I once walked into a used bookstore in Atlanta, and found like 12 copies of this book sitting on the shelf. They only wanted a buck or so each, so I bought them all.

I was teaching chess at that time at a private school in Pensacola, The Creative Learning Center.

I gave most of those 12 books to my students. They enjoyed them tremendously.

If a student wanted to ask me what book should be his "First" book on tactics, I would probably whole-heartedly endorse this book. 'Nuff said?

Chernev's classic is not simply a collection of combinations for drilling yourself on pins, forks, smothered mates, and so on - although there are plenty of combinations (300+) for that - it shows how the great players used them in their games. You get a history lesson while learning how Tarrasch, Nimzovich, Capablanca, and many other world-class players, employed combinations in their games. I like how Chernev uses extended game fragments and his own enthusiastic commentary to explain the combinations. I have several tactics books and I enjoyed Chernev's less common approach to combinations: most books just give the position as though it just "appeared" out of the blue to settle the game. Somehow with Chernev, I get the idea that you have to work to get there. Descriptive notation.

Learn from the examples-- good and bad -- from the masters from Anderssen to Fischer, simple and complex, short and long, how to master piece co-ordination. A classic. Check out Chess Life and Review April 1975 p. 245 col 1 wrt #69. Working through this book can add hundreds of points to an average tournament players' rating, whet his appetite and keep him off the street for days... Not just for beginners, the 356 positions on 240 pages although not their primary source nor a dry categorical treatise, will challenge delight edify and entertain an interesting reader for years...

This book is a lot of fun to play through. It is also very instructive to watch bad chess be punished so quickly and severely! One master I read about recommends that his students memorize 400(!) of these games rather than study a bunch of opening tomes and strategy books. I'm not 100% sure I concur with him, but any student that plays through this massive book from end to end will come away a much better player.

1000 BEST SHORT GAMES OF CHESS: A Treasury of Masterpieces in Miniature (c.1955) by Irving Chernev is more than just a collection of quick chess games, it contains the games of several important historical figures such as: Leo Tolstoy; Jean Jacques Rousseau; and Napoleon Bonaparte.

It also contains the game made famous in Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey', known as the POOLE vs. HAL 9000 game to Kubrick fans - it is game #322, Roesch v. Schlage in 1910 Hamburg, Germany, 0-1, on page 148 in the c1955 Chernev edition.

By using short games as played throughout chess history, the reader can follow chess before popular defences were invented, such as the defence (#167) Remusat used against Napoleon, 0-1,1802 Paris; and readers can also learn solid chess moves such as dazzling sacrifices, picturesque long range mates, and epaulette mates. The book also contains some interesting blind folded plays, correspondence chess, and a few checker games thrown in.

The 1000 SHORT GAMES OF CHESS (c.1955) by Irving Chernov is useful enough and interesting enough for modern chess players that they might want to browse through second hand book stores to add this copy to their chess libraries, or keep it close to the recliner for a learned reading at night.

Maybe Irving Chernev's Best Book

If you can get it, I promise you that you will not be sorry. A real masterpiece. For people who love the game AND players who are looking to improve ... Chernev was one of the greatest chess writers of all time!

I read this book when it was titled "The Golden Dozen". Chernev picked some very fine games from the 12 greatest players up to his time, i.e. pre-Karpov.

The vast majority of club players couldn't fail to learn much from studying these games. Chernev's enthusiasm is catching, and he provides good guidance without swamping the reader with forests of variations.

This book is an exceptional value. Irving Chernev is a great author for developing chess players rated between 1000 - 1800 USCF. He has an infectious love of the game, and the ability to write in a way that is very understandable to players below the expert/master level. He typically uses just the right blend of verbal explanation and actual move order variations. (Some books just recite a catalogue of possible variations - this is worthless to developing players).

This is an awesome collection of some of the greatest games ever contested on the chess board. The notes are good, and very easy to follow. The large size of the book is a plus - it will lay open next to your chess board, making study very easy.

As with all Dover books, the price can not be beat. If this book were to be re-print and re-published today, using algebraic notation, I would imagine that the price would approximately double (like many other books we have seen).

If you are looking for some excellent,inexpensive study material, or want a collection of master games for entertainment, this book is a great place to start.

P.S. Several years ago, a master at our club (Seattle Chess Club) was being interviewed for a magazine article after winning the Seattle Chess Club Championship. He was asked to name his favorite chess books. This book (under the title then of "The Golden Dozen") was the first one he named.

