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Summary: Alburt's popular CCC series has seven volumes but..
Review: ...Amazon's current online presentation makes individual volumes hard to locate, even though indeed they are all listed and sold here. It doesn't help that the book titles do not necessarily contain the series volume number. Nor the fact that volumes I and II are listed by Amazon as merely different editions of the same book, and so are given identical online customer reviews :]! But of course these two are entirely different.So, as a search aid I list the entire seven below. Actually learning chess from books all from one series will economise on money and time spent. For instance over at the archives of the book review section of www.chesscafe.com, Taylor Kingston's review of number 7 (_Just the Facts_) says, "You should note that you will not find the basic mates in the book. No K+Q versus K, etc. You have to go to the first volume in the Comprehensive Chess Series for that." A couple other quotes from Kingston: "At any rate, Just the Facts! is splendid in its simplicity and instructional value." and "For bringing clear and simple endgame instruction to the masses, however, Just the Facts! is terrific." l Comprehensive Chess Course Volume I: Learn Chess in 12 Lessons by Lev Alburt & Roman Pelts 2 Comprehensive Chess Course Volume II: From Beginner to Tournament Player in 12 Lessons by Lev Alburt & Roman Pelts 3 Chess Tactics for the Tournament Player by Sam Palatnik & Lev Alburt 4 The King in Jeopardy by Lev Alburt & Sam Palatnik 5 Chess Strategy for the Tournament Player by Lev Alburt 6 Chess Training Pocket Book: 300 Most Important Positions and Ideas by Lev Alburt 7 Just the Facts!: Winning Endgame Knowledge by Lev Alburt, Nikolai Krogius, Nikolay Krogius Amazon's book description of 7 says, "Just the Facts! is the seventh and final volume of the best-selling Comprehensive Chess Course,...". So, apparently Lev has now completed this very popular series!
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Summary: The best chess book series that has ever come upon earth
Review: I loved this book. I recomend this book series to anyone that wants to improve or just for light entertainment. I am a very series chess player and have improved greatly with this book and the others in the series. GM Alburt teaches something, I don't think anyone has mastered to teach what the actual student really wants to learn.Alburt explains how to draw a completly hopeless game, Sac major pieces for mates in a couple or so. Just stuff ohter books fail to teach you. There is this one postion I loved. A mate in 3 for white. I figuired it out, The answer was sacking a queen for a pawn, the idea was, if the pawn didn't tkae, it would be forced mate in 1 or 2. If he took, samething. Just postions like that, make you aw and ew. And you will find out that when the Brain see's stuff like that, It will quickly be fasinatated by what it just saw and obsorb it automatically! This book and the the rest of the series has really really helped mee to impove my game *ALOT*
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Summary: The Greatest Instructional Series on Earth
Review: I would like to begin by saying that about one year ago I didn't even know what chess was, and I now find myself with the rank of chess expert thanks to this excellent series. In order to improve in chess one must have a solid foundation. This is exactly what the whole Comprehensive Chess Course gives you. The concepts expounded in the series are the most important in chess. Any beginner regardless of age should begin their chess career with instruction from these books. I began with CCCV1 and CCCV2. Study form these books lasted about a month and a half. I then simply went on to the next book in the series: Chess Tactics for the Tournament Player. It must be noted that I supplemented this book with alot of diagram trianing which I still continue. The perfecct follow up is King in Jeopardy. Here you will apply your tactical abilities and become a very dangerous attacker. Chess Stategy for the Tournament Player should take some more time to work through (I recommend a chapter every two and a half weeks and always review)and I found supplementing it with playing through GM games to be very fruitful. Just the Facts is the perfect endgame book and with carefull study will make you playsuperb endings. Going through this whole series along with practise from your own games should make you at least a class A player. Good Luck!
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Summary: A Great Book for Beginning in Chess!
Review: If you are serious about learning chess, this book is for you! It is laid out very well, each lesson building on the ones before it. This book primarily covers the rules of chess and piece movement. But even those who already know how to play may benefit from reading this book and completing the homework assignments. This is the first of a series of books that comprise the Comprehensive Chess Course, so even if you already understand the basics of chess, it would not be a bad idea to go through this one before moving on to the more advanced books. This way you will benfit from the very basic building blocks of the Russian system, and hopefully won't become lost or mired down in the later volumes because you never learned to think the way the Russians do.
