Simple Chess : New Algebraic Edition

Rating:
Summary: Beginners beware! This is not a primer...
Review: For grandmaster Michael Stean, this may have seemed an appropriate title, but for neophytes out there in chess land, this book is decidedly not simple. Instead, I place this in the range of such books as Larry Evans' excellent New Ideas in Chess, but below that of Pachman's equally fine Modern Chess Strategy. Stean uses complex grandmaster games to illustrate the cornerstones of chess technique such as the Minority Attack, Outposts, Weak Pawns, Open Files, Space etc. Each example is accompanied by insightful descriptions and explanations that one cannot help but learn from. One of the measures of a truly good chess book is that it teaches on all levels, ie., that a 1300 player might learn a tremendous amount from a book and then reread the book later as a 1700 player and make a completely new set of discoveries. Reti's Masters of the Chessboard is like that for me, and so, to a lesser extent, is Simple Chess. This is a small book at 120-some pages, easily overlooked, bu! t well worth the price of admission and the effort one might put intoit.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding Elucidation of Basic Chess Strategy
Review: 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 solve "mate in three" problems ad infinitum with game segments.

I am as impressed with this edition of Stean's book as I was with the earlier edition and I could end my review here but, as a knowledge promoter, having taught graduate engineering courses several decades ago, I wish to share some `humorous' observations on the new edition with the reader.

Fred Wilson succeeded in his mission, though a few new errors were introduced. Most noteworthy is that the use of algebraic notation removed all ambiguities in the earlier descriptive notation. By this I mean that if it was possible for more than one pawn or either knight or either rook or the queen to have made a move described in the earlier edition, the algebraic notation unequivocally stated the specific square and, where necessary, piece involved. One of the things that amused me in the new edition was that an attempt at word-for-word translation confused both notations, for instance, on page 9, Fred wrote "White's c4 square" in place of "White's QB4 square." In algebraic notation, is c4 not the same for both players while QB4 was indeed different for each player in the descriptive notation?

As far as I could tell, Fred corrected almost every error in the first edition, for example: in the analysis of Karpov-Spassky on page 61, he inserted a `with' in the comment after move 9. Ng5! In the analysis on page 80, an earlier 3. ... R-B1 that should have been 3. ... R-B7 was corrected to 3. ... Rc2?? but should Fred have added his own `??' as he also added a `!' notation to move 11. e4(!) on page 158? Should we trust the assessment of a move by Fred where Grandmaster Stean declined to make one? Right after diagram 71, the analysis, 19. dxc6 e.p. corrected 19. PxP e.g.; in the last variation in the book, on page 160, 36. Rxf6+ redeemed an earlier mistake, 36. RxB+ when indeed it was a Black knight that was captured on move 36, as Black's last Bishop disappeared on move 25.

A few, inconsequential errors that Fred introduced are: on page 5, he wrote "a piece beyond the second rate" when he meant "a piece beyond the second rank" as Stean had written. Fred erred in the fifth line from the bottom of page 12 with `win again a ...' where `win against a ...' had been correct. On page 102, the second line should have started, "After g6 and Bg7" rather than "After g6 and Bb7." On page 107, Fred wrote "This is what we are talking about when we saw things like ..." when he meant "when we say things like." An earlier reviewer mentioned the misuse of the word `complication' in "successful complication" on page 121 when "successful completion" was written in the earlier edition. That reviewer then went on to rate the book low for poor editing. Do you think Stean's magnificent elucidation of basic chess strategy should suffer from minor oversights of an editor? The third line from the bottom of page 135 could have done without the `of' and the last-but-one line on page 137 should have included the word `starting' in place of `startling.'

Finally, those who do not mind British idiosyncrasies might have wanted the expression of delight and satisfaction -- "Very neat" - preserved as Stean wrote it in the previous edition but it was expunged by Fred just before "The double threat of Qxe7 ..." at the bottom of page 12. Except one is an unforgiving grammarian, Fred may be excused for substituting the word `unkept' for `unkempt' in the middle of page 58 as many Americans might neither have heard nor used the latter word before.


Rating:
Summary: Good, but...
Review: I think even the reviewers who have gone out of their way to say this isn't a book for beginners are underestimating the difficulty level of it. I'm rated in the 1500s USCF and still maybe should have waited until I added another 100 points before tackling it. And this wasn't the first strategy book I read. In comparison, I'd rate it as one healthy step more advanced than either Lessons of a Chess Coach or The Amateur's Mind.

Not that it's impossible to understand what the author is talking about; it's just that you may not be able to make use of it yet. Stean offers some easily digestible information, such as the relationship between half-open files and the minority attack, and the importance of entry points on open files. But to a weakie, his in-game examples of strategy will seem to be undercut by (a) not-so-easy-to-see tactical shots, and (b) mid-stream shifts in strategy. Stean also doesn't always carry to the games to the point where it's easy to see the win in hand. This isn't really a criticism of Stean - that's just the way chess is - but it does make the book challenging for patzers.

Rating:
Summary: An eye-opener
Review: If you want a book about chess strategy,this is the one.it is simply written,and still very instructive.An eye-opener for weak players and a great guide for stronger ones.Highly recommended !

Rating:
Summary: Now reprinted in algebraic
Review: One of the best intermediate level books you will ever see. It is truly astonishing how lucid and poignant this book on chess strategy. If you like great chess writing (e.g. Silman, Purdy, Marovic, Romanovsky, etc.) you must have this book. It is perhaps the most important summary of chess strategy that I have (and I have all of them!)

