strategic motifs and themes.

The book's assessment of my playing strength was consistent with my actual rating on Chess.com.