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32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Essential checkmates you need to know, 19 Aug 2001
By A Customer
"If one points out to a player a position in which there is a mate in five moves, he will find it in time; but let the same position occur in a game and the chances are eighty to a hundred he will be blind to the fact."This excerpt refers to the all too common experience of overlooking some of the easiest mating combinations, the series of checks with forced responses. In this book the authors identify the patterns in 23 types of mate, presenting their material with depth rather than simply stating the intellectual knowledge needed to recognize typical mating patterns such as Smothered, Corridor, Boden's etc. (If these names mean nothing to you then you probably need this book.) Each mate pattern is discussed, wonderfully annotated complete games illustrate the mate threat/attack & variations, and the annotations cover development as well so there is a flow of action resulting in the mate attack. You are not given a cold position and left wondering how to get there in your own games. This book contains 127 games; the 299 board diagrams together with the clear discussion and game annotations should offset any reluctance that some people may have in following the descriptive notation used. I had originally intended to deduct one star because of the age of the book (descriptive notation and old analyses) but the content is so important and the presentation so clear that going through the book again was a real pleasure, therefore five stars. This is a Dover book and like all the Dover chess books in my small collection it is very durable, a quality worth having in a book that will see repeated and extended use. I saw the following statement from Dover on the back of this book and think it is worth including as it refers to quality and is certainly true in my experience: "We have made every effort to make this the best book possible. Our paper is opaque, with minimal show-through; it will not discolor or become brittle with age. Pages are bound in signatures, in the method traditionally used for the best books, and will not drop out. Books open flat for easy reference. The binding will not crack or split. This is a permanent book.."
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