The Complete Chess-Player

by Fred Reinfeld

Generations of chess players have grown up on Fred Reinfeld's books. He has a way of reducing the most intricate, complicated combinations to their basic components.

Absorb the material included in this volume and you will play chess at a fairly high level. Or read through it all and enjoy Fred's masterful explanations. In either case, you will be entranced by his enthusiasm for the intricate relationships the pieces experience in the context of a game.

Genres: Chess, Nonfiction, Reference, Games

302 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1953

Reviews

[Tom Schulte · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very good book for beginners and assumes no chess knowledge for the first of basically four parts. From the beginning the book relies on its greatest weakness, though. Descriptive notation is a notation system for recording chess games which was used in English, Spanish and French chess literature until about 1980. It has been superseded by algebraic notation, which is more concise and requires less effort to avoid ambiguity. This period book uses exclusively descriptive notation which is unfortunate.

Still, much practical and even sage advice is here for middling players like myself. An example of what resonated with me is:

Bishop and Knight are approximately of equal value. Among good players there is a definite preference for the Bishop, but considerable knowledge and experience are required to make the rather subtle distinction. The inexperienced player is better off to assess these pieces as of roughly equal strength. You are on safe ground, however, in assuming that two Bishops are more effective than a Bishop and Knight. There difference in mobility here can be appreciated even by players who are not too experienced.

The next part is an overview of a decent taxonomy of chess openings double and single king pawn, double and single queen pawn, and the catch-all for everything else: "eccentric". Finally, is a series of master-level games annotated for illustrative purposes.

Fancy a game? Challenge me on chess.com.

[Tt · Rating 2 out of 5]

My first chess book, and it left a lot to be desired. There are much better chess books available, and I strongly suggest new players avoid this one. Start with Chess for Dummies instead.

[FranklinTV · Rating 3 out of 5]

A popular intro book to chess that seems to have stuck around. Read it a long while ago and would need to refresh. I keep this for the introduction sentence: "Chess, like love, like music, has the power to make men happy". This was the dictum of Siegbert Tarrasch, one of the greatest chessmasters of all time, after 50 years of chess playing.

[Tomi Pakei · Rating 2 out of 5]

That dread notation
Yes, this is a complete one (endgame, middle game, openings, tactics, strategy etc), albeit a standard starter level chess book. And you might find this a bit hard to read, since it still uses the [outdated] 'descriptive notation'.

Level: Beginner

[Larry Gerovac · Rating 4 out of 5]

I use to play chess a lot in my youth. What can I say... queens pawn openings were a favorite. Reinfeld goes through the various openings with comments and I found some of them to be very good. Learn from some of the best and soon you will be playing like some of the best if you have dedication.

[Priest Apostate · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would appreciate an updated version, to include the current notation style, but it is a decent book for new (or returning) players to start with.