Tweet
An odd chess book
August 4, 2019
You will all know Irving Chernev’s “1000 best short games of chess: a treasury of masterpieces in miniature”, Simon and Schuster, 1955.
Recently, I heard of a book entitled “500 Short Chess Games of Grand Masters” by Karthik PM.
“Well,” I thought, “it would be nice to have an updated version of Chernev’s work. If is reasonably priced, I’ll buy it.”
In fact, I did buy it for about $15. As an afterthought I checked amazon and others to see what prices they had and was astounded to find the paperback for $1684.12 on amazon.ca and US$ 2,475.92. I am not sure how he did it but Karthik or his publisher artificially raised the price on two well-known websites.
These reviews:
- I had bought the book expecting some narrative but it was just filled with Algebraic Chess notations. Nothing else. Better for the more experienced players, i think. I tried a few game strategies but found myself lost on pawn placements, midway through the games. Again, not for the beginner.
- This is just a database dump. You are just given moves. No text on why a mistake was made, or the key moment. No mention as to when the person blundered the opening nothing. The book claims it is suitable for beginners. Not sure how this is since it’s not a teaching book, it’s just data dump.
The book claims will give you an idea on how to improve your play. How is this possible when they don’t even tell you the opening or when the error occurred.
The book claims it will make it easier to interpret and understand tactics? How there is no discussion in this book. To mention of tactics, key movements, mistakes etc. it is just a data dump. i have attached a picture for you to see for yourself. Do Not recommend this book.
- The printed version is very difficult to use. The moves are given going across the page, without any spacing between moves, so just a continuous line of notation. It would have been much better to have the moves go down the page, as most chess books do. Also, the print is very small and hard to read easily. No commentary of any kind for any of the games. Seems like self-published book made to just to make money. I don't see any publisher noted in the book. Not worth the cost.
- Games don't finish. Not everybody can guess what the next 20 moves are going to be
- Save your money.
- This book was fine but I wish annotations were provided. Also, I would say it is great since it is free. I recommend to players who wants to improve by playing through grandmaster games.
___________
The first game given is Tal vs Tringov, Munich 1958 and the last, Hug vs Brunner, Garmisch 1994. No game has more than 20 moves given. There are no opening names to the games (an ECO code isgiven) and instead of an index, there is a 15 page table of contents with the exact information that you would find by looking at the games themselves.
I have some odd books – one in the shape of a toilet seat with problems for solving in the washroom, plagiarized material in others, and the infamous Nunn edited Batsford edition of Bobby Fischer’s games. One that I quoted a while ago in ChessTalk had the games of a Fischer-Kasparov match that never took place:
https://forum.chesstalk.com/forum/ch...2-secret-games
Karthik’s book has some value as a database. I doubt whether one can “learn the beauty of tricks and traps” from this collection as the author hopes. It is a book that I can hand to a visiting collector and ask him what he thinks about it and we can discuss its doubtful merits over coffee.
August 4, 2019
You will all know Irving Chernev’s “1000 best short games of chess: a treasury of masterpieces in miniature”, Simon and Schuster, 1955.
Recently, I heard of a book entitled “500 Short Chess Games of Grand Masters” by Karthik PM.
“Well,” I thought, “it would be nice to have an updated version of Chernev’s work. If is reasonably priced, I’ll buy it.”
In fact, I did buy it for about $15. As an afterthought I checked amazon and others to see what prices they had and was astounded to find the paperback for $1684.12 on amazon.ca and US$ 2,475.92. I am not sure how he did it but Karthik or his publisher artificially raised the price on two well-known websites.
These reviews:
- I had bought the book expecting some narrative but it was just filled with Algebraic Chess notations. Nothing else. Better for the more experienced players, i think. I tried a few game strategies but found myself lost on pawn placements, midway through the games. Again, not for the beginner.
- This is just a database dump. You are just given moves. No text on why a mistake was made, or the key moment. No mention as to when the person blundered the opening nothing. The book claims it is suitable for beginners. Not sure how this is since it’s not a teaching book, it’s just data dump.
The book claims will give you an idea on how to improve your play. How is this possible when they don’t even tell you the opening or when the error occurred.
The book claims it will make it easier to interpret and understand tactics? How there is no discussion in this book. To mention of tactics, key movements, mistakes etc. it is just a data dump. i have attached a picture for you to see for yourself. Do Not recommend this book.
- The printed version is very difficult to use. The moves are given going across the page, without any spacing between moves, so just a continuous line of notation. It would have been much better to have the moves go down the page, as most chess books do. Also, the print is very small and hard to read easily. No commentary of any kind for any of the games. Seems like self-published book made to just to make money. I don't see any publisher noted in the book. Not worth the cost.
- Games don't finish. Not everybody can guess what the next 20 moves are going to be
- Save your money.
- This book was fine but I wish annotations were provided. Also, I would say it is great since it is free. I recommend to players who wants to improve by playing through grandmaster games.
___________
The first game given is Tal vs Tringov, Munich 1958 and the last, Hug vs Brunner, Garmisch 1994. No game has more than 20 moves given. There are no opening names to the games (an ECO code isgiven) and instead of an index, there is a 15 page table of contents with the exact information that you would find by looking at the games themselves.
I have some odd books – one in the shape of a toilet seat with problems for solving in the washroom, plagiarized material in others, and the infamous Nunn edited Batsford edition of Bobby Fischer’s games. One that I quoted a while ago in ChessTalk had the games of a Fischer-Kasparov match that never took place:
https://forum.chesstalk.com/forum/ch...2-secret-games
Karthik’s book has some value as a database. I doubt whether one can “learn the beauty of tricks and traps” from this collection as the author hopes. It is a book that I can hand to a visiting collector and ask him what he thinks about it and we can discuss its doubtful merits over coffee.
Comment