Bobby Fischer's Outrageous Chess Moves (Fireside Chess Library) [Paperback]

This book is more like a novel rather than an instructional chess book. The book presents no strategies or tips to learn, just Fischer's remarkable one-move responses to difficult chess problems. As with any chess book that analyses a game between two grandmasters, this book will be over the heads of beginners and even intermediate players. Pandolfini provides some details of a game that Bobby Fischer won, shows the arrangement of the pieces, offers a clue, and you have to guess what Fischer's winning move was, the answer of which is at the bottom of the page. He puts a number (1-5) at the top to indicate the difficulty level of finding the solution to the chess problem. The games don't seem to be in any particular order; I think he should have arranged them into five chapters, one for each level of difficulty. It's not the type of book I would recommend for improvement in chess, but it can help the reader to appreciate the beauty of chess and the consumate skill of Bobby Fischer. It shows you that with even the most complex chess situation, there is a simple move waiting to be discovered.

This is an excellent book! It really exceeded my expectations tremendously! Keep in mind what is meant by "Outrageous Moves"... many of the indicated moves in this book (though not all of them) are FORCING MOVES, which you have to learn to discern when to make such a move. Studying Fischer sets you on that path and Pandolfini guides the reader, assisting in gleaning Fischer's didactic ways. I think it can strike some people with less of an effect, though, if you just go through the book the way it's presented. The diagrams, clues and solutions are actually presented as best as they can be (except for the diagram to game 25, the White Queen should be on h3 instead of h4), it's just that you, the reader, would do well to take a folded rectangular slice of paper with tape at the top of it and cover the bottom part of each page as you go so you won't see the answers. That way you can set up the diagrammed position on your own chessboard, read Pandolfini's clue, and take a certain amount of time to try to figure out what Fischer figured out. To take it a step further, I suggest you don't even read Pandolfini's clue until you find that you can't figure out the solution in 10 minutes (then go back to trying to figure out the position for another 10 to 25 minutes. [Keep score as you go through the whole book])... I suggest that last part because I found that some of Pandolfini's clues were too revealing, but such clues are kept to a minimum. The level-of-difficulty indicators (1 through 5) were a big help too... but when you're looking at a position in a real-life, over-the-board game, you don't get to see a 1 or a 5 in the corner of the table. As if all of that weren't enough, when you finally do finish studying a position after you've read the answer, STUDY THE ENTIRE GAME SCRUPULOUSLY via the full notation in the back of the book (which has no commentary, but through filling in your own notes (get a 3-ring notebook)!, you'll force yourself to see even more than you thought you could)!! I think it was a sad oversight for Pandolfini to neglect to mention that the full notations for all the games are given in the back of the book; just imagine someone getting through a major portion of the book and then they discover that they could have been studying the entire games via the notation in the back of the book...! (by the way, Game 76 has another Outrageous Move [19....Bg4!] found only in the full notation). All of the aforementioned is a major shortcoming of the way this book is presented... Pandolfini doesn't instruct you TO MAKE A STUDY COURSE out of this book; maybe, he just expected every reader to have been familiar already with his "Solitaire Chess" section of "Chess Life" Magazine and to take it upon themselves to do the aforementioned anyway. I got SO MUCH out of doing it that way (on Fritz 8 Deluxe, by the way. I saved the games with my own notes [on my external hard drive] and now I have 101, little "CHESS MOVIES")! By the way, many of these games are on the Fritz 8 Deluxe (and the new Fritz 9, too, I'm sure) Compact Disc (in the "Database" folder). As for those people who lambasted this book as a cheap attempt to get paid off of Bobby Fischer's name, just realize that there will always be critics of you when you try to do something to help people tremendously. When you study Bobby Fischer's "out-of-the-box" way of thinking over a period of at least 90 days (about what it took me) you, yourself improve to an immense degree! You just have to make up your mind to do what you're going to do and address the criticism when it comes your way (the same way you do your opponent's attack in chess). You don't have to take that crap from people!

Any chess player can read this book; it briefly describes Algebraic Notation in case you're a beginner. The book gives 101 diagrams from Fischers games -all are dated and the specific place or Tournament is listed. The list of his opponents is remarkable e.g., Byrne,Tal,Geller,Petrosian,Larsen,Spassky,etc starting about 1956 to 1978. Mr. Pandolfini gives the level of difficulty from 1 to 5 for each diagram-one large diagram on each page. You cover the answer under the diagram and try to figure out Bobby's moves, there is a hint also. The answers are briefly explained, some more detailed than others. Also nice is he gives the complete game moves in the back of the book.