Chess: 5334 Problems, Combinations and Games

This book speaks volumes, in the sense of enhancing and fine tuning, one’s chess positional problem solving. I’ve just received this book and I’m breezing through the mate in one section so far. I know as the book progresses the problem solving will become more difficult. This book is very beneficial, for developing as a better chess player, and should be in every chess player’s collection. It’s worth more than it’s weight in gold and it’s a heavy book.

Great chess book! Great author!

Awesome puzzle. Some easy and some way advanced for me currently

I just recieved my 2nd copy of this famous chess tome: the first was falling apart after 3 1/2 years. But not from poor quality but from daily use over the last 12 months or so. It's a classic; the story goes that Lazlo put together this book based on the exercises he gave to his 3 daughters, all of whom hold master's titles. My advice is this: 1. He gives only white's 1st move as the answer, not all the moves as most other books do. 2. Some, not a lot, of the puzzles have more than one correct answer; at least in the Mate-in-2s as I've yet to get to the later ones. So check your answers closely, you both may be right. FWIW, Reddit seems to confirm this too. 3. They begin to get tougher around the #1470 and up level. There are so many problems that, especially if you are a novice, you should expect to hit several plateaus on the way; just step away for a day or two and re-try. You will improve and really none of them would stump a real expert. Hang in there! 4. Here's a clue for you: once you get above about #1500 you will hit a string of literally 100's of problems where giving a check on your 1st move is rarely, rarely correct. Almost any combination involving a check on move 1 can be discarded up front in favor of calculating other lines first. 5. Finally, many combinations involve a lone black king who would be in stalemate if black moved first; your job as white is to first release the mating net, allow black a move, then close the trap on move two. Good luck!

Full to the brim with problems (ranging from simplistic to perplexing) and games. In terms of content, there's more here than any other book re chess that I'm aware of. On the downside: 1. Games are not annotated. This decreases their value as learning tools significantly. 2. Some of the print is extremely small. The games and the solutions are difficult to read. Font looks to be about #9 Publisher likely concluded "1,100 pages! Enough is enough." Conclusion: If I edited out the simplistic problems such as "checkmate in one move," and took out the games, I'd still have about 600 pages of complex problems and endgames to savor. So for a player of my skill level, about half the book is useful. That's still a bargain for the price.

This is a great book. With even the most introductory material on how each piece moves, you can literally start at the very beginning. Other reviewers will tell you all about the mate in one, mate in two, mate in three sections, and about the endgame studies, the combinations, and the game miniatures. Enough material for many years study. If you love chess, and desire greater insight into how the pieces work together, then this book is a tremendous resource. Of course, tournament players will want to know if this book is suitable for their rating level, and if it will increase their tournament results. One reviewer has said that if you're over 1300 Elo, then the book is a waste of money. Let me strongly disagree. I know of one Grandmaster who claims that this book was a significant part in their training and who also continues to solve (and re-solve) the problems daily. My own rating is 1600 USCF and I find the material very helpful in gaining greater insight and skill. Highly recommended.

Purchased and made it a vase /book for my uncle’s wife instead of sending flowers when he passed. I just Pinterest it and it was perfect. Aunt loves it and displays it in her home.

I first borrowed this bad boy from the library totally on accident. I had no idea how good this was. The worst part was returning it. I was making a habit out of re-barrowing it until I figured its obviously worth the money to just buy it and make notes in it. Ive improved more from the puzzles in this game then the ones on chess.com. If your serious about improving your game, this is a must have.