 How to Win at Chess - Quickly! is a book that manages to instruct and delight in equal measure and, if you must have a third reason to seek out and read the book, let me give it to you. It is that, as a writer, Williams has a prose style that is bright and engaging, conversational and sonsy, and duly appreciative too of the chess riches that he places before his readers.
Reviewed by P.P.O. Kane
How to Win at Chess - Quickly!
By Simon Williams
Everyman Chess, May 2010
ISBN: 9781857446319
There is a double (or a triple) virtue to be found in Simon Williams latest offering.
In the palm of the first hand, we are given lots of advice about how to bring about jildy victories in our own games and, equally importantly, how not to fall victim to a blitzkrieg ourselves. Some of the sins covered by Williams are neglect of development, rash pawn-grabbing and failure to take account of the opponent s plans. While he advises that you are more likely to deliver an early KO if you play actively, sharply and with purpose, and make use of the odd gambit (chapter 4 is, in fact, entitled Gambit Play). And the morals at the end of each game, pithy homilies to take to heart, are an attractive feature of the book.
Now to address virtue number two: in the palm of the other hand, we have the games themselves. Of the 50 miniature games given here, virtually all were modern examples and very few were known to me. Their number included 11 of Williams own games, incidentally, and he wasn t always on the winning side. The best thing about miniature games is that, almost by their very nature, they involve tactics and combinations in some form. Opponents don t generally resign on move 24 because they re a pawn down. In this regard, all the games were enjoyable and entertaining to play through, and there were some real beauties, with game 16, Adorjan-Kudrin New York 1987, being the best of the bunch for me. Though we are given only half the number as in P.H. Clarke s classic collection (100 Soviet Chess Miniatures), the games and annotations are of a commensurate quality.
How to Win at Chess - Quickly! is a book that manages to instruct and delight in equal measure and, if you must have a third reason to seek out and read the book, let me give it to you. It is that, as a writer, Williams has a prose style that is bright and engaging, conversational and sonsy, and duly appreciative too of the chess riches that he places before his readers.
About the reviewer: P.P.O. Kane lives and works in Manchester, England. He welcomes responses to his reviews and you can reach him at ludic@europe.com
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