The Only negative feedback regarding this book would be the fact that it is written in descriptive notation. This may be more of a problem for younger readers, as most of the "over 35" crowd is probably comfortable with either notation.

However, due to the incredible value that this book provides I am still awarding it with a full five stars.

This book will help you avoid common opening erros that ruin your game, if you use it properly.

1) Take any game out of the book, and play over the moves in your head.

2) Get out a chess board, and see if your mental image of the position matches the actual diagram in the book.

3) Find the winning moves from the board/diagram.

For most beginners, this is a good way to learn some basic openings, without the reams of theory.

This is a great book, with 300 traps, mostly 10-15 move games, though likely continuations are sometimes given beyond 20 moves.

You can use this book in several different ways.

A) Play through the games. They are much easier to understand than modern grandmaster games. In this way, it's similar to Reinfeld's Great Short Games of the Chess Masters, another great book. You'll see tactics in motion, and you can learn as if by osmosis.

B) Use the diagrams as tactics drills. Each diagram represents the state of the game immediately following a blunder (marked in the game by "?"). Look for the refutation. Great practice! In this way, it is similar to the Pandolfini trap books, but Chernev's traps are typically a bit more subtle.

C) When learning a new opening variation, look it up in this book first to see the simplest traps. Then to see deeper traps, look it up in Burgess's Quickest Chess Victories of All Time, another great book. The two books have very little overlap, surprisingly. I sometimes copy a line from one to the other.

Strengths:
* Well-indexed (similar to Burgess above). Table of contents lists major openings. Alphabetical index lists openings and a fair number of variations. Move index allows you to look up games based on the first 2-3 moves.
* Correspondence between diagram and moves is obvious. (Some books make you scratch your head to figure out which move was just played.)
* Wide audience. Advanced-beginner level, but even a master must be prepared for the traps in his own openings.
* Text explanation next to diagrams.
* One trap per page.
* Excellent use of fonts for different types of info.
* Footnoted light annotation, rather than in-line clutter.
* Broad coverage, not just king-pawn openings. Pandolfini covers only a handful of queen-pawn openings in The Winning Way. Here, Chernev has 89, plus a few other tries.
* Blunders for both sides of the board. Some authors concentrate on White's point-of-view. Here, Black wins about a third of the games.

Weaknesses:
* Diagrams are old-style, but at least they are dark enough. (Some old re-prints are way too light.)
* Usually, the diagram is at a logical location, either following the blunder, or one move later when the blunder was really tough to notice. But sometimes the diagram precedes the blunder, which can be annoying when you're just doing tactical drills.
* Descriptive notation, a minor weakness for this sort of book.

Overall, it's hard to improve. A really great book.

This book follows the format of its subject so I don't think anyone should gripe about there being better chess books to read.
Anyway, this book is to be studied with a board, not just read.
It obviously came out of that 1930-1945 era when the French,
Caro-Kann, Sicilian, and Queen's Gambit dominated play. So don't
be looking for all sort of traps for the Pirc if you can find any. But what't the problem? The Indian stopped dominating in the late 1960's and the King's Gambit made a comeback! This is
a good selection of traps in classic chess that should be in every serious players library.

This book presents several of Capablanca's games before he became a world champion. I really enjoyed (and still enjoy) studying and playing over these games. Capablanca was perhaps one of the top 3 world champs (with Fischer and Kasparov). His games show much clarity and are easy to understand even though the moves would be hard to find on one's own.

Capablanca has brief notes with a little analysis. I wish he would have had a little more. However, I enjoyed his notes, because in spots it elucidated a key point to a plan he had. However, these notes are few, perhaps one or two per game. Often, he makes a statement like "Better would have been X" without explaining. These comments are not very useful for amateur players. However, he sometimes (perhaps once a game) gives a more useful comment, such as the reasoning behind the move, or the reply to another dangerous looking move to the opponent.

The games themselves are beautiful. It is interesting seeing how Capablanca's game evolved from when he was a child. One great feature of the book is that before each "period" he talks about how he has changed. For example, he mentions that he did not know much about openings, but that he was very strong in the endgame since a youth. Later, he talks about how he matures and becomes a more complete player.

In summary:

Positive:
1. Incredible games by Capa. One can't help but feel "stronger" as a player after studying these games.
2. Interesting commentary on his development.
3. Analysis (when he gives it) is very insightful.

Negatives:
1. Not enough explaination behind the analysis.
2. Descriptive notation is not as common (a later version in algebraic is available, and I would give that 4 stars).