How to Play Chess like a Champion
4/5
()
About this ebook
Fred Reinfeld
Fred Reinfeld (1910–1964) was a well-known and prolific chess writer, whose writing is well known for its deceptive simplicity and clarity, tinged with warmth and humour.
Read more from Fred Reinfeld
The Complete Chess Course: From Beginning to Winning Chess! Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why You Lose at Chess Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/51001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Be a Winner at Chess Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/51001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Immortal Games of Capablanca Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAttack and Counterattack in Chess Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChess Mastery By Question And Answer Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Practical End-Game Play Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Immortal Games of Capablanca Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to How to Play Chess like a Champion
Related ebooks
Attack and Counterattack in Chess Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCounter Gambits Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Imperfect Chess Playbook Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJournal of Positional Chess Ideas: Winning Long Games Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Tactician's Handbook Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Learn Chess from the Greats Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How Not to Play Chess Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Immortal Games of Capablanca Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings200 Brilliant Endgames Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Why You Lose at Chess: Second Edition Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mastering Positional Chess: Practical Lessons of a Junior World Champion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A World Champion's Guide to Chess: Step-by-Step Instructions for Winning Chess the Polgar Way! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Play Chess Endings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Chess Combination Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Better Chess for Average Players Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn the Zone: The Greatest Winning Streaks in Chess History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHow to beat Magnus Carlsen: Exploring the Most Difficult Challenge in Chess Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Attacking the Strongpoint: The Philosophy of Chess Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Chess Endgame Study: A Comprehensive Introduction Second Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Back to Basics: Openings Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Draw!: The Art of the Half-Point in Chess Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5How to Play the Chess Openings Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Chess Strategy Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Game of Chess Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mastering Complex Endgames: Practical Lessons on Critical Ideas & Plans Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oops! I Resigned Again! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsModern Ideas in Chess Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Zlotnik's Treasure Trove: Enjoyable Chess Training for Amateurs (1600-2200 Elo) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMasters of the Chessboard Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Understanding Rook vs. Minor Piece Endgames Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Games & Activities For You
101 Fun Personality Quizzes: Who Are You . . . Really?! Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5How to Draw Anything Anytime: A Beginner's Guide to Cute and Easy Doodles (Over 1,000 Illustrations) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/530 Interactive Brainteasers to Warm Up your Brain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSerial Killer Trivia: Fascinating Facts and Disturbing Details That Will Freak You the F*ck Out Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stuff You Should Know: An Incomplete Compendium of Mostly Interesting Things Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Into the Dungeon: A Choose-Your-Own-Path Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Best F*cking Activity Book Ever: Irreverent (and Slightly Vulgar) Activities for Adults Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The Monsters Know What They're Doing: Combat Tactics for Dungeon Masters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Star Wars: Book of Lists Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTo Kill a Mockingbird: A Novel by Harper Lee (Trivia-On-Books) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Chess: Chess Masterclass Guide to Chess Tactics, Chess Openings & Chess Strategies Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5How to Study Chess on Your Own: Creating a Plan that Works… and Sticking to it! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Big Book of Nature Activities: A Year-Round Guide to Outdoor Learning Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bored Games: 100+ In-Person and Online Games to Keep Everyone Entertained Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hunt A Killer: The Detective's Puzzle Book: True-Crime Inspired Ciphers, Codes, and Brain Games Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners: The Tactics Workbook that Explains the Basic Concepts, Too Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How To Beat Anyone At Chess: The Best Chess Tips, Moves, and Tactics to Checkmate Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Harry Potter - The Complete Quiz Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Everything Lateral Thinking Puzzles Book: Hundreds of Puzzles to Help You Think Outside the Box Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEmbrace Your Weird: Face Your Fears and Unleash Creativity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Murder Most Puzzling: Twenty Mysterious Cases to Solve Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5My Best Mathematical and Logic Puzzles Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of English Magic Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand (Trivia-On-Books) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEveryone's First Chess Workbook: Fundamental Tactics and Checkmates for Improvers – 738 Practical Exercises Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Book of Card Games: The Complete Rules to the Classics, Family Favorites, and Forgotten Games Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHoyle's Rules of Games - Descriptions of Indoor Games of Skill and Chance, with Advice on Skillful Play Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for How to Play Chess like a Champion
3 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
How to Play Chess like a Champion - Fred Reinfeld
How to Play Chess like a Champion
by
Fred Reinfeld
21st-Century Edition
Fred Reinfeld Chess Classics
Bruce Alberston, General Editor
2013
Russell Enterprises, Inc.
Milford, CT USA
How to Play Chess like a Champion
by Fred Reinfeld
21st-Century Edition
The Fred Reinfeld Chess Series
Bruce Alberston, General Editor
ISBN: 978-1-936490-63-9 (print)
© Copyright 2013
Don Reinfeld, Judith Reinfeld and Bruce Alberston
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be used, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any manner or form whatsoever or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the express written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Published by:
Russell Enterprises, Inc.