Rating:
Summary: Astonishing!
Review: One of the best intermediate level books you will ever see. It is truly astonishing how lucid and poignant this book on chess strategy. If you like great chess writing (e.g. Silman, Purdy, Marovic, Romanovsky, etc.) you must have this book. It is perhaps the most important summary of chess strategy that I have (and I have all of them!)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Introduction to Chess Strategy !
Review: The relatively small, inexpensive, out-of-print book is one of the very best books to start the journey of understanding positional chess.

This book clearly, and simply, explains concepts such as weak pawns, weak squares, outposts, minority attacks, space, etc.

I have read it three times now, once when I was rated 1300, again at 1500, and now once more at 1800. Each time I read it, I understand a little more than may have escaped me on an earlier read.

For me, two of the highlights of the book are; 1) size - this book is probably 5.5 x 8 inches and is easy to tuck in a briefcase or folder, and 2) the outstanding master game examples that the author chooses (which are not games that you see in every other chess strategy book).

This book is probably best suited to players who have acheived a rating level of at least 1200-1300, and can easily be enjoyed by players all the way up to around 1900 or so.

If you find this little book in a used bookstore somewhere - grab it fast !!

Rating:
Summary: Some Good Material; Lazy, Careless Editor
Review: This book features an absolutely great beginning. Sadly, it then degenerates into just another typical chess book, except that it is filled with annoying editorial errors.

Stean begins with a great discussion of Botvinnik's famous win with White in the King's Indian Attack, where Botvinnik dominated the light squares after Black gave up the light-squared bishop with an early ...Bc8-g4-xNf3. After explaining the game, Stean discusses two additional diagrams, where the pieces have been removed from the board, and you can see only the pawns of Botvinnik and his opponent. Stean explains how Botvinnik won because in that pawn structure White has access to two fine central squares for his pieces, c4 and d5, while Black has access to none. "The piece outpost count is a healthy 2-0 for White." Then he explains how Black could have improved this situation by advancing his c-pawn to c4, acquiring the c5, b3, and d3 squares for his pieces. After reading this explanation, I was immediately able to see and exploit similar ideas in my own games, which I had never noticed with such clarity before (and I am a USCF 2150 player). Taken as a whole, this is the finest explanation of a chess game that I have ever seen. Everything is crystal-clear.

After that beginning, one naturally gets excited, looking forward to more of the same. That expectation is sorely disappointed. No other game in the book is annotated with half so much clarity or thoroughness or care. Sadly, Stean's book degenerates into just another commentary on chess games, more or less the same that you see in many other books.

How does SIMPLE CHESS compare with other strategy books? His phrasing and examples are mostly quite good, but, except for the first game, Stean's explanations are no better than those of Euwe and Kramer, Pachman, Keres and Kotov, or many others. But Stean's book has far fewer examples than those other authors give. This is a small book. Too small.

Except for his very first example, where he gives us a taste of greatness, Stean falls far short of Jeremy Silman for clarity and thoroughness, and, as one might expect, the young Michael Stean was not remotely in the same league as Bronstein (Zurich, 1953 Tournament Book) for depth of chess insight. There are other, better books for learning chess strategy.

This new algebraic edition features terrible editing. There are annoying diagram errors (for example, the diagram on p. 118 has two white kings when there should be a white king and white rook). There are unintentially hilarious editorial errors (for example, on p. 121 it says "Heralding the successful complication of White's opening stategy" when he obviously meant "completion," not "complication"). There are some silly chess errors (for example, Stean's note to Black's seventh move on p. 90, where 8. Rxd7 obviously wins immediately instead of Stean's erroneous 8. Rxa8+). Clearly Stean's editor was a lazy, careless, thoughtless bum.

We wonder why the book degenerated after such a promising, great beginning. Did Stean lack the patience and time to give the rest of the games the same care and attention that he gave to the Botvinnik game in the introduction? Maybe. But I doubt that was the problem.

Almost every chess author in English complains that his editor gives him far too few pages for a book. Well, then, here's a speculation:

Stean probably did write explanations of the remaining games that were just as good as the first one. Then his editor, a chess idiot who had no clue about the value of what Stean had given him, awakened from his drunken stupor long enough to blurt out "too many pages" and chopped it down into the mediocre remains that you can now purchase.

This speculation about what happened has the charm of dovetailing nicely with the abundant proof we have that the editor of this book was a lazy, thoughtless idiot who cannot tell a king from a rook, or a complication from a completion.

Don't buy this book. Don't encourage idiot editors and thoughtless publishers. Apologies to Stean, who probably deserved much better than he got from Dover.

Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: This book is great, don't let the title fool you, chess is not simple, though understanding it makes it simpler. Any player wanting to further improve his play should get it, it will help your understanding of the strategies in this book. The reprint is a godsend and being in algebraic notation makes it accessible to everyone. The book is in 6 chapters; Outposts, Weak Pawns, Open files, Half-Open Files: the minority attack, black & white squares, and last but definitely not least, space. Each with annotated games teaching the concepts. I believe reading this book will improve anyones understanding of the game. GET IT!!!

Rating:
Summary: exelent book on positional play
Review: this is a thin book of about 120 pages written in old descriptive notation . it is not for beginners but for players rated at least 1100 or above .it is concerned about positional play and chess strategy .its chapters are outposts ,weak pawns ,open files,half open files(minority attack ),black squares and white squares and space .it is very clearly written and to the point.i own more than 100 chess books and i rate it in top 15 in what i have read .there is more clearly written chess wisdom in it than some books of double its size.sadly ,it is perhaps out of print now so try to find it in used book stores .