Simple Chess

by Michael Stean

Book Overview

Written by a young Grand Master, this introduction to chess strategy is aimed primarily at players for whom a game plan is utterly enigmatic. By isolating the basic elements and illustrating them through a selection of Master and Grand Master games, Simple Chess breaks down the mystique of strategy into plain, easy-to-understand ideas -- only a knowledge of basic chess terminology is assumed. More than a lesson in chess fundamentals, this book illustrates...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486424200
• ISBN13: 9780486424200
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.5" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Pretty new book arrived quickly

Book is new and price is good

Excellent, but there are some typos...

I agree with all the positive observations made by the other reviewers, but would like to extend the list of typos started by Dr. Salawu. Here are the errors I've found, with page numbers as they appear in the 2002 Dover algebraic edition: p.15, variation following move 22: "(23...Kb3" should be "(23...Kc6" p.33, 6th para: "conceding the d4 square" should be "conceding the d5 square" p.47, 2nd para: the omitted 21st Black move in the variation is Ne5 p.52: "7. Bxc3" should be "7. bxc3" p.96, variation following move 31: the move after 32. Nxf4 should be Rc1+ p.102, 1st para: "Bb7" should be "Bg7" p.129, 1st para: "all kings" should be "all kinds" p.129, last para: Black's 12th move in the second variation should be Rh5, not Rh4 p.158: Black's 4th move was Bb7, not Bg7 p.160, 1st line: "28. Bc5!" should be "28. Bc5+!"

Best chess book I ever read!

Every chess player has a "best chess book ever read" and this one is mine. My rating was around 1500 to 1600 USCF when I read this book and when I finished reading this book my rating jumped to 1800+. It is obvious that I learned SO much about positional chess from this book! The book is only a little over a hundred pages but every page is packed with excellent positional insight. Before this book I had read My System by Aaron Nimzovitch which was really helpfull to my chess (but nothing compared to this book)! My sugestion of chess progression in terms of chess books would go like: Winning Chess by Yasser Seirawan and Jeremy Silman Winning Chess Tactics by Yasser Seirawan and Jeremy Silman Winning Chess Strategy by Yasser Seirawan and Jeremy Silman A couple of combination books like... 1001 Checkmates by Fred Reinfeld (cheap and many puzzles) 1001 Chess Combinations by Fred Rienfeld (cheap and many puzzles) Pandolfini's Endgame Course by Bruce Pandolfini ...and once you have worked through the basics in those books, then Simple Chess will be a great source of instruction. When I read this book in college at my college library I went WOW and looked to buy this book and found out it was out of print. I looked everywhere to buy a used version of this treasure of a work and thank goodness Dover has deemed to reprint it (and in Algebraic)! For the serious chess player, I would also recomend (after reading Simple Chess): Reassess Your Chess by Jeremy Silman The Inner Game by Andrew Soltis If a player seriously works through all these books then there is no reason why they should not be a class A player or better (if supplemented with tournament chess and analysing thier games afterward).

Better than Bronstein, Niemzowitsch, Pachman, Silman...

[First reviewed October 30, 2005] I have read the reviews and the questions about the "difficulty" of this book. At the outset let me state that I am a USCF "Class A" Player, rated 1875. Now, about the title of my review. I have read Chess Praxis, My System (Niemzowitsch), The Amateur's Mind, How to Reassess Your Chess, How to Reassess Your Chess Workbook (Silman), Modern Chess Strategy (Pachman), Simple Chess (Emms), The Middlegame in Chess (Kotov and Keres; WAY overrated) and a book I reviewed previously, Bronstein's book on the Zurich International Tourmament of 1953. This last book I had considered the best middlegame book I had ever read (I have not read Pyotr Romanovsky's texts, nor those of Euwe and Kramer). Stean's book was recommended to me by the editor himself, Fred Wilson, at a chess tournament. I purchased the book and soon realized that Stean has made understanding positional chess much more simple. Yes, Stean presupposes that his reader has some advanced knoweldge (like the ability to win endgames, to conclude a middlegame attack), so I would not recommend this text to a newcomer. However, there are plenty of books that serve this purpose! What seemed lacking to me was a good middlegame text for near-experts like myself who have not been able to make that breakthrough in positional chess. Therefore, I must disagree with the reviewer who says one may skip this book and buy one of Reinfeld's puzzle books. That is like comparing apples to oranges: it is certainly always important to sharpen tactics, to improve attacking play, defensive play, endgame play, etc. But this book is for improving the positional handling of the strong "Club-Player," positional handling being separate and distinct from other parts of chess (at least as far as traditional study is concerned). Let me emphasize that I feel this book is a superior course on STATICS (relatively permanent positional features in a chess position). It seems that authors are teaching DYNAMICS much better these days, but friends around my level have more problems exploiting the statics, and that is why I feel this book is incredible. The advanced player has learned of the importance of outposts, open files, color complexes, etc., but Stean's Simple Chess helps one to "get it." It is such a shame (a tragedy?) that Stean did not see fit to write more. [UPDATE, February 9, 2006] I am reading Stean's magnificent work for the second time, and I would like to say, in addition to what I said above, that I now consider this the greatest chess book I have ever read, on any facet of the game. After finishing this book again, I will read it a third time, but only the prose and will ignore the games--it is in the prose where the genius of this book is found. Almost no page goes by without some eye-opening insight or three, or four. At many junctures, EVERY sentence on a page reveals something that the intermediate to advanced club player likely never thought of, and helps you see the game of

