Wednesday 30 October 2024

BEGINNER CHESS PUZZLES - 500 practice exercises to take your game to the next level

 BOOK REVIEW by Carl Portman

BEGINNER CHESS PUZZLES 

       500 Practice exercises to take your 

game to the next level.

by Martin Bennedik

 

Martin Bennedik

Publisher: Simon & Schuster  

2024 - 1st edition (Softcover, 256 pages)

 

What is this book about?

The blurb states:  

 

Build new chess skills and practice key tactics with these 500 entertaining, beginner chess exercises so you can improve your game.

For new chess enthusiasts who are eager to practice and grow their skills, Beginner Chess Puzzles has hundreds of puzzles to up your game!

500 puzzles take you through all the tactical motifs that beginners need to know—the fundamentals (including capturing and defending pieces), tactics (forks, pins, and skewers, discovered attacks and checks, and removing the defense), and checkmate patterns. Including the basic instructions for how to solve chess puzzles, Beginner Chess Puzzles is packed with clear and detailed explanations of each key tactical motif and pattern with puzzles to practice each.

As players advance through the lessons, they’ll gain confidence as puzzles gradually increase in difficulty. “Workout” sections throughout include puzzles that practice any of the skills learned up to that point; without additional information, players must detect which motifs need to be deployed—much like in an actual chess game.

Clear chessboard diagrams allow players to picture every puzzle, and the detailed answer key carefully explains how to get to the best solution. Allowing new players to improve skills on their own, offline, and in a take-anywhere format, Beginner Chess Puzzles is the perfect gift for chess fanatics of any age.

 

Contents

·         Introduction

·         How to use this book

·         Lessons 1-12

·         Puzzle Solutions

 

Look and feel of the book

The cover is of good quality and not too flimsy for a soft cover. Certainly it is good enough to take a lot of thumbing from a keen chess student, or indeed a chess coach/teacher. The book is an appreciable size, the font is large and clear and the diagrams are of excellent quality and very well laid out. I can have no complaints.

 

My thoughts and comments

The question I always ask myself is ‘does the world need another chess puzzle book?' There are countless of these on the market so does this one stand out, will beginners benefit and is it worth spending hard-earned cash on? I have taken time to go through the book, trying to do so through the eyes of someone who knows the moves and the rules of chess and ready to embark upon the great journey. There will be tactics, checkmate patters discovered attacks and defender removal abound, as well as other key points.

 

500 puzzles is plenty to get your teeth into. Let me give three examples, since the author notes that puzzles begin easy and get progressively more difficult throughout the book – but never in my view beyond reach of the disciplined beginner who goes through the puzzles diligently.


This is the first position in the book and it says White to win (from Arushi-Punsalan, New Delhi 2019).

 


One would hope that the beginner would easily find 1.Bxh8 winning material. This is a nice warm up. I would say to the beginner after solving this that it is White to win material - not necessarily White to win the game. This is an important point because people must remember that ‘winning’ is not the same as ‘won’ and the game might well go on into an endgame. However, the author cannot and should not give the theme/game away so it is fair just to say ‘to win’ etc. He does mention this at the beginning of the book.

 

Part way through the book we have this example: It is White to play and the theme is discovered check.





The beginner will see that the bishop on e4 must move in order to check the king from the rook on e1, but where should the bishop go. Some may take the knight, others may take the pawn on b7 but how quickly would they find 1.Bc6++ leading to checkmate next move? It’s very nice and shows that mate is more important than material.

 

Then I will show you the very last puzzle in the book to see how far the student will have travelled on their chess learning journey. It is White to play and checkmate Black in one move. 





This is a composition from the famed chess composer Leonid. Kubbel and even strong players struggle to find the answer. This in part is why I might take issue with the statement on the back cover that there are ‘hundreds of easy puzzles.’ Okay there are many easy ones but also some challenging ones for beginners, but actually that is precisely how it should be.

 

So to the above position. Did you find the answer? It is 1.Qa3 checkmate.

 

There is another aspect that I like. The author quite rightly states that nobody is going to tell you what the motif (tactics) is in your actual games so you need to learn to recognize them without any hints. Therefore in some positions Bennedik asks multiple choice questions:

 

A)     White is winning

B)     The position is equal

C)     Black can win

 

Very good. You can do these puzzles without a chess set in front of you, on the bus, train or in your own home in bed or an armchair – it’s great fun actually.

 

There are checkmate patterns throughout such as ‘The kiss of death’ and ‘Swine mate.’ These are the stepping-stones to self-improvement. We all know that pattern recognition is key and learning them saves much time over the board, as well as collecting wins.

 

Does the book achieve its aim?

It does, and in a very instructive manner. I can easily imagine having this book as a beginner and I would absolutely devour its contents. I like it because it isn’t ‘just’ puzzles but positions with many themes such as checkmating patterns, Black/White to win or Black/White to defend or Black/White to checkmate. It is put together with though and care – with a nice easy running order. I can tell that this is about more than just puzzles and answers, there’s love in there also.

 

I could imagine every school chess club in the UK having this book and every student using it to improve quickly. I wish I had it when I was a kid, that’s for sure. I want to recommend the book therefore and shout out for both Martin Bennedik and the publishers Simon & Schuster. I do believe that the author has another book aimed at intermediate level, and I should like to see that one. I simply had fun going through the book. I enjoyed reading new and interesting ways of projecting the necessary information to teach chess to beginners. It isn’t always easy so well done.

 

Is there anything missing, I ask myself? Possibly the only point I would make is there might have been an index of players, but this is nit-picking and not key to the quality of the book.

 

Oh go on then – I will make an exception. I enjoyed this tome so much that I am going to treat you to one more delightful puzzle. It is White to play and draw.




You want the answer? Well, you could buy the book and support this excellent author.

 

Who is the author?

Martin Bennedik is an international correspondence chess master and the founder of ChessPuzzle.net. Since launching in 2016, ChessPuzzle.net has become one of the most popular sites for online chess. In addition to housing hundreds of thousands of chess puzzles with annotated solutions, the site offers a premium membership including Puzzle Academy wherein users receive customized training programs based on their tactical strengths and weaknesses. A chess club player and freelance .NET developer, Bennedik has also collaborated with chess grandmaster and world champion Magnus Carlsen on the popular puzzles and training app, Play Magnus. He lives in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

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