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Summary: A Great Book for Beginning in Chess!
Review: If you are serious about learning chess, this book is for you! It is laid out very well, each lesson building on the ones before it. This book primarily covers the rules of chess and piece movement. But even those who already know how to play may benefit from reading this book and completing the homework assignments. This is the first of a series of books that comprise the Comprehensive Chess Course, so even if you already understand the basics of chess, it would not be a bad idea to go through this one before moving on to the more advanced books. This way you will benfit from the very basic building blocks of the Russian system, and hopefully won't become lost or mired down in the later volumes because you never learned to think the way the Russians do.
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Summary: Not For the Lazy Woodpusher
Review: It would be good to use this book in combination with another book of Alburt's, "Secrets of the Russian Chess Masters Vol. 1 - Fundamentals of the Game". The first two volumes of the Comprehensive Chess Course are workbook format and have a lot of fill-in-the-blank and analysis type questions. These two books will get a beginning chess player off to a good start.
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Summary: chess has nothing to do with communism
Review: It would be good to use this book in combination with another book of Alburt's, "Secrets of the Russian Chess Masters Vol. 1 - Fundamentals of the Game". The first two volumes of the Comprehensive Chess Course are workbook format and have a lot of fill-in-the-blank and analysis type questions. These two books will get a beginning chess player off to a good start.
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Summary: Slow Methods Using Old Communist Way of Thinking
Review: This book looks very impressive when you see it in bookstore - it is big. But I learned my lesson as big doesn't mean it is great. When I got into the material I suddenly discovered that there was an extreme lack of organization. Daa, the book didn't explain what the objective of the game was at the very beginning. It seemed like a person from another country wrote this book with a lack of command of the English Language, then flip flopped around. Well, in looking at this book further and looking at some of the other reviews, I suddenly realized that this book was written as if it was for teachers who didn't know much about chess to introduce them to a classroom. Now this may not sound too bad. However, the problem with is is that it takes things so slowly and out of the order that an experienced chess teacher would use that you have the MOST POORLY WRITTEN BEGINNER'S BOOK ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH. How do I know this? Well, I made an issue of going out and getting several other books that were popular (yes, you might argue 'not every other one' but at least I got what is considered best by popularity to compare). So I got 'Starting Chess', 'Chess For Juniors', 'Chess For Dummies' and 'Idiots Guide to Chess'. Here is what I found - CHESS FOR JUNIORS was the most simple and most easy book of them all to understand though it may not have had as many pages a child of say eight could read it and fully understand it. I ranked this as best. I personally recommend this book as best for even an adult. Now adults would probably benefit most by either getting 'Chess For Juniors' or 'Idiots Guide to Chess'. The Idiots Guide is well organized and though not as easy to understand as 'Chess For Juniors' it does a good job. The 'Chess for Dummy's' book is not very well organized or written, but better for an adult than the Comprehensive Chess Courese. As a second best book for Children, but not so easy for Children themselves to Learn from (a parent should help) I suggest 'Starting Chess'. I spent some good time looking over these books and hope this review will be helpful for someone looking for a beginning book.
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Summary: Not For the Lazy Woodpusher
Review: This is a very good chess book, though I recommend working through Vol. 1 of the Comprehensive Chess Course and Secrets of the Russian Chess Masters Vol. 1 (Fundamentals of the Game)first. Secrets of the Russian Chess Masters Vol. 2 (Beyond the Basics)is an excellent compliment to this volume. The first two volumes of Comprehensive Chess Course are presented in a workbook format. There are excercises and fill-in-the-blank questions all the way through the first two volumes. The additional volumes in CCC are more of a textbook format, as are the books in the two-volume Secrets of the Russian Chess Masters set. If the pages in your copies of CCC Vols. 1 & 2 stay pretty and white, you are not studying them hard enough; they are meant to be written in and reviewed.
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Summary: A Very Worthy Follow-Up
Review: Volume 2 picks up where volume 1 left off. Having already gained an understanding of the rules of chess and piece movement, volume 2 will now show you how to do things effectively. It explains in detail about blocking, pinning, skewering, the importance of early development, mating patterns, basic pawn structure and more. Even those who may consider themselves to be somewhat better than the average beginner will definitely find something in this book that will improve their game.
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