The Art of the Checkmate

by Victor Kahn and Georges Renaud

Book Overview

"The art of the checkmate has at last been provided with a scientific foundation." -- Chicago Sunday Tribune
One of the most difficult situations in chess is seeing potential mates in the near future. All players, even grandmasters and champions, have missed such mates in actual play, to their chagrin and the bystanders' delight, for all too often it is easier to play for momentary advantage than to force a mate.
This book by two former national...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486201066
• ISBN13: 9780486201061
• Release Date: June 1962
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

Best Checkmate Book Ever Written: A Classic

"ART OF THE CHECKMATE" simply put is the best book ever written covering all of the important checkmate patterns. Each different checkmate theme is fully explained followed by examples using games and problems to solve. Superb clarity, comprehensiveness and plenty of diagrams are highlights that make this book stand out. To complete your knowledge of tactics, a good general book on tactics and a good general book on opening traps will go hand and hand with this book that focuses on checkmates. This way you will have well-rounded coverage of all tactical situations.

Best Book on Checkmate Patterns Ever Written

Hands down, this book is a winner!!! It clearly covers the most important checkmates there are for a practical player to learn. They are logically arranged by type of pattern and clearly explained. I got this book years ago and recommend to anyone from beginner to expert.

study tactics and mating patterns

It is quite simple: if you are new to the game of chess, you need to do only two things to improve: study tactics and study mating patterns. Why? Because tactics and mating threats are the reason that long term strategy works. The reason Grand Masters make such good moves is the fact that they are finding future tactical or mating threats in every move they make. (This is obviously a broad generalization, but it's true enough.) Start with tactics first. They are going to be your bread and butter throughout your chess playing career. After you have a decent tactical foundation, then it's time to learn the mating patterns. I mean really LEARN them. Once you have gained a thorough knowledge of this part, you can then move on to positional considerations, as you will know what it means to have a positional advantage in the first place. For example, what good is it to have the two Bishops and an open position, if you lack the basic knowledge of tactics and mating patterns to do anything with it? So why then do you need this book? Because it lays out in a very clear fashion a lot of different ways to mate the king. Now instead of wandering aimlessly through the middlegame, you can take a look at your position and see what sorts of mating threats you can create from move to move based on the mating patterns this book will teach you. Knowing these mates is absolutely fundamental to getting better at chess. Your results will improve. You will learn the mating patterns by using and studying this book. The first time you spot one of these mates against an actual opponent, you'll have more than gotten your money's worth from this book. It really is that simple. The book uses descriptive notation, so watch out if you don't know how to read that kind of notation.

Yes, this is the book you're looking for

If you've just begun to play chess, look for the book "Simple Checkmates," which is just what it says. But this is the next book that everyone should read. Quite simply, if you're between 1200 and 1500 this book will probably increase your confidence and skill more than any other book. It's a true classic, written by the 1923 and 1934 champions of France. It covers the most important mates and attacks for beginners to know. I think no other book does this. This is the only chess book that I'd say you should practically memorize.

One of the best chess books ever!!!

This is a classic and quite frankly, its hard to find chess books being written today that are this useful (with a few minor exceptions). Yes, it is in descriptive notation which makes it somewhat difficult. Yes, some of the commentary about the games is dated (see, e.g., the commentary about Bc4 as being a poor move in the sicilian defense) and there are a few errors. Despite all of this, the book is absolutely brilliant. The book categorizes many of the common mating patterns and then gives several examples and quizzes which are usually taken from actual game (or variations from games and occasionally a study or two). In my opinion, next to learning the basic endgames (to which too many amateurs don't pay enough attention -- quick, do you know philidor's and lucena's position cold?), studuing mating patterns is the most important step to improvement. How often have you gotten a really good attacking position against the king and had no idea how to proceed? An attack against the king is more dangerous than an attack elsewhere only because of the possibility of checkmate. If you cannot finish your opponent off then the attack fails. Often a sacrifice is required to finish off an enemy king. The best way to see the possibilities for such sacrifices is to know the mating patterns. Knowing these patterns will allow you to start looking for combinations, or play moves that set them up. Even if your opponent defends, it's not always the ability to conduct the mate itself, often it's the mere threat of delivering checkmate that allows a player to force positional (or material) concessions from an opponent. Maybe all you get out of a mating threat is a pawn, but that pawn may be enough to win the game! Maybe you win the exchange, or maybe all you have is a positional advantage heading into the endgame. Regardless, the ability to conduct an attack on the enemy king is important to all aspects of the game. The fundamental skill required to successfully attack the king is knowledge of the basic mating patterns and their variations. And there is no better source to learn these patterns than "The Art of the Checkmate."I have very fond memories of this book. When I first started to learn how to play chess 12 years ago, my father suggested this book to me. After reading the first chapter concerning legal's mate (a queen sacrifice that occurs very early in the game and, if accepted, allows checkmate typically by 2 knights and a bishop), I went to my father and told him that the book was useless because there was no way that this checkmate would occur in a real game. My dad smiled at me and suggested I keep reading. I had been playing a friend and we were pretty evenly matched. We both knew the basics, but nothing more. The very next game I played (after telling my dad how useless the book was) I GOT LEGAL'S MATE!!! I couldn't believe it... my friend was in shock! Absolutely true story! Needless t