The King in Jeopardy

For someone looking for a good book on tactics, this one is clear and direct. It talks about one thing: attacking and defending the king. The specifics, though, are easily applied to broader chess situations.

This book is clearly written, and covers many of the fundamental ideas behind successfully launching an attack against an enemy king. The Author has selected many classic games that do a good job of illustrating the basic principles that set an attack up for success instead of failure (how to open up the center to get at un uncastled king, sacrificing plays to open up a castled king with few or poor defenders, etc...). At just over 200 pages, using reasonably large font, this book is a managable size for someone seeking an introduction to the mysteries of systematically attacking the king. The drawback to this is that, while the games often beautifully illustrate the ideas and principles for conducting an attack, this book really is an introduction. For the best treatment of attacking the king, ART OF ATTACK by Vladimir Vulkovic (everyman chess publishing) it the undisputed source for becoming a master of the kingside attack. As it is much larger, it more thouroughly covers what THE KING IN JEOPARDY does, and touches on many additional, important issues. However, THE KING IN JEOPARDY is a fine book to jump in with and start adding some really exciting battles to your chess game. Last thought: Both these books require a good introductory knowledge of tactics in order to reap their rewards. If you are new to tactics in chess then I would suggest either CHESS TACTICS FOR THE TOURNAMENT PLAYER (same author) or WINNING CHESS TACTICS by Yasser Sierrawan, before launching into this book.

I love this whole series. (I ignore the first two books of the series, which are for rank beginners to learn the moves. Start with the Tactics book, then Attacking the King, then Chess Strategy, and Endgame Facts.) A simple four volume course to play chess at the expert (1700) level. Listen, I am not the most talented chess player, and was 1100 on the ICC for months, losing to my friends. I decided to study or to stop playing. I read Silman, Nimzovitch, others and none helped; it was too hard for a dummy like me. This was my last-ditch effort (I figured it worked for school kids in Russia, and I was OK at homework.) It worked. By the time I was through volume 2, I was 1600+. I am in volume 3, so the full impact should go to 1700, as promised in the ads :) A simple effective chess intro. This, and Fred Reinfeld's combo books for practice are all you need to get pretty good at chess, then move on to other skills -- leaving a good chess game in your back pocket for fun now and then :) I only gave this book 4 stars because, of the series, its the most dull, and kind of meanders on the point sometimes. Less like a scheduled lesson, and more like a collage of king-attack examples. I found myself drifting off at times. But its an invaluable part of a GREAT course.

THIS BOOK IS VERY GOOD, AND PROBLEM WITH YOUR KING.AND ITS A EASY BOOK FOR BEGINNERS AND INTERMEDATE.