Learn Chess the Right Way!: Book 1: Must-know Checkmates

by Susan Polgar

THE POLGAR WAY TO BETTER CHESS! Learn Chess the Right Way is a five-volume chess puzzle book series aimed at the novice, beginner and intermediate level player, using the unique methods of the award-winning coach and former world champion Susan Polgar. It introduces the most important checkmate and material-winning tactics, as well as defensive techniques to the new chess player. Each of the five volumes will consist of 500 puzzles. In Book 1, the focus is on one-move checkmate exercises. In each of the first five chapters, a specific piece delivers checkmate (in Chapter 1 - the queen, Chapter 2 - the rook, and so on). In Chapters 6-8, checkmates which involve special tactics (such as pins, discovered attacks, etc.) are introduced. Chapter 9 has a mixed collection of puzzles, without any hint about which piece is to deliver checkmate. Chapter 10 builds on the previous 9 chapters, and introduces basic patterns of checkmate in two moves. With over 40 years of experience as a world-class player and coach, international grandmaster Susan Polgar has developed the most effective way to help young players and beginners - Learn Chess the Right Way. Let her show you the way to understanding the most common and critical patterns and let her show you the way to becoming a better player. SUSAN POLGAR is a winner of four Women's World Championships and the top-ranked woman chess player in the United States. She became the #1 woman player in the world at 15 and remained in the top 3 for over 20 years. In 2013, she received the U.S. Coach of the Year Award and the following year, she was named the Chess Trainer of the Year by the International Chess Federation (FIDE). She thus became the first person in history to be accorded both honors. Under her guidance, SPICE chess teams at both Texas Tech University and Webster University have won a combined five consecutive National Division I Collegiate Chess Championships.

Genres: Chess, Games, Nonfiction

578 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 10, 2016

Reviews

[George Stenger · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent book for beginners. The first part of the book had very simple puzzles to solve and seemed repetitious. However, I think that the repetition would work very well for new chess players learning the basics. From my experience, new young players benefit from the repetition until they have mastered the basics.

Later in the book, the puzzles are more challenging.

I will buy the author's books on Learning Chess the Right Way! These books are only for beginners and would not be suitable for mid-level players.

[Sharad · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book for beginners. Most of the book is made of mate in 1 problems but they are not a bunch of random mates. They build on difficulty and try to teach the different mating patterns that each of the pieces can deliver.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good set of 500 introductory checkmating problems to work through and build up from.

[Joel Rockey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basic checkmates. Great for kids.

[Jean-Marc Depasse · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent introduction to basic checkmates for kids and adult beginners, and also a good tool for checkmate training with the Woodpecker Method for intermediate and club players.

[Robert Lewis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly, this is a book of chess puzzles. And most of those are checkmate in one puzzles (though the last chapter has some mate in two variations). Each chapter opens with a brief page or two of description of the type of mating pattern to be explained, but the real value of the book is the self-study in which the reader can engage in solving the puzzles.

This one is written at a pretty basic level. It does assume the reader knows the rules of chess and how to read notation, but it doesn’t assume much strategic knowledge beyond that. In fact, most of the checkmates shown in the puzzles, while often clever, are pretty elementary and easy for even advanced beginners to spot without much trouble. As such, it’s aimed at a lower level of player than I was hoping for—I was hoping the “must-know checkmates” would include more advanced or obscure checkmate patterns—but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad book by any means. In fact, if you are a beginner who knows the rules but wants to start getting good at recognizing key tactical patterns, it would be an excellent book to get you started.

[Tina Ye]

it is quite exceptional

[Dmitry Bezverkhiy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good tactics book with basic chess exercises.