Catalog Chess Mistakes

This book is a gem . It improved my play more than any books on middlegames and openings could . Reason is it helped me cut down on mistakes . You lose games due to mistakes -- not because your opponent played well . You cannot control your opponent's play but u can cut down on your mistakes . I guarantee if you read this book your rating wil go up by 100 points at least and I have never said this about any book . This is a new book written by GM Andrew Soltis . Better than his book on Pawn Structure Chess !! This alone says a lot ... Highly highly recommended for those furstrated chess players who keep making mistakes and losing . No other book does what this one teaches . Buy it and treasure it . 6 stars -- yes sireeee!!!

For the benefit of the improving player, Andrew Soltis--New York Post chess columnist and author of 'Pawn Structure Chess' and other books--reviews the major types of chess errors. Using typical game situations drawn from Master play, the book concentrates on teaching recognition patterns for the major mistakes--and how to avoid those mistakes.

"Chess is a game of bad moves." If there is such a thing as "a dirty little secret of chess" (for lack of a better phrase), this is one of them! Believe it or not, a lot of people do not believe this statement! Just like the author says, a lot of people believe they win because of their superior intellect, cunning, "attacking genius", defensive maneuvering,etc. Give me a break!GM Soltis will go down in chess history as a man who gave vital ingredients of chess mastery to the public in book form. The 'Mistake-Inaccuracy Factor' in this great game is one of the most downplayed aspects of chess. It can prevent many players from mastering a critical skill to become a good player-the ability to fully exploit your opponents mistakes and to recognize when you are about to make one yourself.Soltis goes through the typical mistakes made by players. Some of them are tactical mistakes, positional mistakes, underestimating threats, and many more. He also recommends going through a good number of your own games to see what mistakes you frequently make. This will probably do more for your game than learning that new wrinkle in a certain opening you want to play.If I had a dollar for every game I should have lost and wound up winning and every game I had a won position and wound up botching -I could retire! Most of the time, you're doing your best not to screw up anything while going towards the goal of winning.The next time you go to a chess tournament and see a guy holding court and showing how he saw everything from A to Z, its probably an ego trip. That same guy, when he loses will whine, " If I didn't hang my rook he would have been toast!" or " I didn't see that he had all that coming from that one move -the lucky patzer!". He doesn't realize, or doesn't wan't to realize, that 99.9999% of all chess games EVER PLAYED were won or lost due to a tactical, positional, or attitude mistake made by the opponent.