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Reviews

How to Beat Your Dad at Chess

Reviewed by Bill Whited

7/21/02

How to Beat Your Dad at Chess, by GM Murray Chandler (Gambit, 1998). 127 pp.

There are times when a wonderful chess book gets published with an odd title and all “serious” chess players treat it as if it had some highly contagious form of bubonic plague. I am defining serious players as players with a rating higher than about USCF 500, so it’s a pretty broad range. For a book publisher though, the title might be critical to attract the attention of the non-chess player, the novice chess player, or the novice chess player’s mother. This is the case with How to Beat Your Dad at Chess, one of the best books on tactics and mating patterns since Renaud and Kahn’s The Art of Checkmate (my edition of this venerable work was published by Dover Books in 1962, in English Descriptive Notation, so its availability might be suspect).

How to Beat Your Dad at Chess starts with an excellent description of algebraic notation, complete with illustrations, and then goes on to explain in a clear and concise fashion how chess masters think, with an emphasis on pattern recognition. Rather than dwell on the calculation of variations, How to Beat Your Dad talks about pattern recognition and then proceeds to give 47 different mates, one perpetual check to save a draw, and two patterns that win material, all from actual play with an emphasis on learning the mating patterns. To further help the student, the book contains a total of 263 diagrams, making it possible to study the positions without the aid of a board.

Chandler has also attempted to name and classify all fifty positions, many of which were unnamed in the past although they have been around for a long time. It remains to be seen whether his terminology will catch on but it is an interesting concept. Some of the titles include “Petrosian’s Draw”, “Korchnoi’s Maneuver”, and “The Fischer Trap”. Many of these patterns have been around for a very long time but have never been systematically classified. Others, such as the “Greek Gift” and “Damiano’s Mate” have been around forever and are more familiar to most players.

While this book is not a detailed manual on the attack, such as Vukovic’s The Art of Attack in Chess, it is much more understandable for the novice and intermediate player. However, don’t let the title fool you; this is a book that almost anyone below the Expert level would benefit greatly from. Chandler has a very clear idea of his audience and I think that almost anybody who studied this book closely would improve his or her tactical vision. I found the book to be extremely well written and a useful addition to my collection. It also would be very beneficial in the instruction of young players, as the examples given in the test positions would probably keep most youngsters engaged for a couple of hours at least.

In terms of improvement, I would like to see the number of test positions increased and perhaps a brief chapter on tactical themes. The tactical quizzes at the back of the book are an excellent idea; I just wish there were more of them. I think this could be done without losing sight of the main purpose of the book: Crushing Dad!