Mentioned: Dan Heisman, IM Eric Rosen, Jose Rauol Capablanca, Harry Pillsbury, GM Sam Shankland, Siegbert Tarrasch I had heard of games leaving impressions on people before, but after playing chess more than 40 years, it had never happened to me. Now, I get to say that Rubinstein-Salwe, Lodz, 1908 (game #20) left a deep impression on me. I found it in least a half a dozen other books, annotated by everyone including Kasparov. It was called a perfect model game - and here it was, in this book that I first saw it, despite having known about Rubinstein for a long time. Decline the gambit and develop bishop, cutting across center diagonal, preventing further pawn development down the center, but most importantly casting a gaze on the castling weakness It's nice to have a book that explains games move by move. But Chernev's "principles" are arbitrary, to say the least. In some situations a pawn in front of castled king gets moved and he's like "what a terrible move, don't violate the king's safety!" and other times he's like "obviously, moving the pawn in front of castled king is right thing to do, always create opportunities" blah blah. Basically his advice boils down to: "make the right move at the right time." Bishop pins a pawn far far away, stunning it into not being able to move because that would expose the king, he takes a pawn out of the game from a distance, protected

Let's start with the good news. This is a fabulous book. A classic. If you have more than one chess book, then you have the beginnings of a collection. And no collection would be complete without a copy of "Logical chess". If you haven't got a chess book, then I can think of no better way to start a collection than this one. It's a must have.Play the moves necessary (out-of-strategy) to secure maximum mobility, space, while weakening the enemy, cramping his movements The rook at D1 acts as a deterrent against the carnage of central pawns, because any clearance of the open file makes the rook that much more dangerous I'm not sure why I read this book, but I bought it a few years ago for some reason (probably mentioned by some Youtuber) and so I finally finished reading it. Took a long time. Primarily because I have to play it out on an actual board (even though every couple of moves or so, Chernev includes a diagram), so there was decently high activation energy to read it. Mentioned: GM Ben Finegold, Caruana-Vachier-Lagrave 2021, World’s Most Instructive Amateur Game Book by Dan Heisman, IM Cyrus Lakdawala

How much scarier is AI if it thinks strategically about controlling areas and subtly pulling apart target pieces rather than a brute force Laplace Demon. At least in the latter noone is screwed until everyone is screwed at the same time. It has its own share of problems though. First, you can only truly understand what's written if you are actually recreating every move on a chessboard in front of your eyes. (If you are a superhuman by any chance who has a super eidetic memory and can follow every move in your mind's eye, this comment is not for you). How fianchettoing kingside actually makes the king safer, despite requiring the g-pawn to be pushed. This actually wasn't a major theme of the book, but the author mentioned off-hand at one point that the foanchettoed bishop helps protect the king. After that, I started noticing how many standard mating patterns don't work with the bishop there.Weak players instinctively try and free up pawns, anxious against a pin, but it is better to leave the kingside pawns protective and close than get exposed after castling. Chernev was extremely well-read in chess literature, and shares insights of many grandmasters, as these insights are illustrated in the games in this book. Zwischenzug, in-between-move, where a ranging-piece is able to move fully across the board but stops somewhere in between.

Ruy Lopez (Spanish Opening): follow up e4/e5 f3/c6 normalcy with searing Bb5 that pressures the Knight, and opens line to pinning king’s pawn. This is that book. As the subtitle says, the explanation really is move by move, meaning each move is followed by a solid paragraph of explanation and thought. Chernev writes with wit and clarity and I feel like I benefitted in all the right ways. Developing knights because you know where they belong (C3,F3) compared to Bishops, certainty is your friend. My other complaint is variety. The open games in the first half are very entertaining, but the second half contains too many Queen Gambits. Maybe it's repetition by intention, but at the end it bored me down a little bit.Mentioned: The Scandinavian Defense, Understanding Chess Move by Move by GM John Nunn, Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy by IM John Watson, Episode 41 with GM Judit Polgar This did work for a time, but I eventually hit the plateau I've been in and decided I'd start studying the game a bit more seriously. I hit upon this book, and I decided to give it a go. Even before I finished it, I noticed an improvement in my games. Why? Because there are few books aimed at beginners, but which will still entertain you as you get stronger. Not only that, but Chernev is a witty writer. Okay, maybe not laugh out loud, belly laugh type material. But you will love the way he describes the games.