Now This is Odd

He's me. Or maybe, I am him. I don't know, maybe it is just Deja Vu.

One of the most respected documents on the Web is by Dan Heisman, and it is about Real Chess. There is a link on the sidebar to that document, and most of you have read it. If you haven't and you are here, because of your desire to do better at chess, read it.

Now, I had dismissed off hand his book, Everyone's 2nd Chessbook which I thought was a continuing rehash of the stuff on Novice Nook, his column on Chesscafe.com. Much of his stuff is various different viewpoints on the same thing, but essentially is don't lose, pay attention to the rules, use time wisely, you may not have yet found the best move.

But I was playing around one day with search inside in amazon.com and he specifically mentioned an event that was almost exactly the same event that had driven me to start this blog. A talented player (my best friend) gets beaten by a suprise, the fried liver attack. This happened to my son twice at state, and once at his next quad. Out of 8 games, all 3 loses were to the Fried Liver Attack. He mentions the exact same thing on page 20.

So I immediately bought the book.

Unfortunately, that book is this blog. I didn't mean for it to be. I am seriously asking questions, and writing about the difficulties of getting the appropriate education. And trying to expand it as we I go along. Almost everything in this book has either been repeated here, or mostly scheduled to be repeated here. Unfortunately, largely, it is a discussion of what the ideal book should be or contain. With some examples. It is not, as hoped, the book.

The book is well laid out. It was designed as sort of a hybrid between the dual column inscrutability of an everyman's chess book, and the Idiot's Guide. I would say that it appears like a skilled amateur with an idea laid it out, or an average pro. That said, it much better than most that I have seen in the chess book department.

Would I recommend it? I am going to give it 3 1/2 stars. It serves mostly as confirmation of what I had thought had been original rants :-), and it does give some useful stuff going forward, but much of it has or will be talked about here.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose

More Later...