Chess Books

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This is a set of short book reviews for the following:

  • How to Beat Your Dad at Chess
  • Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games
  • Beat That Kid in Chess

Tens of thousands of books have been written about chess, for the past few centuries, probably more publications on chess than all books on sports combined (football, tennis, golf, baseball, track, basketball, etc). What kind of chess books are there?

  • Openings
  • Middle Game
  • End Game
  • Tactics
  • Strategy
  • Master-game Analysis

Let’s keep to some popular best-sellers and to newer books available on Amazon:

How to Beat Your Dad at Chess

This book may be ideal for the intermediate-level player or post-beginner who can already handle looking more than one move ahead. Amazon gives it an age range of 9-12 years. This is all about tactics and almost entirely on checkmates.

chess book

  • Author: Murray Chandler
  • Published in 1998 (hardcover,Kindle)
  • ISBN-13: 978-1901983050
  • Suggested retail: $16.95
  • 127 pages

Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games

This is a huge collection, in 1104 pages, written by the chess coach who is the father of three well known female chess champions: Susan, Judit, and Sophia Polgar. Among the thousands of puzzles in this book are 3412 mates-in-two, which are great for intermediate-level players but probably too advanced for many beginners.

Chess book

  • Author: Laszlo Polgar
  • Published in 2013 (paperback, hardcover, Kindle)
  • ISBN-13: 978-1579125547
  • Paperback: $21.20 on Amazon on Oct 20, 2015
  • 1104 pages

Beat That Kid in Chess

This is for what the book calls, on the back cover, the “early beginner,” the player who knows how to move the pieces around the chess board but hardly anything else. The reading level is for teenagers, adults, and older children. Simple tactics abound.

"Beat That Kid in Chess" book by Whitcomb

  • Author: Jonathan Whitcomb
  • Published in 2015 (paperback)
  • ISBN-13: 978-1508856221
  • Suggested retail: $13.40
  • 194 pages

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Books on Chess

Mostly for the beginner and intermediate chess players, including club competitors

Chess Book for Beginners

This 194-page paperback was written with a modest goal: Teach and prepare the raw beginner to win a game of chess, even if it’s against another raw beginner.

Chess in Movies

In the 1942 film ‘Casablanca,’ Humphrey Bogart plays the part of Rick, an owner of a club in a big city in Morocco, northwest Africa, during World War II. . . . Rick [is] working his way through an opening variation of chess.

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