Chess made simple...and perfect for your pocket!

This is a really super little book which covers a number of fundamental aspects of chess strategy. Each chapter discusses a different kind of positional advantage and the correct methods for exploiting it. If I remember correctly, the topics are establishing outposts for pieces, attacking weak pawns, penetrating the enemy's position via (i) open files or (ii) a weak colour complex, positional pressure along half-open files and its connection to the strategy of the minority attack and utilizing superior mobility created by a space advantage. One word of warning, however, this is definitely not a beginners' book on chess strategy. The discussions are quite deep and seem to me to presuppose a solid understanding of chess. On the other hand it is just perfect if you've played a few years and have a basic understanding of chess strategy that needs to be deepened. Just one example, as a chess novice I knew that rooks "belonged" on open files. But Micheal Stean taught me not only why they belong there (control of an open file aims at penentration of the enemy's position along a rank) but under what circumstances such penetration is likely to be successful or unsuccessful (e.g. unsuccessful if the enemy king defends the penetration squares on the rank, successful if you have the more active minor pieces which can stop the enemy rooks contesting the open file). Light, small and insightful, I often take this book as a perfect travelling companion for brushing up on those basic strategic points on the go.

Outstanding Elucidation of Basic Chess Strategy

Grandmaster Michael Stean pioneered the explication of the basic themes of chess strategy that other writers, such as John Emms, (Simple Chess), have found worthy of emulation. I bought the first edition of this book on June 9, 1983 and, aside from Nimzowitsch's My System, this is the most useful chess book I have ever purchased, word-for-word and dollar-for-dollar! I anticipated the second edition of Stean's book in my review of Dvoretsky's Strategic Play: School of Chess Excellence 3. I expected the author himself, Michael Stean, to correct trivial errors and add a few nuggets of modern chess wisdom but it was Fred Wilson who edited the text to eliminate simple errors, rephrased British colloquialism into American English and translated descriptive notation into algebraic notation without adding any new chess ideas to the text. Nonetheless, as long as there is no substantial modification of the original text, I shall always award five stars to this book without worrying about the level of players it would serve well. (There are very well written books on many subjects for high school students that should not be downgraded because they are either over the heads of grade school kids or too simple for college students.) Stean's brilliant introductory chapter whets ones appetite and piques ones interest so much that one wants to read through this slim volume in one sitting but please don't. I created a mnemonic from the titles of the remaining six chapters that I run through my mind in a few games where my plan must be revised. Appropriately, I use MOSCOW thus: M for minority attack, (half-open files); O for open files; S for space; C for color, (black squares and white squares); O for outposts and W for weak pawns. This book not only raises the acquisition of space, combined with denying the opponent of same, to supreme consideration but it also demonstrates best the advice to attack where one has gained space so as to effect conversion to other advantages. One feels relieved somewhat when, on page 136, one is told, "When you have a spatial advantage, there need be no hurry to form an active plan, that will come in due course." The challenge is how to acquire more space when your opponent is trying to do precisely the same thing. At the bottom of page 101, the explanation that Black develops the black-squared Bishop `passively' on e7, after playing e6, in order to deprive White of the use of an outpost on d5, in the Sicilian, was justification enough for not considering g6, followed by Bg7 at which point e6 will leave the d pawn quite weak. This is a great guide to the placement of the pieces and an encouragement to read all analyses and asides in a chess book that many readers skip. Try using two chess sets on the second pass through games or game segments. Speaking of game segments, this book demonstrates clearly, without saying so in as many words, that positional chess players see a game of chess as an organic whole while tacticians may so