On an otherwise uninteresting Sunday in New York, I met up with my friend Rob. The plan: buy and drink smoothies while reading in the nearby park. The first half of the plan went well, but when we got to the park, I was confused when Rob pulled two books out of his tote.
Handing the smaller of the two to me, things became clearer when I saw that the cover had a picture of a chess piece on it. Earlier that week, I had expressed some interest when I noticed Rob playing chess on his phone as we waited for our lunch order to be called. Although I had brought my copy of Thinking, Fast and Slow to the park, I was happy to leave it unopened and dive straight into the chess book.
Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess is a fantastic beginner resource for anyone who wants to get into the game while having no previous understanding. The book makes no assumptions about prior knowledge and, even in later chapters, devotes a non-trivial amount of effort to continually explaining concepts in the most elementary ways possible.
The book begins with a brief explanation of each of the pieces, how they move, and how the turn-based game of chess works. The vast majority of the book, however, is focused on the strategy behind winning games. The book is broken into 6 digestible chapters where each chapter begins with a few pages of well-explained strategy. The given strategies are motivated with examples in which Fischer shows the reader the best choice to make in various situations.
Subtract the prefacing lesson from each section, and you’ll find that the bulk of each chapter is a series of questions that you have to answer as a reader. Fischer will present you with a chess board in a certain configuration, and then ask you a seemingly simple question. It is then up to the reader to reason through all of the possible moves before turning to the next page to see if his or her answer is correct.
I found that this strategy works incredibly well. As a generally firm believer in the idea that the best way to learn is to do, it’s clear that Fischer’s organization of the book is conducive to picking up the fundamentals of chess.
Although the chapters are fantastic at explaining the concepts Fischer chose to include, I wished there had been more chapters covering other essential parts of the game. The book focuses solely on endgame which, although very important, is only a fraction of what it takes to play chess. I felt unprepared to play a real game of chess after finishing this book because it makes no mention of opening sequences or mid-game strategy.
Since reading this book, I have continued to learn chess, downloaded the popular apps, and even attended a chess meet-up with my roommate (spoiler: I didn’t win a single game). Both of those experiences were incredibly rewarding, and neither experience would have been on my mind without having read this book.
Rob, thank you for deciding to bring that book with you on that late-August afternoon. You’ve planted the seed in my mind, and now it’s on me to continue learning more complex strategies and to keep attending local meetups. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll even be good enough to hold up in a game against you.
Rating: 4/5