P.O. Box 3131
Milford, CT 06460 USA
http://www.russell-enterprises.com
info@russell-enterprises.com
Cover design by Janel Lowrance
Table of Contents
Preface
Foreword
Editor’s Introduction
Author’s Preface
How to Record Moves
Chapter 1: A Thing of Beauty
Outstanding Feats of Skill and Imagination
Chapter 2: Lightning from a Clear Sky – Or Slow Torture
More Gems of Master Chess Play
Chapter 3: Even As You and I
Typical Games of Average Players
Chapter 4: They Laughed When I Sat Down to Play
Amateurs vs. Masters
Chapter 5: To Err Is Human
Masters Blunder Too
Chapter 6: Once in a Lifetime
When Amateurs Beat Masters
Chapter 7: Facets of Master Play
What It Takes to Be a Master
Chapter 8: How to Improve
Five Ways to Better Play
Preface
Many of today’s players, now the grandparents of chessplaying teenagers, fondly recall growing up with the Reinfeld books, which covered all aspects of chess, from the openings to the endgame, and included generous helpings of chess lore and the lives of the greatest chess masters.
Reprinting chess books by our father, Fred Reinfeld (1910-1964), ended in the 1980s as descriptive notation was phased out in favor of the more popular algebraic notation. We are extremely grateful to Bruce Alberston, who has taken up the task of converting Reinfeld’s notations to algebraic.
Thanks also to Russell Enterprises for publishing a 21st-century version of this, and, hopefully more, Reinfeld chess classics, thereby introducing Fred Reinfeld’s teaching genius to new generations of chess enthusiasts, especially to beginners and mid-level players eager to sharpen their skills at the chessboard.
Don and Judith Reinfeld
Foreword
Mention the name Fred Reinfeld to different chessplayers and you get different reactions, not all supported by the facts. There are those who claim he wrote books mainly for beginners. True, but he also produced a number of quality volumes for more experienced competitors as well. Those more involved tomes will always have value to aficionados and others wanting nicely gathered material, while not being too far beyond the reach of the newcomer. I’m especially thinking of various outstanding works he did on tactics, endgames, and the collected games of particular players.
There’s an implication in some criticisms that Reinfeld wasn’t a good player. But the reality is that he was a very good player. On the 1950 rating list, the first one put out by the USCF, he was rated sixth in the country. In 1933, as another example of his playing prowess, Reinfeld won the New York State Championship ahead of Denker and Fine. Furthermore, in individual encounters over the years, he was able to beat Fine, Reshevsky (twice – certainly, no mean feat), Marshall and Denker. Not too many weak
players could boast of vanquishing members of that group. Nor is it likely that an ordinary player could draw with world chess champion Alexander Alekhine (when Alekhine was truly Alekhine), as Fred Reinfeld once did.
To be sure, Reinfeld was prolific. He may have authored as many as 200 books, if we count those he did for other people. And he wrote not solely about chess, but on an array of other disciplines, and as nimbly. Medicine, coin collecting, physics, checkers, law, geology, and stamp collecting are just a sampling of the fields Reinfeld tackled and conquered, rendering their substance in beautifully clear texts. In a way, he came from the same mold as Isaac Asimov. He loved ideas and was able to write with power and clarity on practically anything.
Reinfeld, no question, had an uncanny facility for language. He could take abstract concepts, often expressed in numbers and symbols, and somehow convert all of that obfuscation to cogent utility. Fraught with wonderful metaphors and delightful anecdotes, Reinfeld was always a great read. That expertise – all of that mastery – can be found in the offerings in this series. How to be a Winner at Chess and How to Play Chess Like a Champion are among the very best introductory chess books ever produced, bar none. In both offerings, Reinfeld manages to capture the essence of good chess in a most readable, enjoyable, easy to grasp format. Indeed, he dedicates the first book to his wife, who he states asked for a chess book that she could read.
And now these two volumes have suddenly become even more accessible, thanks to the efforts of master teacher/writer Bruce Alberston, who has changed everything from the obsolescent descriptive notation to the more popular algebraic notation. Another nice feature instituted by Alberston is the two-column format, making the material much easier to read and follow.
But those two excellent manuals are not alone. Alberston has also put into algebraic notation Reinfeld’s two classic texts on tactics: 1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate and 1001 Winning Chess Sacrifices and Combinations (both scheduled to appear late 2013 or early 2014). That’s more than 2000 problems to work on and from which the overwhelming majority of chess enthusiasts can benefit. Hey, even if I hadn’t written what I have here, I’d still buy a bunch of all four titles every year, as long as I had students who loved the game of chess, just like the great Fred Reinfeld.
