The Chess Player's Bible: Illustrated Strategies for Staying Ahead of the Game

The best thing about this book is the pictures. If you have ever tried to read a chess book filled with notation, you will appreciate the pictures in this book. Each set of plays is shown with real pieces on a chess board. The notation is very minimal, but the number of games is amazing. It covers openings, development, endgame, and lots of "how to checkmate" with different pieces. I bought it for my 9-year-old daughter, who has read it cover to cover. She has improved dramatically since she read this book, and both my husband and I have to think HARD to beat her now. (He has actually lost a few, and she stalemated me once.) None of us are true chess experts, but certainly for improving from total beginner to an adequate/good player, this is a very, very nice book.

A very informative book on how to play chess and well illustrated. Two Thumbs Up!

I thought that a comprehensive book explaining all basic stuff in a lively way would be an impossible task. But Mr. Eade has really made it! Firstly, I love the 3-D diagrams, the layout of book is more visual as in usual chess books and I must admit it really works! There are first of all all the elementary stuff, rules etc but after that you get ao overview of opening principles, not forgetting the hypermodern approach. There's a section describing openings and their general ideas, there's a section for tactics and strategy. I'm just overwhelmed of this superb book. James Eade explains some fundamental pawn structures which are typical for specific openings - that's something most beginner books don't do. There's some nice guide for essential endgame stuff, this book is simply the best beginner book availible I think players up to 1800 can benefit most of this book.

I'm about a USCF 1600 (Class B player) and I'm improving from this book because it is suitable for me. This is why l like this James Eade chess book. 1. This book relies on the chess diagrams, not the chess notation, so learning from this book is easier because it's less confusing. Easy to follow diagrams! 2. I love the spiral form because the book holds flat by itself on a table! It is much better than paper back and hard back form! 3. There are 3D diagrams on key positions on almost every page, so I can easily follow through learning new strategy. 4. This book covers all aspects of the game clearly, TACTICS such as the fork, deflection, pin, overloading, discovery etc, endgame such as opposition, triangulation, basic king pawn endgames, queen vs rook endgame etc. , MIDDLEGAME/ STRATEGY such as making a luft, bad bishop, good bishop, how to make use of your rooks, knights, outposts, pawn islands, pawn chains etc. OPENING it shows you different kinds of opening such as the Silican, Ruy Lopez, French Defense, Queen Pawn opening, how to play the opening such as development, timing, etc.) so I can improve my all around game! This is why I don't like this book. 1. There are no chess excercises/problems to test your knowledge in the book. This is key to improve and I hope James Eade can add chess excercises/problems to another edition of this book if he writes another edition of this book. 2. There are no 'winning game pointers', such in the other book, The Idiot's Guide for Chess. (Patrick Pointer's) I hope James Eade can add 'winning game pointers' in an another edition if he writes one. Overall, This book is good. Why? 1. It has helped me gain about 100 points, (1500 to 1600) in about 4 months.