Bruce Pandolfini
New York
January 2013
Editor’s Introduction
How to Play Chess Like a Champion was my first chess book and it came at just the right time.
Six months earlier I had joined the school chess club and learned how the pieces move. Playing against other beginners I progressed rapidly, landing at the intermediate level mainly because I didn’t hang things. But when I try to figure out just what it was I knew, it became apparent I didn’t have a clue.
That all changed with How to Play Chess Like a Champion, in fact, in the very first chapter. Starting with examples from master play, Reinfeld went about setting the standard. Of course I had never seen chess like this; it was a revelation. So this is what it’s all about.
At the same time I realized that the standard was light years from the chess we were playing at school. Thanks to Reinfeld’s lucid explanations I was able to follow the play. So even if the master level was way beyond me, at least I could understand it, sort of, and maybe someday I could approach it. Thus the overall effect was encouraging, not the other way around.
Naturally the book doesn’t stop at Chapter One. The subsequent chapters, two through eight, are all at the same high level of entertainment and instruction. I think Champion catches Reinfeld at his peak: when he’s juggling multiple concepts at his typewriter, blending them into an absorbing narrative that captivates and enlightens.
Of course there’s plenty of instruction. And intertwined are tidbits culled from the world of chess, slices of history, matches, tournaments, portraits of the champions and their challengers, and insights into personalities, their triumphs and failures. In short, an unceasing treasure trove of chess lore.
Which brings me back to the beginning. How to Play Chess Like a Champion provided just that mixture of instruction and inspiration to get me to the next level. That was Champion of Central Jr. High School. And it was no easy matter because the Troxell brothers stood in my way. What! You’ve never heard of the Troxell brothers! For shame. Dad was city champion and the kids were pretty good too.
But Reinfeld got me past the brothers and How to Play Chess Like a Champion did indeed get me to the championship level.
So here’s hoping that you the reader, get at least as much as the editor did when he first read How to Play Chess Like a Champion. In these pages you’ve got Fred Reinfeld at the top of his game. Rarely has an author so successfully realized his goal as Reinfeld has in Champion.
As for the editor’s job, it was fun. Read the text, type it up, convert to algebraic notation, and make up a few diagrams. The section on recording moves had to be rewritten but the rest is pure Reinfeld.
Bruce Alberston
Astoria, New York
March 2013
Author’s Preface
In this age of do-it-yourself,
we all want to be experts. Look about you, and you will see that in every field there are experts as well as others, whom we call amateurs,
fans,
hobbyists,
and if you will forgive the expression, duffers.
In these fields, bridge, golf, nuclear physics, chess, or whatever, there is a wide gap between the experts and the others. In this book I have tried to show how that gap can be bridged in the field of chess.
The method had to be quite different from the one applied in How to Be a Winner at Chess. That book was written strictly from the point of view of the average player who plays games with other average players and wants desperately to know how to beat average players.
There is a great deal in chess that such a player doesn’t need. Consequently I ruthlessly stripped away superfluities and confined myself to the essentials.
The gratifying comments of readers have made me feel that I was on the right track in concentrating on the basic requirements for victory. I deliberately ruled out the whole content of master chess.
In How to Play Chess Like a Champion I have adopted a totally different method. I want to familiarize the average chessplayer with the conditions of master chess. Once he knows what achievements of the masters are, he has a known goal toward which he can stride.
In writing this book I have tried to put myself in the position of the average player who has never met a master. When I tackle a strange subject it seems like a complete blur at the beginning. What’s it all about? What purpose does it serve? How do you master it?
These are some of the questions I ask myself. But even at the moment of darkest ignorance I have faith that if I apply myself I will attain understanding. The blur will clear, the outlines will become sharper. Every chessplayer, if he wants to improve, must have this faith.
And so, in writing this book, I asked myself the questions that I felt the ordinary player would ask. The first important question seemed to be: Just what is there in the master’s performance that sets him apart from the general run of chessplayers?
The best answer to that question, I concluded, was to explain the masters’ achievements in terms of some of their finest games. To many readers, the spectacular combinations in the first two chapters will come as a revelation of what chess is – what it can be when it is played by the greatest men in the field.
(The best way to enjoy these glorious combinations, incidentally, is to play over the main line first. Then, after you’ve seen what actually happened, you can go back to study what might have happened.)
Next I would want to ask myself: How do the achievements of the masters differ technically from the play of ordinary players? To bridge the gap between the two groups, you must first be aware of the gap. And so two typical amateurs’ games shed light on the difference between amateur and master.
All very well, I might say, but what happens when the two tangle in actual combat. To illuminate this point, I give games between masters and amateurs, showing how